Older visitors to this parish may remember a 1988 hit record by Bobby McFerrin called Don't Worry, Be Happy, thankfully his only global hit. McFerrin's party trick was to construct a track using looped shards of his own vocals and then singing over the top of them, as if this were a good thing, and it worked for him once with Don't Worry, Be Happy, an astoundingly trite paean to the powers of relentless upbeat positivity in the face of strife. "Can't afford to pay your rent?" it said. "Don't worry, be happy" neglecting to add, "oh, and also homeless as well." It was a global hit, meaning that Bobby McFerrin was able to not worry and be happy for the rest of his life.
Anyway, the central mantra of the song was in the news over the Christmas period because the supermodel Cara Delevingne had it tattooed underneath her breasts, or at least the area where her breasts would normally be were she not a top fashion model. It's perfectly normal for models to get tattoos, even not very good ones like Cara's, but her friends and advisors apparently started worrying and not being happy because its curious positioning and basic rubbishness may prevent her from getting future modelling gigs - apparently, she has, in the past, been warned by fashion houses to stay away from tattoo parlours in the future, and on the evidence presented, those fashion houses have been proved entirely correct in their judgment. The tattoo may, it seems, diminish her earning power and remove her from our world's billboards and magazine covers. And so I would like, as this new era dawns for all of us, to warmly thank Cara Delevingne for getting that tattoo.
Do you remember what the world was like before Cara? Her ubiquity in the press makes it seems like she has always been here, running through her repertoire of zany faces - Cara Doing An Elvis Sneering Lip Curl, Cara With Her Tongue Out Doing The Heavy Metal Horns With Her Hands, Cara Making Herself Go Slightly Boss-Eyed, Cara Gnashing Her Teeth And Looking Aggressive. The reason for all this simple enough, of course, it is to remind us that Cara is not One Of Those Models who just look haughty and blank all the time. She is not, in the words of the Chanel Bleu shite-vert, going to be the person she is expected to be any more.
Which of course is what makes her uniquely annoying, because we want rebellion from fashion models in much the way we want deep philosophical debates from our Premier League footballers and double glazing refurb estimates from our milkmen. Cara has always failed to grasp that the sum total of her functionality is: stand there, wear this, walk over here. And take off the backwards baseball cap and the false moustache, please. What makes her even more annoying is the suspicion that she is the fashion world's calculated attempt to offer us "alternative versions of female beauty" when really she's still stick-thin, still hollowly beautiful like a painting of a photograph of a painting of a pretty flower, and still evidently existing on a diet of cocaine and air. She just happens to pull funny faces that make her look like a bit of a tit.
But did someone mention bits of tits? Yes, we're back to that tattoo again and the possibility that they will bring the curtain down on Les Annees Delevingnes. Now, I wish no harm on Cara and hopes she lives a long and happy life. I just hope I never have to see her stupid face again. If that tattoo proves to be the thing that makes this dawn-of-a-new-year dream come true, then Cara and her tattooist will have conspired in an act of absolute good, for me and for us all. And I won't worry. And I will be happy.