Topple my statue

Knock me off my pedestal!

With her customary modesty, Dame Edna Everage actually wants her statue to be toppled

Hello, possums!

My old New Zealand bridesmaid Madge Allsop is transitioning.

She has never been a stranger to hormonal imbalance, bless her. As far as I am concerned, she has been transitioning for as long as I have known her. Now, the artful minx has gone public. It is so typical of her to wait until it became fashionable.

Don’t get me wrong, possums. I yield to none in my abhorrence of transphobia. I am excessively transfriendly, and some of my best friends have been someone else at one stage of the game.

But Madge has always been an attention-seeker. Wait for this! A few years ago, she pretended to be dead! Yes, she vanished, in fact. She had sneaked back to Palmerston North, her home town in New Zealand – so to all intents and purposes she really had passed away.

I heard from a Very Important Person I know (who recently transitioned from Prince to King). He said Madge had tweeted that she had pretended to die in order to escape from me.

What twaddle! If it hadn’t been for me, that woman would have expired years ago. I took her under my wing because I cared. Beware of pity, readers.

But compassion is my middle name, or why else would I have founded my wonderful charity SLOB (the Society for Liberating Old Bridesmaids)?

I am too fond of my Oldie-readers to mince words, and what I am about to say may hurt the feelings of a few sensitive souls – but statistics are statistics.

The unpalatable truth is that your chances of being remembered by posterity are practically nil.

Group photos in old magazines might include you once in a blue moon – but though everyone else in the snap will be captioned, you will just be called ‘unknown’.

Edna’s Marilyn moment: her statue in Docklands, Melbourne

Also, you must face up to the fact that a state funeral and a statue in your honour are well-nigh impossibilities.

I am here to tell you, possums, that a statue is a mixed blessing. There is one of me in Melbourne that makes my flesh crawl. It is nothing like me, and it is indestructible. I don’t know why everyone loves it so much. It’s been universally admired by those in the know.

They plonked it in Docklands, among high-rise housing for Chinese students and spies – so not many Australians see it. But it makes me look like a grumpy, jowly ratbag and not the kind, glamorous influencer the world knows and loves.

I have protested, but to no avail. Still, I have suddenly had a brilliant idea. I have asked the Who Do You Think You Are? people to dig up some ancestor affiliated with the slave trade or who might have helped colonise Australia in the olden days.

When this gets around on Twitter and TikTok, students will take a well-earned break from their studies and tear down the unflattering monstrosity and hurl it into the bay.

I have told Madge that if she comes back for Christmas, she has to earn her keep.

She insists she has applied, unsuccessfully, for the job of Santa Claus at Selfridges. She has certainly got the facial hair, but her ‘Ho ho ho’s were unconvincing.

Madge, bless her heart, has no wrinkles but she certainly has corrugations. In fact, her face looks as though she sleeps face down on a chenille bedspread.

She also wants to be an Uber-driver, using a top-of-the-range driverless Tesla from my fleet, but no one would want to risk being in a car with her unless she had both hands on the wheel.

She has also informed me that she wants to do something called ‘stand-up’, but Madge can barely stand anyway, bless her; let alone say the f-word repeatedly to an audience of angry women in black jumpsuits with curtain rings in their eyebrows.

When Madge came crawling back to me from New Zealand, having been officially declared dead, I had moved on.

Did I really want to share my life with such a needy and attention-seeking waif? She has pretended to be dead, and I suppose death is the best way to draw attention to yourself. Besides, she had unsavoury proclivities. Emergencies of accommodation and climate change sometimes obliged me to share a bed with my troubled bridesmaid, whose idea of a nice cuddle would be unacceptable to most of my female readers – though not all, unfortunately.

Madge has given cuddling a bad name, bless her.

I want to spend my traditional Christmas alone, so I can relax quietly and think of nobody but myself.

There has to be a time for us all when we take a break from sharing, caring and pretending to listen to interminable monologues from intoxicated friends and rellies.

If it is serenity you crave, stay as far away from your loved ones as possible this Christmas, possums!