Ladies' Day

Apparently it was Ladies' Day today as Royal Ascot. Not being part of the social set who attend such things, I really don't know much about it beyond the fact that it involves lots of women wearing incredibly silly hats. What is with those bloody hats, eh? Surely they can't be intended as serious fashion statements? They're all hideous - usually coloured livid purple or piss green. Either they are shaped to represent things like cigarettes (possibly a 'witty' protest at the looming ban on smoking in public places), horses heads, or else appear to repositories for the left overs from a green grocer's stall, or a feather duster. Why not go the whole hog and wear a gigantic representation of a dog turd on your head? Or even a giant penis, with the scrotum forming the brim? You can just imagine the sycophantic TV commentators as the Queen arrives, describing, in hushed tones, how "Her Majesty is this year sporting an arse on her head, the hairs adorning the cheeks are believed to be derived from the whiskers of the near-extinct clouded leopard". It could also spice up the bookies' annual attempts to predict what colour hat the Queen is going to wear on Ladies' Day. Instead, they could offer odds on whether she's going to be wearing an arse, a vagina or a horse's cock (with side bets on erect or flaccid) on her head.

Isn't it about time they reformed this institution? I mean, in this enlightened age, the term Ladies' Day should surely imply a day of the race meet when the emancipation of women should be celebrated. What better venue than a race course, bearing in mind the number of suffragettes who hurled themselves beneath the hooves of race horses? In fact, rather than wearing bloody stupid hats, perhaps some of these society women should show a bit of solidarity with their sisters and throw themselves under a horse? As it stands, Ladies' Day represents another vain attempt to reassert the old social order in Britain. The great, the good, the wannabees, the has beens, etc., all get a chance to raise their profile by fawning around the Queen in top hats and ludicrous dresses. Those nasty lower orders are effectively excluded because none of them are likely to own a top hat, and women are patronisingly given their own 'day' when they get to show off the things that obviously matter most to them - their hats. God give me strength! That bloody revolution can't come soon enough!