As I’ve mentioned before, I have a thing about Barbie dolls. Not necessarily ‘that kind of thing’, I’ve never put more than one in my underwear, but I’ve played with them since my girls were little, 30 years ago, then had a major Barbie-renaissance with Lila, when we brought the collection of Barbies down from the loft. Some even had all their limbs still attached. One or two even had heads which weren’t rolling around the bottom of the box.

And its nice to see that Barbie stays at the forefront of… well, of selling things. It’s what big companies do. So they’ve brought out European Female Astronaut Barbie. In honour of Samantha Christoforetti, the first European woman astronaut. To stand as a role model. An aspiration. To try and engage young girls in science.

Unfortunately, sales of Astronaut Barbie have been outstripped by those of Digital Media Influencer Barbie. The first Barbie ever to have her mobile phone moulded permanently into her left hand. Influencer Barbie costs the usual 19.99, BUT, you can’t get her out of her box until you pay her to do so, with the credit card slot. And every time you put her back you need to pay more to get her out once more. Though you can bypass this by giving her very expensive clothes, cars or holidays instead.

The other massive, post-woke innovation is Karbie. Its a Barbie who answers to ‘Ken’. A Barbie with indiscriminate pronouns. Who wears one Barbie stiletto and one GI Joe workboot. It comes without the long locks of normal Barbie, but not the yellow carpet of Old Ken. Short hair, bit like Ronaldo’s. Breasts scaled down from the normal Barbie 38DD to a modest 36A. Comes with special ‘bulging underwear’ option.

They were going to make a Boris Barbie but the plastic requirement took it way over budget. So instead they’ve created Covid Barbie. Comes in a bed with her very own ventilator. (Coffin not included).

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx