The Attention-Whore Index

It was close this week—a real nail-biter, in fact. Prince Harry eked out his fifth consecutive win in the A.W.I. Poll, earning 41 percent of your vote. But hot on his heels was Renaissance man George Santos, at 38.6 percent. The rest of the field trailed badly: Donald Trump drew 9.1 percent, followed by Joe Biden, Ye, Kevin Spacey, and Matteo Messina Denaro. But now everyone starts fresh.

The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …

1.

King Charles

His May coronation, rumors had it, would be low-key, stripped-down … um, spare. Then came the announcement from Buckingham Palace: Coronation Weekend will include “a special Coronation Concert,” “the Coronation Big Lunch,” “the Coronation Service,” “the King’s Procession,” “the Coronation Procession,” and much, much more.

2.

Joe Biden

Another week, another little batch of documents.

3.

Kim Kardashian

Was invited to speak at Harvard Business School—and went.

4.

Boris Johnson

The former prime minister reacted to Labour’s call for an investigation regarding a $1 million loan to him with a tried-and-true bit of misdirection: he visited Ukraine. (When in doubt … )

5.

Prince Harry

Spare-mania is finally subsiding, but he’s still the defending champ.

6.

Prince Andrew

Has reportedly raised $12 million and consulted lawyers in advance of a possible effort to force Virginia Roberts Giuffre to retract allegations that he sexually assaulted her when she was a minor, claiming, according to a royal source, that he was “pressured into settling” and that a “mystery development” will soon restore his reputation.

7.

Tucker Carlson

Railed (for a second time) against “woke M&M’s” after the cartoon-character “spokescandies” had been given a cosmetic makeover: “The green M&M’s got her boots back but apparently is now a lesbian, maybe, and there is also a plus-sized, obese purple M&M’s.”

8.

Beyoncé

Gave her first full concert in four years at the opening of a luxury resort in, er, Dubai for a rumored $24 million.

And now for this week’s Diary …

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s private Airbus A321 will be upgraded with an “‘XXL lavatory’ described as being ‘30in wider than [the] existing XL lavatory’ in the VIP cabin, a full-length mirror and changing bench,” reported The Times of London. Also, an “increased VIP wardrobe.”

At “$8/month or $84/year in available countries,” Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue (“elevates quality conversations”), has proved just too tempting for “at least two Taliban officials and four prominent supporters in Afghanistan [who] are currently using the checkmarks,” the BBC reported.

A 31-year-old man in central China cried “love fraud”—and ended the relationship—because his girlfriend is 44 years old and not 30, as he had thought. “She has a son and a daughter. Her son, in his 20s, has been married for two years, and his wife will give birth soon,” said the man, surnamed Guo, according to the South China Morning Post. “I will be forced to be a grandpa at my age. How embarrassed I am! I feel I have lost face in front of all my fellow villagers because they all know of the scandal.”

The Russian disinformation TV channel RT France will close, following asset-freezing sanctions by the French government. Its news director has cried “censorship,” and the Russian foreign ministry promised “retaliatory measures against French media in Russia.”

Meanwhile, the Putin ally/loose cannon Dmitry Medvedev accused Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida of being a “servant” to the United States, suggesting, according to Japan Today, that “such shame could only be washed away by committing seppuku — a form of suicide by disembowelment, also known as hara-kiri — at a meeting of the Japanese cabinet after Kishida’s return.”

Tchotchkes for the prosecution? Found in one of the hideouts used by the recently arrested Sicilian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro: a refrigerator magnet with the image of a tuxedoed Marlon Brando above the words il padrino sono io (“I am the godfather”), as well as posters of Brando and Al Pacino from the Godfather films. —George Kalogerakis

George Kalogerakis, one of the original editor-writers at Spy, later worked for Vanity Fair, New York, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. A co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War, he is a Writer at Large for AIR MAIL