Alexander Chancellor: This Christmas it’s nice to be able to pity the stinking rich for a change

This is the season of goodwill when one should think about people less fortunate than oneself and wish them better luck. It’s easy to forget to do this when one is having a wonderful time with one’s family and friends, playing charades, getting drunk, and so on. But it would be heartless not to spare one little thought for David and Victoria Beckham, who are planning at this joyous time to squander millions of pounds on turning a nice, cosy Victorian family house in Kensington into some kind of grim Californian spa hotel, equipped with massage beds and powder rooms and a catwalk on which Posh Spice can walk up and down, parading her new clothes. According to Posh’s plans, even her young children will have their own ‘en suite’ bathrooms. One really has to feel sorry for the Beckhams.

And what about Trinny Woodall, the TV fashion tipster? Her future looked rosy when she started going out with the frightfully rich Charles Saatchi after his acrimonious divorce from Nigella Lawson; but then Saatchi revealed in court that he was still madly in love with his former wife. ‘I adore Nigella,’ he said. ‘I absolutely adore Nigella and I’m heartbroken to have lost her.’ If that’s really how he feels, then one might perhaps feel a little sorry for him; and one might also feel a little sorry for Nigella, whose chances of making it big in America have been potentially jeopardised by courtroom allegations of drug abuse. But surely our deepest sympathy should be for Trinny, who has been made to look a fool for all the world. Saatchi let people think that they were on intimate terms by taking her to the same restaurant, Scott’s, where he used to take Nigella, and by sitting with her outside so that the paparazzi could snap them together.