Dead from the waist up
You have to admit, it was a gesture of sheer lack of ego that prompted Gordon Ramsay to allow Gordon’s Gin to use the portrait he keeps in his attic in order to whore their product.
Take a look at the endlessly fascinating image. Like Velazquez’s painting of Gene Hackman, I dare not look away lest the image move in some ungodly attempt to seize me.
Admire Gordon’s blonde highlights. Take a long cool swim in that piercing stare. Go pony-trekking through the lines on his forehead. They’re so deep he must have to clean them out with a cotton-bud. They’re like the canals of Mars.
But look further. There’s something missing. Despite the deep lines that map Gordon’s journey through life, where are the crow’s feet? Where are the laughter lines?
Gordon Ramsay has never laughed. Except on one or two occasions and only at the sound of the lamentation of his diners’ bank managers.
Posted on September 25th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Someday, maybe five, ten years from now, long after I’ve forgotten about this post, I’m going to see that Velazquez painting and burst into uncontrollable laughter.
You’ve ruined one of the world’s great works of art for me. Cheers.
It’s him though, isn’t it? Popeye Innocent X.
Never mind the lines on his forehead - where did he learn to fold his chin like that?
Marco Pierre White bit him during one of their endless homoerotic tussles.
I’ll never look at a cotton-bud the same way again.
I once suggested to my girlfriend that Velazquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X looked remarkably like Gene Hackman but she wouldn’t have it. Thank you Justin, I shall make sure she reads this!
Is that a chin prostetic? How on earth do you end up with furrows that deep on your chin?
Getting glassed by a pissed-off sous-chef maybe?