It comes to something when the perfect way to demonstrate wealth and status is by “slumming it” with junk food.

First up, President Donald Trump. Finding himself without catering staff (oh, you know, the shutdown unpleasantness) for a visit from the Clemson University football team, Trump piled tables with his beloved takeaway burgers (various brands). Or, as he initially tweeted, “hamberders”, stinking and steaming away in polystyrene cartons, presumably, after so many hours, giving off the kind of whiff you’d associate with an unregulated abattoir in a heatwave.

Other delights included fries, “salad”, chicken nuggets and individual packets of dips. The Gatsbyesque splendour was, one hopes, accompanied by scissors so that guests could cut out the money-off coupons and make a night of it.

Trump looked in his element as the self-styled Willy Wonka of junk food. All that was missing was mayo-induced belching, to stop him floating rapturously up to the White House ceiling, perchance accompanied by a burst of that heartwarming song: “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.”

In the same week, Microsoft multibillionaire Bill Gates was snapped queueing for a drive-in burger in Seattle, inspiring a cloying social media frenzy along the lines of: “Hark, he walks among us, eating the same crap.” Then again, why shouldn’t Gates (or even Trump) enjoy a burger? No reason at all. The problems lie in the hypocritical and cynical self-promotion of the first scene and the misplaced mass-fawning over the second.

Product placement isn’t always about selling the product – it can be about selling the man. As much as Trump genuinely enjoys burgers, this born-and-bred member of the elite knows this kind of absurd “man of the people” posturing endears him to a certain US demographic. The same demographic most likely to be afflicted by the out-of-control global obesity epidemic, leading to potentially life-threatening conditions, most of which won’t be covered by their healthcare plans and which the likes of Trump would condemn as self-inflicted. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem quite so charming that Trump served junk food at the White House.

As for Gates (in fairness, just quietly queueing), is it really that interesting that he buys a burger – surely a badly off person eating a Michelin-star meal would be more unusual? There’s a skewed system of food perception, where wealthy, powerful people eating junk because they want to are perceived as down to earth and relatable. Meanwhile, poor, powerless people eating the exact same food because they have little choice (it’s the cheapest, most available option) are somehow disgusting, stupid and shameful.

Perhaps that’s why less well-off people don’t brandish their food choices or lack of them, nor do you tend to see people showing off about, say, using food banks. In food as in life, “slumming it” is only acceptable from rich people who could afford better.

Is it any wonder we’re taking comfort in Don’t Know?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Put Don’t Know on the ballot paper. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

I wouldn’t be the first to ponder on the identity of this mysterious “Don’t Know” figure who keeps doing so well in political opinion polls.

In a recent YouGov poll on the best choice for prime minister, “Don’t Know” beat both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, with 41%. Or was that “Not Sure”? I suppose “Don’t Know” and “Not Sure” are effectively the same, in that they both represent the ground-down, stomach-churning horror of the average Briton, as it becomes increasingly apparent that the combined cross-party power of the wisdom of Westminster wouldn’t even be enough to get a Duracell bunny to lift its ears off the floor.

As someone who spent part of her misguided youth working the phones in a market research call centre, I can confirm that “Don’t Know”, “Not Sure” and “Please stop asking me hard stuff” are the frustrating staples of a pollster’s life.

However, what if this were taken further? I have never been a fan of refusing to vote. (People fought and died for the right to vote, not for dim-witted hipsters to spoil ballot papers with felt-tipped anarchy signs.) Still, it might make the next general election (referendum… wotevs!) more interesting if “Don’t Know” made it on to the ballot paper.

You think that you’re suffering for your art… think again

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Swoon: Cate Blanchett, appearing in When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other . Photograph: Steven Chee

An audience member is reported to have fainted during a preview of the National Theatre play, When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, written by Martin Crimp, directed by Katie Mitchell. The production, starring Cate Blanchett and Stephen Dillane, is said to be full of S&M sex and violence, including a foursome in a car. How wonderfully Noël Coward – to swoon at a play. And not even in the queue for drinks at the interval.

Does this prove that theatre audiences need to toughen up a bit? If they’re shocked to the point of fainting by on-stage sex and violence, what would they make of 90% of Netflix or every gangsta rap video made? You don’t hear of Luther fans reaching for the smelling salts. Sex and violence are everywhere in popular culture, so what makes them uniquely shocking to theatregoers? Elsewhere, however tough audiences for the film Dau are going to have to be, the cast had to be tougher. The hundreds of participants in the (15 years in the making) “art happening”, featuring celebrity appearances from the likes of performance artist Marina Abramovićh and US theatre director Peter Sellars, spent three years living in a replica of a 1950s Soviet-era research institute.

As if that doesn’t already sound like the best fun you could possibly have, the director, Ilya Khrzhanovsky, insisted on being addressed as “head of the institute” or “the boss”. Which may have been funny the first few times, but was probably a bit wearying, say 27 months in.

Three years! It seems that these days you get more “time” for arty method acting than you do for real-life crimes. Take heed, National Theatre audiences and, indeed, casts – you all got off lightly. If there are degrees to cultural toughness, Dau has set a new benchmark.

• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist