There will be blood
Taki
Sartre was a far greater fornicator than philosopher, but he did come up with the greatest truism of them all: ‘Hell is other people.’ (The last line in one of his plays.) Mind you, a Greek savant has bettered him by proclaiming Hell is other people speaking on their mobiles inside an aeroplane. Yes, it has come down to this, or, rather, it has gone up to it. Passengers have been cleared by telecoms watchdogs to use the most malignant device since television during flights. The Dubai-based Emirates was the first airline to allow the suckers who fly it to use mobile telephones last week, which I predict will definitely lead to mayhem sooner rather than later. Can you imagine a billionaire goatherd shouting orders to some flunkey while he picks his dirty toes, or some money-grubbing hedgie showing off at 40,000 feet? There will be blood.
People already act funny when in the air; imagine what will happen when some oik starts to blabber away non-stop about some football result. Let the government for once interfere on the side of the good guys. Now that they’ve done away with secondary smoke, what about the much more lethal secondary bore?
I’ve already had altercations on the train to Washington DC with some pretty nasty Wall Street types shouting over their mobiles. The conversation goes something like this. Me: ‘Excuse me, but you are disturbing me to the point that I can’t even read.’ No answer but more showing off, with ever larger amounts being name-dropped. Me, getting very angry and raising my voice: ‘Hey, a***hole, would you like a mobile sandwich?’ The jerk: ‘What do you want, why are you threatening me? Somebody call the police.’ And so on. And, as I said, in the air it will be far worse.
People no longer have any manners whatsoever, hence they go by the letter of the law. If it’s not a punishable offence, it’s OK. Never mind the mayhem they might be inflicting on their neighbour. The offending (greedy) airlines who are expected to allow these barbarians inside their planes are Emirates and BMI, while BA and Virgin say they are not convinced that there is enough demand for the service. But in view of the fact that there are more slobs out there than gentle souls, the next voice you hear will be ... oh, I can’t bear thinking about it.
The other thing I can’t bear reading about is the death in London of that poor Norwegian student, Martine Vik Magnussen, whose friend, or boyfriend, Farouk Abdulhak, a Yemeni and the last man she was seen with, flew out the next day in his private jet to Yemen, where his father is the richest man in that miserable place. Yemen has no extradition treaty with Britain. Press reports say that the Yemeni panicked when the girl vanished, called daddy and flew out. What I say is does this make sense? If my girlfriend suddenly disappeared, the last thing I would do is leave the country, unless I had something to hide. By the time her semi-naked body was discovered buried under rubble, Abdulhak was 40,000 feet up, probably talking on his mobile about concidences.
All I know is there’s something very wrong here. Since when can a billionaire’s son come to this country, be the last man to be seen with a girl whose body is found lifeless four hours after they left a club together, then fly away to a country which has no extradition treaty with the place where the poor girl met her maker? This thing stinks.
Otherwise, everything is hunky-dory. I left Gstaad in the midst of a snowstorm, flew to the Big Bagel without incident, and have begun my training for the judo world championships in Brussels in June. (If I live that long.) I am now an associate editor of Chronicles magazine, America’s leading cultural journal by far, a monthly based on the outskirts of Chicago, and one which looks at the fundamental questions first, with elections and legislation being secondary. The way it should be. Changes in culture and religion are more important, and Chronicles is as liberal in allowing its columnists to attack the baddies as the dear old Speccie is. (With no libel laws to speak of in America, to boot.) Which means Clinton’s gaudy corporatism, her sucking up to the pharmaceutical and defence industries, and defence of lobbyists are exposed as in no other magazine. At least by yours truly.
I am convinced that the Clinton camp will resort to a black-bag operation designed to sink Obama before the convention in Denver. Classy exits are not in the Clinton repertoire. They are liars and frauds but they’ve won every battle up to now. If a Clinton was caught like Spitzer he’d still be governor. The Clintons emptied half the White House when they finally left, pardoned a bum like Marc Rich, and two years later Hillary was elected Senator in New York never having even lived there. Mind you, Giuliani dropped out of the race because he discovered he had cancer, so I hope nothing happens to the very decent man who is Barack Obama. Never count the Clintons out. It’s like trusting human nature and leaving your house unlocked in London at night. You will be very poor in the morning.
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