Celebrities who travel the world often send ahead a long list of ‘riders’ – detailed instructions on how they expect to be treated on arrival. For example, it’s reported that Cher once insisted on a separate dressing room for her wigs, and Christina Aguilera asked for vitamin-C tablets in the shape of characters from TV show The Flintstones.
These riders cover not just the stars themselves but sometimes also their children. It’s reported that when Beyoncé sang at the Super Bowl in 2013 she insisted on a luxury nursery for her daughter, scented with rose-petal candles and kept at exactly 260C. The child’s £14,000 cot was also flown in from New York.
Some contrast then with the riders that covered the arrival of Jesus, the Son of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Yes, he had a star and some angels laid on to let everyone know he was coming, but his birthplace was inauspicious to say the least. No nice cot in a warm delivery suite for him, but a lonely birth in an animal shelter. An indication, then, of how low he was prepared to go in order that we might be lifted up.