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When the US president’s daughter suggested people try making a camel or goose with hand shadows, she was greeted instead with unicorns made from middle fingers
Name: Ivanka Trump.
Age: 38.Appearance: Hollywood wannabe.Role: First daughter and senior adviser to the US president.What does she advise on? “Job creation, economic empowerment, workforce development and entrepreneurship,” according to her Twitter bio.So what’s her advice to American people suffering under the strain of a global pandemic and economic meltdown? “Looking for a Saturday-night activity? Try making shadow puppets from Henry Bursill’s recently unearthed 1860s book of engraving.” Come again? You know, that thing where you hold your hand up in front of a light and make a shadow image on the wall of an animal. Ivanka helpfully supplied images of a goose, goat, greyhound and camel to get people started.How did it go down? Let’s say it didn’t meet with universal enthusiasm. Quite a few of the twitterati responded with a shadow puppet of a unicorn.How is that made? By putting your hand in front of the light, making a fist and raising your middle finger.I take it Bursill offers no illustration of the unicorn. None that I can see.Any other responses? Mention of puppets put quite a few people in mind of the relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, with the former shown on strings as a ventriloquist’s dummy. Others said Ivanka should concentrate on the pandemic, with one person – in a nod to her fashion retailing background – suggesting she start producing designer body bags.A little over the top? It hasn’t helped that she and her husband Jared Kushner, having told people to stay at home, defied the lockdown earlier this month to travel with their three children from Washington DC to celebrate Passover at her “family home”, the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey – a round trip of more than 400 miles. Is Ivanka Jewish? She converted when she married Kushner in 2009.Creepy filial fact: Donald Trump once said that if Ivanka wasn’t his daughter, he would be dating her. Ugh! Does Ivanka have a diplomatic role? You bet. She once attended President Trump’s meeting with North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, in Korea’s demilitarised zone in 2019, describing the experience as “surreal”. Truly a global player. Up to a point. She attracted international derision when the French government released a clip of her muscling in on a conversation between President Macron and other world leaders at the G20 summit in Osaka. It inspired a meme under the hashtag #unwantedivanka that showed her taking a prominent role in everything from the Last Supper to the Normandy landings. Not to be confused with: Ivana Trump, her Czech-born mother.Do say: “It’s enough to give nepotism a bad name.”Don’t say: “Ivanka for president!” Continue reading...