Welcome to the age of the golden bum.
My grandmother Noula had a way with a story. As I might have mentioned in this column, she ran a radio station, perfectly calibrated to the interests of her two audience members. My brother was fortuitously tuned in 24/7 as he did not attend school due to his tender years. I would tune in after the unwelcome interruption of formal education.
She came with a total package, including ad breaks introducing us to the joys of Greek macaroni and other domestic products, as long as they were blessed with really catchy jingles. Noula could do all the voices and kept us hooked in with brilliant timing on episodic tales that would take days to unfold.
A big hit, which we would demand on repeat, was the tale of the golden bums. It has struck me that this may be the opportune moment to release it to the general reading public. It went something like this...
Once upon a time, a travelling merchant was struggling to make ends meet. He was just not getting people to buy his tat. They had seen it all before from the guy who came past not 20 minutes before. It was getting so his children were starving and his wife was less than grateful for her lot in life.
As he was wondering how to break the bleak trading outlook, he found himself walking past a paint shop. And there in that auspicious moment he had a stroke of inspiration. And so, dear children, he stepped into his bright future and bought a pail of gold paint and a paintbrush with his very last gold coin.
He tossed his cloak majestically over his shoulders — fake it and you will make it, they say — and took to the streets with his brand new offering. “Golden bums, golden bums for sale! As seen in all the most stylish derrières from Paris to Cologne!”
Leaning out of their window, two sisters who were very keen on everything shiny and new, sent their maid out to invite the stranger in.
The salesman went into full salesman shpiel, elaborating on the wonders of this glorious trend. If you really wanted to be anyone, you had to be in the know and golden bums were very de rigueur. What? Had they not heard that what would elevate them out of the plain old run-of-the mill bum to next-level influencer glam was an arse that glowed? A butt of pure gold? (To be fair, my granny did not say the influencer bit but I feel the need to bring the tale into the present moment).
Anyway, the sisters were desperate to have the latest bum. Once they'd settled on an appropriately jaw-dropping price, the sisters lifted their skirts, took up the position and had their tooshies brushed up and brought into the golden age.
Once he had completed the task, he explained that they needed to present their arses to the air so they could dry.
The sisters were led to the window, where they propped their bums out over the street so that everyone could see his brushstrokes of genius. He left with his purse full and his trend launched.
“Golden bums, golden bums for sale, as seen on a windowsill near you!” The townsfolk were initially amused and horrified by the sight of those shining orbs drying in the breeze, but before long he had more customers than paint.
Radio Noula was both highly entertaining but also a sneaky means of disseminating the philosophy of the content creator. And Noula, my friends, was a self-confessed communist Buddhist. In the Second World War, she had been anathema to the Gestapo — a teenage revolutionary in Athens, painting slogans on walls at night — and that radical streak was always in evidence. Here she was still thrusting her little oar against the current and certainly the current lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Now I am highly suspicious of anyone selling the next big thing, especially if it comes draped in false gold. Also, I worry about a tendency to gild the cherry — as is presently happening all over a certain Oval Office.
But it is the crossover of gold and bums that brings me to a full-blown existential halt. I must report that we are now fully entrenched in the era of the golden bum. In this time and place, it is Kim Kardashian’s preening derrière that has launched a thousand fortunes — mostly her own. Katy Perry put the “arse” into astronaut and her first mate Lauren Sanchez Bezos, blow-up doll to the world’s third richest man, has made a business decision to let hers air in all sorts of formats, primarily on red carpets to balance out her front bum.
The golden bums are everywhere — even Prada put out a collection with tiny panties as both day and night wear. Because why cover up your nether regions with any actual pants or skirts? We are all aspirant Playboy bunnies now, just corseted ladies bouncing into our bright futures, thrusting all our extremities out for a spot of golden paint.
I feel the need for a seance. I need to tune in to Radio Noula — I can just hear her laughter. Say what you will, that granny of mine called it. She is probably laughing all the way to the bank with that masterful marketer of the golden bums. After the gales of laughter, she would nod sagely and say, ‘Now here come the tears.’
From the Last Word column published in the Sunday Times
