High life | 7 January 2012

For a cultural pessimist like myself, things have never looked rosier. Economic depression, unemployment, environmental disasters, wars and armed conflicts: with the final destruction of modern civilisation just around the corner, I can hardly conceal my glee at being right. Mind you, as a modern prophet of pessimism, I pray non-stop that I’m wrong, and being in this Mecca of the rich and disgustingly glitzy helps enormously. What? Me worry? That seems to be the slogan of the unacceptably nouveaux riches around these parts, that is when they’re not name-dropping Madonna, who happened to drop by for the holidays with some youngsters in tow who made Michael Jackson look a gerontophile.

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Rod Liddle

Sack the judges

That there’s cultural decay in a declining West is hardly worth arguing about. Nor can one deny that a powerless and increasingly cretinised citizenry has been brainwashed into a state of conformity comparable to domesticated animals, with their lives totally controlled by technology and non-elected bureaucrats. Even the super-rich are basically slaves. Bernie Ecclestone, a small man in many respects, may be a billionaire twice over, but he’s chained to his mobile or BlackBerry as he drives himself around these parts, oblivious to the fact he might get lost in a snowdrift at any moment.

Another neighbour has just bought his wife a $45-million G-5 to go along with her latest plastic surgery. A ghastly Saudi has carved his family tree outside his chalet — thank God, the tree is rather short and so ugly that even dogs won’t pee on it. And the poor little Greek boy has wasted three months of hard training by going on a week-long Karamazovian binge. The good news is that the rumours of the disgusting Roman Abramovich having bought in Gstaad are untrue, and thank God he remains with his disgusting entourage and family far away in St Barts.