In praise of January

According to a little bird, Boris has gone from brilliant to bawd, and according to me this village has gone from unlivable to perfect in one easy week. The slopes are empty, the snow is excellent, the restaurants now take reservations, and the slobs are visible but not dominant in town. If April is the cruellest month, according to T.S. Eliot, January is the nicest one as far as yours truly is concerned. The liver has a break, the insect-eating grinning imbeciles have gone back down to the cities, and my brain cells are beginning to function again. It’s only a short break, three weeks, and then the mobs return, like scum coming to the surface — until late in March, that is.

Back in the good old days, those not appearing in the Gotha dismissed or hid what they’d been before (Switzerland may be neutral but Gstaad and St Moritz were snobby as hell). Those were pompous times, I admit, but everyone was kept in line by the loftiness of the leaders. Then we all suddenly became equal, with money replacing social status, and soon after that life became a free-for-all. Very rich Gulf camel-drivers and even richer Russian gangsters replaced the old order just as the Bolshies did back in 1917. The Eagle club erected walls to defend the old-timers, but there were too many of us already inside for comfort.

In January, however, it’s like old times, although while skiing yesterday I noticed some pretty awful types emerging from a club started by a ghastly sociopath who used to invest his clients’ money with Madoff. Never mind, the weather is perfect, the snow is even better, and everyone except for me has caught the virus. (Wife, son, grandchildren and staff.) What has also caught on is piling on, an American football expression for hitting someone who is already down. Ghislaine Maxwell pimped for Epstein because she wanted money, which is the reason why most pimps do what they do. She is neither a mass murderer, nor did she mastermind the fall of the twin towers. But to listen to the talk, especially by women, you’d think she was guilty of both.

Lawyers for Maxwell cast the spotlight on the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, which has awarded substantial amounts of money to Epstein’s victims. Maxwell’s lawyers repeatedly challenged four accusers — who testified after a silence of many years — about the money, alleging that they benefitted financially by testifying. The four have said otherwise, stating they had nothing to gain financially from taking the stand. Conrad Black had something to say on this subject in a recent column in the Epoch Times.

Maxwell was not railroaded and will likely die in jail, but there is much to be desired when it comes to justice in the most corrupt nation this side of Panama. Reality is no longer real over there.

Ditto for Prince Braindead. That Giuffre woman bragged to a friend, Carolyn Andriano, how she slept with him in London. After 20 years she now claims she was forced to do it and wants money. That redheaded BBC horror who covers the royal family could not control his joy while reporting on Prince Braindead. The BBC’s version of Madame Defarge should enter the ugly cow contest the locals hold every year over here. He’d win hands down but it would be unfair to the cows.

The gleeful, all-consuming enmity of the BBC against Boris is the fault of the Conservatives. But instead of cleaning the Augean Stables, that is the BBC, they’re doing away with gas boilers and petrol cars, stuff that makes no difference to the rich, but can sink the average man on the street below the poverty line. If Boris does not revert to being a true Conservative, my money’s on Hunt in the hunt for his replacement.

In the meantime, the blondie who used to wear black turtleneck sweaters and black slacks, bright red lipstick and a chignon, a look immortalised on magazine covers, is also going down, but in her case I hope for the minimum. Elizabeth Holmes is a cutie pie, and she done wrong, but Wall Street bullies and Silicon Valley freaks are walking around free, some of them having done more wrong than she did. Steve Cohen, who has just bought a baseball team for two and a half billion, made 14 billion greenbacks during the rah-rah years. The Feds tried for years to get him but he was too smart for them. He paid very large fines, subordinates went to the big house, but he is sitting pretty. Two major bankers in Geneva explained to me how he made his billions. Lawyers will never let it appear in print. And some of it was above my poor little head to begin with. But I got the gist. Blondie did not have Stevie’s nous. And she raised only less than a billion promoting Theranos. She’s too pretty for jail and she’s also just had a baby. Free Blondie!

Otherwise, everything’s hunky-dory. My mood turns wistful when I’m hiking in all-white surroundings. The rhapsody that was youth returns in the face of nature’s beauty. One forgets pain, problems and even women in the silence. Nothing is as quiet as snow-covered paths in a deep forest. One sees animal footprints but hears nothing. It’s as close as one can get to paradise on Earth.