Tom Wolfe: The rich do have feelings - and he should know

The Tom Wolfe short story that extravagantly kicked off Geordie Greig's editorship of the London Evening Standard several weeks ago has proved to be upwardly mobile by migrating to Vanity Fair.

The Rich Have Feelings, Too is a wanly satirical monologue on all those poor rich CEO financiers who've cost taxpayers billions in whichever currency and been tragically reduced by the recession to flying with the "commercial-aviation herd" after yonks of coking it on private jets.

"We would be lounging lushly in what was designed as a living room, not an airplane cabin," the writer nostalgically recalls of former Learjet heaven. "There were mahogany, walnut, and amboyna inlays all over the place … You never had to sit next to anybody. You had your own virtual easy chair and all the legroom in the world … and cantilevered tabletops made of the same rich, spectacularly grained woods." [Pause to dab eyebags]

If there's a lack of Swiftian rage at this excess - as opposed to a lipsmacking curiosity about how the rich live - then may be that's because Wolfe, who's forever white-suited, is closer to the spirit of his fallen financiers than his fiction might lead us to believe. Commenter MikeyCee recalls on the Wall Street Journal blog The Wealth Report: "Tom Wolfe cannot talk about eccentric rich people, he’s one too. I know someone who customized Wolfe’s Cadillac. He had them do everything in white including the whole interior [for $7,500]. Pretty cool but still a bit over the top."

Yes indeed. Wolfe a little out of touch with the zeitgeist? Commenter King Cash on the same blog answers that with this: "I once heard [Wolfe] go on and on how punk music originated in England to prove a point he was arguing. Sorry, Tom, that you never took a cab to CBGBs [NY] in the time. It was under your nose." Along with the rest of real life.

Ally Ross: Wit like this can give you haemorrhoids

Simon Cowell and Ally. A satsuma slice would have heightened the experience

I'm awwwwwwwfully sorry to hear that the Sun's TV critic Ally Ross is off sick with haemorrhoids - or so Private Eye claims. I hadn't noticed his absence myself. There he is, kicking each column off with a showtime - like a diary entry. Well, deadlines, darling, deadlines. Call it his signature. Whatever gets the words to flow. We can at least comfort ourselves that his condition is not the result of arse sex, for as his columns constantly and tacitly remind us, he is a hard-wired cock-cunter to be sure.

Here are a few of these reminders (not to be confused with any latent homophobia, natch) which I am told are supposed to be ironic:

Of John Barrowman
"There are side-splitters from the moment Barrowman — 'The man who can do everything', except impersonate a heterosexual — opens the show singing I’m So Excited by The Pointer Sisters."

Graham Norton
"The name of Graham Norton's producer, Alex Bender. Marvellous."

Coronation St
He is disturbed that "The thoroughly heterosexual Todd Grimshaw is set to start wrestling with his sexuality and blah blah blah..." He declares that when Corrie "jabbed us in the chest with issues at every turn" viewing figures plummeted. "So put your leaflets away. Give us stories. Give us laughs". And none of this depressing camp crap.

Ricky Martin's girlfriend is fed up of being asked if he's gay.
''Why? Is he a bender or something?''

A Ricky Martin look-a-like on TV's Stars In Your Eyes:
''Ricky Martin gave an awful poof-homance''.

Time for a nice musical interlude

TV
"TV is way too camp, i.e. gay and rubbish, for its own good". Worth a read.

Elton John's Oscars bash for his Aids Foundation
"An event described offensively and incorrectly, by me, as '400 Poofs And A Piano'. (It's probably more like 500.)." That I will concede sounds ironic.

Of TV contestants
"They're the usual camp show-offs, mainly. Proof that anyone who wants to be on TV should be banned from TV. "

Christopher Biggins
"Christopher Biggins and his civil partner sharing a small cubicle on the same show (just like old times)." [In the gents, geddit?]

And on it goes. Witty-lite jibes concentrated into tabloid Wildeisms by the Sun's flattering micro-pars. Still, here's Madame Arcati's suggested cure for haemorrhoids. Click here.

Jonathan King: 'I sent Simon Cowell to Max Clifford'

Dear Madame Arcati

You clearly have a fan in Alice over at the wonderland that is Pandora's Independent; Max Clifford is quoted in her piece calling me an attention seeker. This coming from the man who represented Jade Goody, Kerry Katona and to whom I sent Simon Cowell when he needed attention. Funny old world.

