Les pantoufleurs terribles.

Olympic posters ? Whassaappennin ? More posing than postering. YBA poser ?

It’s all very well being the grit in the bikini of the establishement, but that was a long, long time ago. Now we have Middle Aged British Artists, and we need a better word than MABA. My friend Steve came up with just the phrase to describe what happens when an enfant terrible gets properly settled at the armchair :

Les pantoufleurs terribles.

“Pantoufles are slippers. So someone who’s middle-aged and smugly comfortable & likes curling in in their slippers in front of the fire is a pantouflard. But the verb pantoufler has adopted two meanings: to laze around at home and also to transfer to the private sector. The latter meaning got attached to civil servants who use their privileged positions to secure hugely well-paid jobs in the private sector before they’ve given decent service to their country.”

Perfect. You heard it here first.

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