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High life

Taki

Wednesday, 9th July 2008

People problem

The problem is the people. Never have I seen such slobs, but, I am told, they exist in Las Vegas. They scream at the roulette ball, make fun of the poor girl who swirls it, loudly complain about their luck, and rub it in when they get lucky. Worse, much worse, they look so awful. I used to lose my allowance regularly at Aspinall’s in the old days, but it was almost a pleasure as I lost it to friends and to gentlemen. Thank God, I no longer play chemin-de-fer. I couldn’t bear to lose a single hand to one of these lowlifes who now pass as rich customers. Why is it that no one can explain to me why new money has to look so awful?

Is it because they learn from films? Explicitly expressing one’s superiority to one’s financial inferiors is how Hollywood portrays the rich and famous. Or used to in the past. Perhaps these bums learnt from Hollywood. But explicitly expressing one’s superiority to those less fortunate is also how societies disappear. Not in my lifetime, but there is no way a society such as the Saudi one can survive. Too few multi- billionaires treating the rest like dogs, and I’d hate to be a dog in the Middle East.

Here, in beautiful(?) London, the cops are busy apologising to Muslims about an advert showing a puppy sitting in an officer’s hat. Our Muslim brethren (yours, not mine) see man’s best friend as unclean. But my beagle Gypsy and my Jack Russell Benito sleep with the mother of my children every night in the same bed, and, although they’re both randy as hell, I don’t mind. They’re much cleaner than most people I’ve been coming into physical contact with lately. And don’t forget Leona Helmsley, once known as the Queen of Mean for saying only little people pay taxes, has just left her $8 billion fortune to dogs. Good for you, Leona; you were a ghastly woman while around, but you made up for it after death. The reason that the Muslims among us are always so angry is to be found in dog studies. In the April issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, it was found that those students who were most strongly attached to their dogs never showed high levels of anxiety or avoidance of the truth. In other words, people who love and have dogs are less pissed off than those who think of them as unclean. Those who don’t like dogs are unbalanced, angry, likely to kill people, and so on. And here I’m willing to bet anyone any amount that none of those who go around stabbing their fellow man has a man’s best friend. If my two children weren’t as wonderful as they are, I would gladly do a Leona just to spite you know who.

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ghostof'lectricity

July 11th, 2008 3:49am

"Ghastly" to describe people Taki dislikes twice in the same article. Lazy and slovenly even by the admittedly low standard of Taki, the high-money, low-work, insult-a-minute layabout who inherited his ability to vilify people too dead to respond (see Russert, Tim, for another very recent example). Leona Helmsley, whom Taki reminds us was known as the Queen of Mean, as if this is news, is the latest target of the tacky one's lack of cleverness and gratuitous meanness. Pot and the kettle and all that. To Taki perhaps, since no article from 1980 or so on that mentioned the late hotel potentate never failed to use that sobriquet, so either Taki is insulting our collective intelligence or it is news to him. In any case, I never had any use for Ms. Leona Helmsley, but if Taki hates her, then that is two points in her favor in my eyes. As I said previously, I never thought nor cared much one way or the other about Tim Russert, but Taki's factually incorrect (America "brought to a standstill" by Russert's death) and mean-spirited (irrelevant comments about Russert's weight, his journalistic impact) attack on him served as a favorable recommendation of Russert, in my eyes. It puts me in mind of Churchill addressing parliament after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa against Stalin and the USSR in early summer, 1941: if Hitler invaded hell, Churchill said, he (Churchill) would provide a recommendation for Satan before the MPs. This is how I feel about Leona Helmsley. If Taki hates her, I'll donate to a fund in her memory.

When are you going to get back to your true metier, attacks on vulgar, money-grubbing, fat, ugly, big-nosed Jews and their "oppression" of the poor innocent Palestinians, Taki? I can hardly wait.