Jonathan King

JK's memoirs
Pandora
Arcati

Celebrity victims named in media privacy scandal

Joanna Lumley, Ian Hislop, Caprice Bourret, Bill Wyman, Peter Mandelson, John Cleese, Prince Charles' personal assistant, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, Jeremy Paxman, James Naughtie, Kate Adie, Peter Sissons and even former News of the World editor Phil Hall are identified today by the Guardian as among those whose personal lives were invaded by private investigators working for newspapers, magazines and broadcasters.

More than 17,500 requests from more than 400 journalists were made to access databases - such as British Telecom and the DSS - even though such access is a "criminal offence unless there is a clear public interest to justify it." The report adds: "They [PIs] also conned hotels, banks, prisons, trade unions and the post office into handing over sensitive information." No attempt has been made to prosecute news organisations. Just how useless is the law?

These detailed records belong to Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore. For the full story click here. Nick Davies' extensive report - with names named - click here.

Jonathan King writes his uncensored, 'salacious' memoirs

I hear Jonathan King is working on his memoirs - about 150,000 words done so far: the final draft could be as hefty as 200,000.

It will probably be out this Christmas, a feat only possible by self-publishing. This way, he tells me, "it doesn't get censored and looks brilliant."

He plans to "print up a couple of thousand and let a publisher take it if they offer enough... also, that way, it [will] be instantly available via Amazon 'and all good book shops' and I know we can shift several hundred from sales on the DVD of Vile Pervert: The Musical." He adds, "VPTM is about to hit 40,000 full length views/downloads - hoping to hit 50,000 by year end."

What revelations does he plan to make? "It's packed with salacious stuff and dripping with scandal... with LOTS of photos," is all he will say.

Arcati's review of Vile Pervert. King as Wilde ...

Dorian Gray: Censored and de-queered for the Wuthering Heights mob?

Ben Barnes as Dorian: simply not gorgeous enough

I fear Oliver Parker's new flick Dorian Gray (released in the UK on Sept 9) has de-queered Oscar Wilde's Gothic moral tale (The Picture of Dorian Gray).

Judging by the hetero-screaming trailer (below) alone, there is not a trace of the saturation camp of the book's early pages. Colin Firth is the personification of redundant cock-cuntery as Lord Henry Wotton while Ben "Prince Caspian" Barnes as Dorian is simply not beautiful enough: there must in Dorian's face be a suggestion of polysexual libertinage, a trace at least of the capacity to be "fatal to young men" through "friendship" (Wilde's necessary euphemistic way of describing cock-cockery in Victorian England). Dorian has to be exquisitely, ambiguously gorgeous to explain why he transacts with some unseen Satan to preserve his youth.

Imran Abbas. A more suitable Dorian?

Barnes has a dashing, OK face for the Wuthering Heights sofa sisterhood. Not worth saving.

Parker appears to have replaced the implied homosex of the original with some fashionable and graphic S&M - but then botched it via the British censor. The BBFC reports Momentum submitted an incomplete version of the film for advice on getting a 15 cert to avoid a less commercial 18.

The nanny twerps report: "A scene in which a tea party is intercut with shots showing Dorian's sadomasochistic excesses was toned down to remove or reduce the more explicit moments (explicit sight of a fingernail being pulled off, explicit sight of a chest being cut with a razor in a sexual context, explicit sight of blood being sucked from a woman's breasts and sight of a restrained man being beaten). Additionally, a murder scene was toned down to remove the sense of dwelling on the infliction of pain and injury (reduction in the number of stabbings, removal of a blood spurt from man's neck, reduction in sight of victim choking on his blood)."


Or Robert Pattinson, of Twilight fame

None of this sounds remotely interesting in the least, just sub-Tarantino or sub-Hostel. Parker's attempt to locate a modern taboo fell at the commercial hurdle, it appears. Let's see.

Gavin James Bower: Nice bod, what about the novel?

Gavin James Bower

Gavin James Bower is helping to sex-up the world of letters with his debut novel Dazed & Aroused. Its themes and terrain - fashion, vacuity, coke, superficiality, runways, Kate Moss - resonate nicely as Bret Easton Ellis generational updates while playing shrewdly on universal media preoccupations. The PR mega-plus - that he himself is a former high fashion runway model and looks it - must have caused a ripple to pass along Quartet publisher Naim Attallah's perineum: beauty and literariness is a romantic and potent mix in the world of Snipcock & Tweed. It may spell profit but mostly it promises psycho-dramatic glamour.

If you can't find it then invent it - hence Katie Price.

All this may seem most unfair on Gavin. He has after all written a novel, and one that's enchanted a few critics by all accounts. There is a grave suspicion he can write and tell tales. I put it like that because I cannot be certain I shall ever read Dazed & Aroused.

