Yalda Hakim or Sandra Gathmann? Which is the more beautiful presenter? (The test of Paris and the golden apples of Aphrodite).

I haven’t blogged in a while. My predictions about how the ‘special military operation’ by Vlad’ the Invader were completely way off. But then again, so were most everyone else’s. Enough said.

Yet one thing has (almost) always been on my mind, just who is the fairest news presenter: Sandra Gathmann of Al Jazeera, or Yalda Hakim? (Formerly of the BBC, now with Sky ‘Roman [Romulus] Roy’ from that fantastic HBO show Succession starring Brian Cox (the actor), Sarah Snook, Matthew Macfyden. Like Warwick, the Kingmaker, the Rupert Murdoch’s of the world - bearing no semblance to reality, but as Connie Nielsen said in the movie Gladiator “This is a pleasant fiction, isn’t it?”).

Sandra’s great. I mean, is she American, Eastern, Exotic? She has a great accent, and the very finest rack. (Like John O’Reilly said in Taledega Nights “You won’t find another rack like that anywhere, I guarantee it!”). She’s all woman. Every woman. Simply the best? Well, maybe not. Sandra’s dress sense is good. She has class, style, she dresses well. Moreover, the medium to long shots of her now and again (a feature of Start Here) accentuate her Venusinan figure. She’s gorgeous, and a great reporter. A journalist. Professional. A-class.

Then there is the mystical, the magical, Yalda Hakim. Dress sense? Forget it Sandra. Yalda has you hands down on every shot. Yalda’s dress sense is not just discerning, but subtle, it is exquisite. Instead of the trailer park jeans and sometimes gaudy tops Sandra’s sometimes (but by no means always) chooses to wear, Yalda, beats her hands down. She’s the best.

Not only that, but Nature Herself, Mother Earth, has endowed such a woman with an Eastern, exotic quality (matching only Sandra Gathmann). The angular and finer qualities about her visage lend itself to the quality, the style which she presents. Yalda is the presenter’s presenter.

Yet I remember being a musician, in a bar, in a rock band in Belgium, back in the ’90s. I was in Ghent, and the bartender slid me a tiny glass (they only down halves over there). Let me tell you, with the sole exception of playing a gig at another, smaller Belgian micro-brewery, this was the very finest ale you have ever tasted in your life. 10% to boot. Went down like silk in a glass, like a marshmallow pillow coupled with the tastiest woman you’ve ever clapped eyes on then slept with.

It was ‘the Sandra Gathmann’ of ales.

The best. With a gentle smile and a keenness in his eyes, the bartender gifted me another glass of ale. I tried it, and, let me tell you, it was the best ale I have ever tasted, but had a different character to the one I had just sampled, mere moments ago. (And was roughly the same strength, a ten per-cent or so).

It was ‘the Yalda Hakim’ of ales. The best.

Equally, there is something about what Nature herself, Mother Earth, gave to this world, and that, is Yalda Hakim. Her mystique, emerald-green eyes, keen, alight, like fire, aglow. Her disarming assertiveness during interviews, yet always amicable.

But this factor alone is not unlike Sandra Gathmann, if one were to be completely impartial, fair, for both are among the very finest maidens on all the earth: physically, and as intellectuals. They have that charisma, that x-factor: the right stuff, that extra something. You can never put your finger on just quite what it is about them.

She is an enigma. She has mystique. She’s simply the best. (They both are) with Yalda just about winning a photo-finish, to the wire.

(Maxwell Lewis Latham holds a Magister Artium in classical studies, and is a writer).