The Attention-Whore Index

The last Attention-Whore Index appeared just before the holidays, when you’d need to have been living on Easter Island or in a yurt, or both, to escape the desperate Harry and Meghan media onslaught. No surprise that readers overwhelmingly awarded them the top spot (59.5 percent). The distant runner-up, Elon Musk, got 18.43 percent, and he was trailed by Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sam Bankman-Fried, Vladimir Putin, and Arizona governor Doug Ducey.

But things have changed. A little. Don’t forget to vote.

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

1.

George Santos

The gift that keeps giving, based mostly on seeds planted long ago—dozens and dozens of lies and embellishments—and which continue to blossom.

2.

Prince Harry

Well, the holidays sure flew by—meaning the all-too-brief break from the epic Harry and Meghan grievance tour. Now the Taliban-slayer is back in our faces—talking this weekend to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes and to ITV’s Tom Bradby—flogging his book, airing the most private grievances in the most public forums (what, a fraternal assault?!), complaining that his family haven’t apologized to him, and pocketing the windfall.

3.

Donald Trump

Two cheery holiday posts. At Christmas, he referred to Biden as “mentally disabled” and to himself as “Brilliant, Clairvoyant, and USA LOVING.” At New Year’s, he sent good wishes to “all of the Radical Left Democrats, Marxist Lunatics, China loving Coco Chow and her Obedient Husband, Mitch, and Clueless RINOS, who are working so hard to DESTROY our once great Country.... GOD BLESS YOU ALL!” Bonus points: “It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the midterms.”

4.

Kevin M_cCarthy

Craven even by current-Republican-politician standards, he wouldn’t give up his desperate attempt to become House Speaker, trading concessions for votes, subjecting himself to serial rejections—and turning himself into an even weaker-looking prospect than he already was. In the end … wait, has it even ended?

5.

Vladimir Putin

Still mucking about in Ukraine: “The moral, historical truth is on our side.” Standing behind him for that New Year’s address were fatigue-clad soldiers (or “soldiers”), notably a woman who has in recent years appeared in at least two other photo ops with him, dressed as a sailor and as a parishioner.

6.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Heidi Klum

In (separate) New Year’s Instagram posts, they showed how to ring in 2023 with class: Paltrow and her daughter, Apple Martin, lounged on a boat in string bikinis, and Klum smooched with her husband, Tom Kaulitz, in a hot tub in Aspen, his hand resting festively on her butt.

7.

Elon Musk

Became the first person in history ever to have lost $200 billion. That got our attention!

And now for this week’s Diary …

Or, actually, not. Beginning in April, the Japanese government will pay families $7,500 per child to move out of the capital in an effort to re-populate “unfashionable” areas of the country.

They’ve been held at customs since 2018, but now 1,000 adult sex dolls are being released in South Korea. The dolls had been seized under a law “banning goods that ‘harm the country’s beautiful traditions and public morals,’” said The Times of London. Sex dolls that resemble celebrities remain banned.

The “polar bear capital of the world” is losing its polar bears. Researchers estimate a population of 618, as compared to 842 five years ago, in the Hudson Bay town of Churchill, Canada—polar-bear central.

Prince Andrew: The Musical, airing on Channel 4 in the U.K., features an opening number about the Duke of York’s disastrous 2019 interview with Emily Maitlis called “I Nailed It.” (“I nailed it, I did everything right / I saved my reputation and my future is bright.”)

Russia will allow Ukraine-bound soldiers to freeze their sperm and have it stored free of charge “just in case,” according to the St. Petersburg Web site Fontanka. More than 100,000 Russian soldiers have died since Putin’s invasion began, last February.

A $3 billion, seven-year plan, backed by the richest man in Asia, to raze Dharavi, India’s largest slum and the setting for Slumdog Millionaire and other films, has been approved by state authorities, reported The Times of London. Gautam Adani plans to build “a mixture of social housing and luxury homes” on the at 540-acre site in central Mumbai.

A vegan foie gras, one for which the livers of plants have presumably not been fattened through force-feeding, has been an unexpected hit in Spain. Fuah!, as the product is called, had initially planned to deliver 5,000 units to markets but in the end had to supply 30,000, according to El Mundo. It’s not the first vegan foie gras on the market: two years ago in Paris a chef introduced something called “faux gras.” —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