Like most people these days I hardly ever read fiction. You read the reviews and author interviews and perhaps the chapter excerpts on Amazon (if any). You ask people at parties about the author in question and the troops at the front (the "readers") spoon feed you a view. That view then gets repeated by you until it becomes a quotation in a review of the author's subsequent work. Copies may be sold but how many get read cover-to-cover?

I stopped reading modern (literary) fiction when I realised I was more intelligent than most novelists, knew more about life than they do, wrote better than most of them, was blessed with greater human insight, didn't need to kill time and have found more productive ways of getting through the day, and tend to mentally rewrite (improve) the work-in-hand as I go along . Most of the people I know who read modern fiction tend to fall into one of the following:

1. Professional reader
2. Unread
3. Depressed
4. Aspiring novelist
5. Fan

There's nothing wrong with any one of the above. But it's as well to know your market. I think Gavin will do very well. I am happy to tell you that I think his novel is probably quite entertaining, judging by the reviews. Being gorgeous-looking is no literary demerit - F Scott Fitzgerald looked fuckable in his prime - a great many novelists share a certain pulchritude up to the age of 31. Please feel free to use my hearsay in future reviews of Gavin's work. Here, I'll give you a quote: "The British heir to Bret Easton Ellis".

Interview with Gavin
Buy it if you dare
Gavin's blog

Dominic Mohan: A Gemini mind forced to slum it at The Sun?

Dominic Mohan

The new editor of The Sun is a Madame Arcati-/Katie Price-style Gemini - and for that reason alone I offer him my congratulations. Mercury-dominated Gemini is the sign of and for the media: so I shall be expecting great things of him, such as the sackings of all his charisma-free columnists - all useless. The jury's still out on Gordon Smart (see below).

Too little time to do Dominic's horoscope properly, but I've managed something . He was born on May 26, 1969. Where is not clear. Every profile of him says he's "from Bristol". Does this mean he was born in Bristol? I am assuming it does. In any case provided he was born in that locality it makes little difference.

I have used astro.com for a rapid analysis so I can't be accused of shaping material by what I know. His Sun (not Sun) in the 10th House "promises honour, success, and prestige in adult life. Publicly you appear as a vital, proud, powerful person. Your individuality has the need to manifest itself publicly and often to foist its energy on others."

His Moon in the 2nd House explains his current red top focus: "Occupationally, you are going to be inclined to pursue money through popular activities. In any case, expect a fortune which holds variation and fluctuation. Try to orient your monetary dealings to the general public for you possess the ability to succeed when in touch with the popular masses." So, you see, it was all meant to be. He has found his calling.

A more curious feature of his chart is a disconnect between his brain power and station in life. A number of placements suggests a refined mind but one forced to slum it a bit. I'm sure editing the Sun will balance things out. "In a subtle fashion, fate may force you to become involved in activities that are not up to the level of your abilities," I read. Could this be that in his heart he cringes at the prospect of yet another front page Jordan cock-cunting tale or of whisking his troops off to Butlin's for some bonding with the working classes? I do not know. I can only wonder.

His Moon in Virgo makes him fairly easy to deal with (confirmed by people I know) and I doubt there will be many Rebekah-style hysterics. He is highly analytical and if he has a fault it is his indecisiveness. Presumably he has conquered this. For sure, this guy's a worker. He's a worm in the burrowing sense of the word.

If the mood takes me I may do a full horoscope to see how long he's likely to last.

Robert Tewdwr Moss murder: 13 years ago

August 24 marked the 13th anniversary of the murder of writer Robert Tewdwr Moss - a close friend whose life was taken just as he finished his travel book Cleopatra's Wedding Present: Travels Through Syria that would make his posthumous name. A day does not pass that I do not think of him. For my memories of him click here.

Cleopatra's Wedding Present: click here. To order a copy click here.

Philip Hoare's obituary of Robert in the Independent: click here
Philip Hensher's bedside reading: click here
Chroma review: click here

First line from Cleopatra's Wedding Present:
The hot wind that had carried the early heat wave into town was laden with fine brown dust and clotted with diesel fumes, so that when it abated the suffocating heat laced with dirt hung like a cloak around us and grey clouds loomed above the chaos of the streets. First few pages click here

Some reviews of Cleopatra's:

‘The book’s series of entertaining vignettes is testimony not only to the author’s literary skills but to his courage, curiosity and happy knack of befriending anyone he met’
— Mail on Sunday

‘This elegant work stands comparison with early Evelyn Waugh’
— Independent

‘A work with the potential to become a cult classic’
— Observer

‘A small masterpiece and a delicate work of English whimsy’
— Sunday Times

Details of Robert's death and of his killers: click here

Robert's killers may be free in 2 years' time - still young men:
Isa Abdul Aziz can apply for parole in September 2011: click here
Rondell Karl Pereira can apply for parole in October 2011: click here

