Melania Trump’s expression looks like she’s saddled with a man she can’t bear

COMEDIAN Frankie Boyle once said Melania Trump “has the eyes of someone waiting with increasing impatience for Stockholm syndrome to set in”.

A year on, her expression of frozen horror suggests even that faint hope is now lost and realisation has dawned on her that she’s saddled with a man she can’t bear.

You don’t need to be behavioural expert Desmond Morris to see that the body language between her and The Donald is set to mute.

And little wonder.

For, despite the humiliations of “Pussygate” and his alleged affairs with both a porn star and former Playboy Bunny, she has resolutely backed him by issuing stiff statements of support and continuing to stand by his side as his effortlessly stylish “First Lady” on the world stage.

In return, he should be metaphorically grovelling at her Louboutin-clad feet.

Yet, this week, it emerged that the emotional pygmy didn’t even bother to buy her a birthday present.

“I got her a beautiful card and beautiful flowers. You know, I’m very busy to be running out looking for presents, OK?” he told an interviewer this week.

Yet, according to Michael Wolff, author of Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House, the President reportedly rises at 5.30am for “executive time” (is that what they call it these days?) and watches cable news shows until his first meeting at 11am.

Plenty of time, then, to get on the laptop and order his long-suffering wife a gift that suggests he’s actually put some thought into it.

Instead, the man with 24-carat gold bathroom fittings treated her birthday, and therefore her, as at best an inconvenience, or worse, an irrelevance.

This isn’t about materialism. It’s simply about giving a damn.

A thoughtful gift, whatever it costs, shows that you care enough to put in time and effort beyond getting your secretary to order the same flowers you might send to an acquaintance whose mother has died.

That Trump didn’t bother speaks volumes about how low he places Melania in his priorities.

Little wonder that, on her 48th birthday, she wore a strikingly wide-brimmed hat that would have thwarted any attempt by her woeful husband to publicly kiss her.

Instead, alongside the obviously comfortable chemistry of French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, the Trumps looked like reality show contestants having their first meeting at the altar.
One of Trump’s alleged flings, former Playboy bunny Karen McDougal, claims he gave her a tour of the marital apartment and pointed out that Melania had a separate bedroom because “she liked her space to read or be alone.”

Well, married to him, you would, wouldn’t you?

Also in his book, Michael Wolff claims that over the first 12 years of their marriage, Donald and Melania “spent relatively little time together. They could go days at a time without contact, even when they were both in Trump Tower”.

That was perhaps easier to do when he was a glorified estate agent but, now he’s Potus, all eyes are on the “First Couple” to see if the essential “happy family” political narrative is holding up.

But, it doesn’t mean she has to like it.

Which, if recent photos are anything to go by, she clearly doesn’t.

Trouble on the words

PENSIONER Joan Blaber  died after drinking cleaning fluid that ended up in a water jug at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
There’s no evidence to suggest it was a deliberate act but at an inquest into her death, the coroner expressed concern that some of the staff involved in Joan’s “care” spoke such poor English that police had to interview them via translators.

She said: “How do you train staff . . . in the rather more intricate matters you need to understand when you are handling and dealing with substances which . . . are potentially extremely hazardous?”
How, indeed. And quite apart from that, being elderly and in hospital is isolating and intimidating enough without being surrounded by people who can’t even communicate with you on the most fundamental level.

Alexandra the great

SHORTLY after splitting up from his long-suffering wife Alexandra, Bake Off’s, ahem, master baker Paul Hollywood started seeing 22-year-old Summer Monteys-Fullam.
Dignified Alexandra, a food writer, hasn’t commented on her estranged husband’s mid-life shenanigans but this week she set minds boggling by posting a recipe for “a summer berry tart” followed by the hashtag #easy.

A coincidence, perhaps?
Or is revenge a dish best served cold with a big fat berry on top?

The long weekend

THE headmistress of Ashby Fields Primary School in Daventry, Northants, has proposed closing early on Fridays to prevent staff from “burning out”.
They have just enjoyed two weeks off for Easter, have a forthcoming week’s holiday in May, and then, of course, six weeks off for the summer.
Yes, you can see why they’re exhausted, poor lambs.

Ah, poor lil' Miss Moffatt

SCARLETT MOFFATT has given her first interview since it was revealed she went to a boot camp to lose the final weight she was required to shift in time for the release of her fitness DVD.
For ongoing legal reasons, she was coy about exactly what happened behind the scenes – but she admitted she cried a lot when the story came out.

She adds: “In a way, I’m almost relieved and hope we can turn it into a positive, start a conversation about the way we criticise and talk about women.
“All the new articles focus on how I look. Why aren’t we celebrating women’s achieve-ments more? Women aren’t just an aesthetic shell.”
Indeed they’re not. A good start, perhaps, would be to refuse to buy those opportunistic DVDs where some celebrity cynically uses a “before” photo of them looking, ahem, curvy, and places it alongside a “size 8” aftershot following an unsustainable crash diet.
Oh, hang on a minute . . .