Shreya Sen-Handley | Roast the Rogues, Tricksters are Toast

Every year brings gains and losses, but 2023 dished up extra helpings of the latter. Innumerable lives were lost in wars and disasters, and over each we despaired, even demonstrated in the thousands. Yet, naturally, the injuries that stung the most were closer to home. Losing family, for example, and sometimes, F*R*I*E*N*D*S.

Matthew Perry’s death felt like the passing of a real pal. Generations of us had grown up with him, and his humour had always hit the right spot (Bing, bing!). His well-known struggles with mastering life only made him more like us. Could there be a more relatable celebrity?

With inflation soaring and jobs disappearing, this was also the year of endemic penury, and the toll it took on quality-of-life. Yet, fat-cat business peeps and bureaucracies, continued to leech us of every penny, growing fatter on their spoils. As if 2023 would have us believe that ‘death and taxes’ are indeed life’s sole certainties!

Amidst all this doom, and climate gloom, can nothing lift our spirits?

Well, there is schadenfreude, German for revelling in another’s ruin, that might dilute our dejection a jot. I wouldn’t recommend gloating over our frenemies’ misfortunes (coz Karma’s a bitch, y’know). But we should definitely take a moment, as we wrap this year up, to enjoy the epic fails of our worthies – responsible as they undoubtedly are for the sorry state of this world. And when better to schadenfry (a form of roast obvs) than fuelled by festive drink and bah-humbug hutzpah?

Why not delight in the downfall of Cruella Braverman, be her exile from government ever so brief? This horror of a Home Minister, who’d harry Britain’s hapless to please the most heartless in its ranks, packing refugees into sinking ships like sardines, or exposing the homeless to the mercy of the elements, and calling it a “lifestyle choice”, has been twice appointed to high office and twice sacked.

Sadly, she’ll be back, like an unvanquishable virus, and oh, haven’t we had a bellyful of that! With Arnie, let’s say “hasta la vista, baby” to this I-can’t-believe-she’s-not-fiction villain, as we raise our tipples to a few Suella-free months.

Talking of Republicans, their clown quartet – DeSantis, Haley, Christie and Ramaswamy – has been grandstanding on their quadrennial parade, aka. GOP presidential debates. The ringmaster, however, hasn’t put in an appearance, as if further proof was needed of Trump’s dangerous contempt for democratic processes. Despite that, he’s a shoo-in for the White House (again), and that’s no laughing matter.

To take the edge off our terror, let’s roast these US presidential no-hopers for the rogues they are in their own right. We might even allow ourselves the smallest of smirks, a half-raised glass, at the startling fact that two of their batch are as desi as dahi-vada.  

Another spectacular slither this year down the gilded ladder came from the slimy Elon Musk. His takeover of Twitter, its ludicrous rebranding and welcoming back of fake-news peddlers, right-wing rednecks, and primitive zealots, lost it billions in advertising revenue. Big business has never had a conscience, but Musk’s megalomania and wooing of sinister sociopaths may’ve been a creep too far for even them.   

Sidesplitting pratfalls from tycoon tricksters in 2023 included those by Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, caught red-handed hawking miracle blood-testing machines that didn’t exist, and Sam Bankman-Fried, who burnt his fingers siphoning billions from FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange. Funny how no-one clocked how closely his setup’s name resembled that of an eighties smoke-and-mirrors flick!

The other S(c)am, Altman, ChatGPT creator, was hurled off his godlike AI pedestal, but back on top within days, boosted by Microsoft’s Satya, and now nearly omnipotent. Originally fired for his questionable ethics, I smell toast smouldering.  

And dare we even mention certain desi businessmen whose monikers end with I and start with A, much less name them?

There’s a place in hell for all of ‘em, and X marks the spot!

Further cause for hilarity is the haunting of the British royal family. Ghosts from Christmases past themselves, in how archaic an institution they are, they’ve been laid low in 2023’s dying days by yet more scandal. As antiquated as their own raison d'être, these rumours are old hat. The stories swirling around Diana’s tragic death amongst them, newly dredged up by hit TV series The Crown. Not only have the theories been revived (you could argue they never died down), but Diana herself has been resurrected on the show as a ghost flitting from Buckingham to Balmoral, confronting her in-laws.

If that doesn’t spook Charles, he’s also been revealed in the new Scobie Dooby Do book on the royal family feuds, Endgame, to have aired concerns, alongside the sainted Kate, Her Royal Smugness, about Harry and Meghan’s mixed-race baby’s less-than-ghostly-pale skin colour.

Nor have stars of stage and screen gone unrepresented in this year’s shame pageant. Russell Brand and Puffy Dud (whatevs) have had historic charges brought against them for assault and harassment. If found guilty, 2024 might serve them their just desserts. Finally.

There’s reason, after all, to celebrate the year that’s dwindling. Good reason to toast those who discharged their duties well. That’s ne’er our insincere, incompetent ‘leaders’ (for whom a day of reckoning must loom in 2024?). But everyday folks like you and me, who strove to do better these 52 weeks. And most of all – Karma and Comeuppance!

Happy new year, my friends.