Some comfort: "Even once their tariffs expire, neither man will be released until they can persuade the Parole Board they pose no serious public danger. When freed, they will remain on perpetual life licence, subject to prison recall if they get into trouble with the law again." This Is Chesire

Gordon Smart loses his Madonna Candy Hard-on

Celebration: A past and present coadunation of Madgestic sounds

Diddums! What did Madonna do to the Sun's Bizarre hack Gordon Smart? Forget to send him a freebie? Today he gives her a good rubbishing in the wake of Radio 1's decision not to playlist her new single Celebration. "Her Madgesty's last album, Hard Candy, didn't do as well as expected. Probably because it was rubbish," he scribbles in his best GCSE-level prose. "I'm also sick of the sight of her parading around in her undercrackers." Why, because she's 51? Rhetorically, as he attempts to stay down with the kids, he asks: "COULD this be the beginning of the end of MADONNA's reign as the Queen Of Pop?"

Oh Gord!

Oh dear. Was it only a year ago - on Aug 25, 2008, to be precise and four months after the Hard Candy release - that he had a waking wet dream over her Sticky & Sweet tour. "Madonna's energy and performance is incredible," he jizzed. "I doff my cap to a 50-year-old pole-dancing and double-dutch skipping mother. Without question, Madonna is still the Queen Of Pop. Long live the Queen." Get the Kleenex out.

It's hard (candy) not to laugh.

Thelondonpaper - closure is announced as Arcati predicted ...

... as recently as April 30, 2007. Click here. Private Eye is also to be congratulated on casting doubts on the paper's future in its latest issue. While I am sorry about the job losses, nothing can forgive the openly ageist practices of the publication. So much for giving jobs to babies! More here.

Josh Spero of Spear's: 'As for my bed, I did just kick a banker out'

Josh Spero, senior editor and website editor of Spear's. Click here for its website

Leathered Arcatistes will know that Madame Arcati has been most teasing of the publisher, editor and journalist William Cash. His writings, for instance, in ES Magazine are characterised by an extraordinary fixation on the super-wealthy and their gilt-edged micro-habitats: others might call this fixation his specialism. Inevitably, he owns and edits the quarterly Spear's magazine - itself a respected bible for the world's mega-monied.

Remotely, astrologically and Twitterly I have struck up a fleeting acquaintance with William's wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - an intriguing socialite whose chart reveals both a committed humanitarianism and a taste for sensation.

Now, remotely, I have made a connection with Josh Spero, senior editor of Spear's, and I couldn't resist asking him to talk about his work - and what it is like to work for William Cash.

Josh Spero! Hello. You're the senior editor and website editor of Spear's magazine - which means you work for one of Madame Arcati's frequent targets of interest, William Cash. Tell me about Spear's - it's all about wealth and the wealthy isn't it?

Hi, Madame - I liked your latest incarnation on Broadway - Angela Lansbury doing a turn. Spear's is about wealth but it's much more than that - people want authoritative intelligence about and analysis of global finance and the best writers on art, luxury and travel. Combined with our trademark witty style, it's the whole package.

What in Spear's terms is the minimum worth of a wealthy person?

We usually say £3 million - but anyone who's interested (wealth-regardless) can subscribe or read all our content plus blogs on spearswms.com

Spero/Spear's: do you think your name had anything to do with your appointment? And tell us briefly about yourself - are you innately interested in the wealthy? Where else you have worked and who shares your bed at night.

The name is a happy coincidence; I always think that being edited by William Cash and worked on previously by Sophia Money-Coutts is more apt. It doesn't go unnnoticed, tho'. The wealthy are interesting because - like any anthropological group - they have their own customs, hangouts and events, and it just happens that to observe them in their natural habitat you go to Berkeley Square, not Borneo.

My first job in journalism was hateful nightshifts on the Independent, after which (as the saying goes) I went freelance and wrote for the Guardian's ArtsBlog for a while. Then I met William at a party, freelanced for Spear's for a year and came on board permanently last July. It was July 14, Bastille Day - except this time I felt I was storming the fortress of the rich *on the side of* the rich.

As for my bed, I'm wretchedly single, tho' I did just kick a banker out. (This wealth thing is getting to me.) If any man considers himself eligible, my email's not hard to find.

And what do you do precisely? What time do you start work and end?

9-6 Monday-Thursday writing for, editing, commissioning the magazine and running spearswms.com with its blogs, newswire, party pics and all else. But a journalist's work continues in the evening - all the events (as fun as they are) are business as much as pleasure.

