Donald trump

The Dolly Sisters were off to Davos last week for the World Economic Forum: Nat Rothschild and Sebastian Taylor in their finest playing up to Harry Selfridge, in reality Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief. This total waste of a week advertises itself as a discussion of the global issues of the day. In reality, it’s utter twaddle, unless one is networking like the Dolly Sisters, or showing off like Justin Trudeau, the Canadian premier whose mother is Margaret, once upon a time a Studio 54 regular and a friend of yours truly. Old Greek ship-owning families, prominent ones such as the Livanoses, Goulandrises and Chandrises, eschew such shenanigans, leaving them to that downmarket version of Zorba the Greek, Alexis Tsipras.

This is going to be one hell of a year, hell being the operative word. It will be the year the greatest Greek writer since Homer turns 80 (but we’ll keep quiet about that for the moment). Our world is so stuck in reverse that a woman who was stabbed in Miami during the Art Basel shindig, and was bleeding and begging for help, was mistaken for an artwork and ignored. The woman survived but will art? Conceptual art must be the biggest con since Bernie Madoff and then some. And speaking of con artists, I’ve never had any respect for Mark Zuckerberg, someone who is reputed to have copied the idea for Facebook from a couple of ex-classmates, and who now pledges the majority of his $45 billion fortune to charity thereby generating a public relations bonanza.

 New York Things turn very frivolous around this time of year. Barf-inducing parties given by pop-culture schlock merchants selling their wares are a nightly transgression. The hacks duly report the shenanigans of doped-up rappers the next day as once upon a time they detailed the haut monde. London isn’t much better. Last week, at the British Fashion Awards, a designer by the name of Jonathan Anderson said that he was ‘honoured to be on the same stage as Karl Lagerfeld’ — a bum-clenchingly vapid pronouncement if ever I’ve heard one. Lagerfeld is a preening, self-important freak whose trademark is rudeness and that other badge of ultimate ghastliness, the ponytail.

It is hardly uncommon for politicians to lie, especially when their careers are threatened by a sexual transgression — John Profumo about Christine Keeler, for example, and Bill Clinton on not having had ‘sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky’. But there is a particular kind of distortion of the truth that is rare over here but almost routine among American presidential candidates; and this is the way they embellish their personal histories to maximise their appeal to voters.

As everyone knows, journalists tend to take themselves seriously, especially American journalists, who take themselves very, very seriously. Dan Rather was such a man, and I use the past tense because although he’s still very much alive, he’s no longer a big shot. Dan used to read the news on American television, and was referred to as an ‘anchor’. Anchors in America make much more money than the President, and match CEOs of big corporations in terms of what they rake in. Walter Cronkite, Dan’s predecessor at CBS, was always referred to as the most trusted man in America, a role the avuncular Walter revelled in. Dan took over in 1980 and got into trouble right away. He was kidnapped by a taxi driver right in Chicago and driven crazily around the town.

The Republican party is showing all the attention span of a hyperactive toddler this primary season, moving from one shiny toy to the next. Donald Trump still dominates the nursery, like some giant plastic fire engine. But the pieces are starting to look careworn and the battery is going on the siren. The former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, now tied with Trump in some polls, is the teddy bear dragged around the playground a few times and now slumped in a corner. Fresh out of the box though is Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett Packard, gleaming amidst the gaggle of tired rivals. At the most recent Republican debate, Fiorina wore what seemed from podium height upwards to be an electric-blue wetsuit.

Body dysmorphia, the unfortunate medical condition whereby a perfectly pleasant/slender person believes themselves to be ugly/fat, is a strange and sad thing. I’d always presumed it to be (like anorexia and bulimia) a primarily female problem, so much more importance being placed on the appearance of women than men. Respectable medical surveys indicate otherwise. Nevertheless, women tend to see themselves as less attractive than they are. A sizeable number of men, on the other hand, suffer from the opposite delusion. I call them Magic Mirror men, because they seem to possess an inner looking-glass which tells them that they are, indeed, the fairest of them all. Why else do ugly men not feel ridiculous passing judgment on the attractiveness, or otherwise, of women?