Hell hath no fury like a woman . . . with a husband who just had a pie tossed at his face?
A pie-wielding, opportunistic protester has a certain ho-hum quality to it. It's been done.
But that didn't seem to matter to today's pie-launching stuntman, who is accused of trying to slam a shaving-cream confection at Rupert Murdoch's face during the phone hacking hearings. The media has identified the protester as Jonnie Marbles. And if it's proven that he is the man behind the pie, his stunt will certainly earn him 15 seconds of Twitter fame as Jonnie "Lost-His" Marbles.
However, the real star of the messy mêlée was Mrs. Murdoch (a.k.a.Wendi Deng) who rose – without hesitation – to her husband's defence and gave the protester a fierce slap, with her strong pink-clad right arm.
Now whether Mr. Murdoch merits such a passionate defence is up for debate, but it's certainly better than the more common image of the stone-faced politician's wife who chooses to stand in shame at her man's side while he details his extramarital escapades to the nation.
But when it comes to fearless high-profile wives, Aline Chrétien, wife of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, still wins top honours. She's been credited with saving her man after confronting a knife-toting intruder in the hallway at 24 Sussex back in 1995. Sure, now she says all she did was rush back to the bedroom and lock the doors.
Ms. Deng has nothing on Ms. Chrétien, who was prepared to boldly conk a bedroom intruder on the head with an Inuit sculpture to save her man. Now that's courage.
But speaking of significant others, Mr. Marbles may have lost his. Her Twitter profile @pageantmalarkey reads: "Not funny. Not clever. Not your girlfriend." (Note: it said this even before he decide to launch his lame pie.)
But Mr. Marbles might not have noticed his lady friend's tweet since he was busy recording his own actions. Posted just a few minutes before the attack, @JonnieMarbles tweeted: "It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before."
Leading most everyone else to tweet that perhaps he was working from a very low bar.
How would you react if someone pranked your partner in public? Were Wendi Deng's actions appropriate?
Erin Anderssen