Tell me of the most interesting story Spear's has run of late.

There's Conrad Black's diary from jail (http://www.spearswms.com/good-life/diary/4411/exclusive-conrad-blacks-jail-diary.thtml), which got into the Sunday Times - he's unrepentant and on the verge of being proved right. Christopher Silvester wrote about what the wealthy should do when they're arrested, which is looking likely after l'affaire UBS.

William Cash

What's William Cash like - I mean is he hands-on? Does he rage and storm about as many editors do? Or is he an ocean of calm? Does he have an eccentricty? Anna Wintour I hear chucks coins from her purse into her wastepaper basket.

William doesn't rage or storm - he prefers to get things done. I've learnt a lot about how to run a magazine from him. He has, tho', been known to come in two days before going to press and say, I've commissioned this piece... He also says 'unacceptable' a fair amount.

Does William know you're doing this interview? I've been quite naughty about him in the past. Did he say, "Be careful of that crazed blogger Madame Arcati"?

He doesn't know, but that's because we've been mid-office-move for a fortnight so I've been working from home. I don't think he's ever issued a fatwa in your honour.

Who do you think is the best writer on the subject of money and wealth - best in the sense of style and accuracy? And who is the best connected?

John Arlidge is Spear's Chancellor of the Excessive - he's a whiz on luxury - and Stephen Hill is our prescient, acerbic economic commentator (http://www.spearswms.com/spears-world/salon/stephen-hill/). I have to mention Anthony Haden-Guest (http://www.spearswms.com/search/?search=haden&x=0&y=0), our arts editor, who is a legend both sides of the Atlantic and one of my favourite writers. William has some pretty good connections - you say 'Do you know someone who...?' and he invariably does.

What were you doing in Switzerland the other day?

I was interviewing the CEO of Hublot watches in Geneva. It's my second visit there this year, after Design Miami/Basel and Art Basel. It's nice but I'm a London boy through and though - it was way too small.

One of my beefs is that too many magazines and newspapers are preoccupied with wealth and status. Taking your Spear's cap off for a moment, what do you think?

Definitely. If you talk about wealth and status, don't fetishise them, which is the mistake most papers make - they can be serious objects of study and comment too.

William got back control of Spear's lately. Tell us about that and what difference that's likely to make to the magazine and to you.

William rescued Spear's from Luxury Publishing - and it feels good to be independent. With new investment, we've got our sights set on the world - we already have a Russian edition and we're looking forward to Indian and far eastern ones too. As for the difference to me, plus ca change...

Who is the most fascinating rich person in the world? - and why.

I don't think I can name one but I can pick a whole class - entrepreneurs. Everyday I meet and write about them, and the fizz of their brains makes them bound to succeed. They see the holes in the world where no-one else does and have the energy, creativity and intelligence to plug them. It's like watching kaleidoscopes of genius.

In a few words tell us where serious wealth resides these days and is it moving any place? For instance, is the Russian oligarchy about to implode?

At the moment, Russia and the Middle East are heavily oil-dependent for wealth, which is a mixed blessing. As for implosion, it's already happened - most have been bailed out by the Kremlin. I'd look to China in the future - it can only go up.

Vanessa Neumann

I did your horoscope, Josh. Capricorns such as yourself have a natural affinity with high status; your Moon in Leo makes you confident, exuberant even, with a keen sense that you can beat others at their game. It's a good leadership indicator provided arrogance is reined in. Your tender side does not always get properly expressed. Together, the placements make you independent, and eager for authority: indeed people with this combo often successfully seek high positions in large enterprises. Integrity is important to you. As I don't have your time of birth I can't calculate your Rising Sign, but other placements worth mentioning: Saturn in your 2nd House oddly enough puts a focus on finances - this can mean that lessons learnt in life will be through a preoccupation with money as well as hard work which does not generate much in the way of financial rewards. The Sun in your 4th House makes you dominant in family situations, can indicate a very close attachment to at least one parent, and is often found in people who make a "family" of friends or colleagues. Your Moon in the 11th House assures you a wide social circle among all classes and an ease with the powerful. This is an extremely brief horoscope I'm afraid - but does it ring true?

Gosh, it does - it's almost like you've seen my forthcoming autobiography (as yet unwritten). Confident - you can't be a meek journalist. Exuberant - I'd hope so. Tender - give me the chance (see above). And a wide social circle - I mistakenly synced my iPhone with my address book and wound up with 2000 names.

Where would you like to be in, say, five years' time?

I'd like to carry on in financial journalism, so maybe the Economist or FT, but my secret ultimate ambition is to present Front Row on Radio 4.

Thank you Josh! Give my love to William!

Spear's website click here