I am not sure what to believe that’s online, especially with news such as this: “US President Donald Trump looks orange because of his good genes”.
I was always under the impression that if you are lucky when you are born, then you get to be a handsome hunk or a beautiful movie star, even without make-up, and good genes don’t get you an orange complexion.
Anyway, the story goes that when a reporter asked a White House insider about Trump’s curious face colour, he remarked that it was because of the president’s wonderful genetic make-up.
But if we are to believe another insider who wrote a tell-all book, the president spends some time in a tanning bed.
The book reveals that Trump uses tan and has a tanning bed on Air Force One. He often makes use of it when he flies abroad, the author notes.
Even former president Barack Obama, got into the act on a TV show some time back, and said with a tongue-in-cheek remark that he watches Orange is the New Black (the interesting prison drama series on Netflix) when asked what he thought of Trump.
I do not know why the Americans need to know why their president looks like, but then if you are the leader of the Free World, then the world should be aware of this curious condition.
When I told my wife about Trump’s colour, she said I should get out more. “Take a book and sit in the sun in the morning. You are looking pale,” she said. “I read somewhere that we suffer from lack of Vitamin D, and we have these nice sunny days all the time!”
Interesting titbit
Like I said, trying to understand what is going on in the world today becomes even more difficult with mind-boggling news that is very hard to believe.
Take this titbit in the Daily Mail for instance (I have checked other news sources just to be sure), that there are plans to evacuate the Queen and the Royal Family to safe locations if riots erupt in England over Brexit after the March end deadline.
The Royals will be rushed away from London to country homes if such a situation comes that people run amok in the streets as stores run out of staple food.
But one Brexiter described the plan as a wartime fantasy that was hatched by mandarins after watching too many movies about helicopters landing on rooftops during the Vietnam War.
When I showed the news item to my wife, she said it was ‘unbelievable’, specially the part about Brits rioting. “They are so polite and are always standing in queues. Nobody jumps the line,” she said.
My wife usually gets into verbal spats at airports, banks and even hospitals, in India, and her voice gets a few decibels higher whenever someone gets in front of her, while I look around and pretend that I am alone.
(I think this is what is known as road rage when some motorist tries to cut in front of you, which seems to happen all the time on Bengaluru roads and which has made my language more colourful this past year.)
“Anyway, where will they take the Queen?” asked my wife, and I said, most probably to Mr. Bean’s house in the countryside. It seems the most logical place to keep her safe from starving Brexiteers.
Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi.
_resources1_16a31069e4e_small.jpg)
