Road Trip!
As I've mentioned numerous times before, the power shopping reports are the best part of Bobby Mugabe and his toadies leaving the long-suffering citizens of Zimbabwe behind and heading for the developed world. For Bobby's latest trip to the French suck-a-thon, Matthew Campbell does the honors in the Sunday Times in Mrs Mugabe - let them eat Chanel:

THE sleek limousine drew to a halt and out stepped Grace Mugabe, wife of the Zimbabwean dictator. After a distracting morning of official engagements in Paris she was eager to get back to what she enjoys best: conspicuous consumption. She had come to the right place. The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré is not only where President Jacques Chirac and the British and French ambassadors live, but some of the grandest names in fashion.

For a woman with an Imelda Marcos-like reputation for profligacy, it was an opportunity too good to miss. With an entourage of bodyguards and female companions, she headed straight for Salvatore Ferragamo, the Italian clothes, shoe and handbag designer, where she was ushered into a glass lift.
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"Oh I really like these," she purred. When told moments later that they were not available in her size, 8A, a cloud settled over her features and those of her female companions.

It is, perhaps, the moment that her Zimbabwean associates fear most, for Grace, a former secretary to Mugabe who married him after the death of his first wife, Sally, in 1996, is as used to getting her way as he is.

The shop assistant, however, had not yet recognised this customer. "Do you live here?" she inquired. "We’ll be able to get you a pair in your size."

Grace considered this for a moment. "Send me the reference numbers for all of these," she said, taking in the entire stock with an imperious wave of her hand.

When Grace was back in the lift, the shop assistant gave a Parisian shrug: "We had another African leader’s wife in here yesterday who bought a lot of shoes in that size. That’s why we don’t have any left."

Uh Oh! Gracie has competition in the shopping derby!

While their countrymen faced ruination, hunger and despair, the couple had taken up residence in a luxury hotel on the Avenue Montaigne, another shoppers’ paradise not far from the Champs Elysées.
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Even in a city used to displays of opulence, Grace’s shopping expeditions have gone down in legend. It is rumoured that the hiring of a special plane was required to take home her last haul from Paris. Today she has her own DC-9, known as Big Bunny because it was once owned by Playboy’s Hugh Hefner.

Last week she was determined, it seemed, to do better.

More by following the link, including a brief "interview" with Gracie.

One of her female retinue urged the photographer to stop taking pictures: “Do you not know this is the wife of a head of state?”

And I thought she was merely a gangster's moll.

By the way, Bobby had two children by Gracie while his first wife was dying of cancer. Hmm, looking at the wedding snap of the virginal bride in the previous link reminded me that Gracie has bulked up a bit since the nuptials in 1996. Those pesky starvation rations must be high starch!