The Attention-Whore Index

Sometimes you’ve got to leave it to the professionals to show you how it’s done. Jada Pinkett Smith’s astonishing revelation last week that her marriage to Will Smith had been a sham since 2016—thus painting her husband’s slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars in a very new, and bewildering, light—rightly earned her the A.W.I. title last week, with 43.6 percent of the vote. After that attention-grabbing masterstroke, Jim Jordan’s endless, failed attempts to become Speaker of the House seemed amateurish, earning him 36.5 percent but, naturally, no majority. Meanwhile, Donald Trump—perhaps hindered by the gag order imposed on him by a federal judge—took a discreet 9.5 percent.

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

1.

PATRICK M_cHenry

Could there have been a better overseer of the three-week-long farce that recently concluded in Congress than the Pee-wee Herman–esque McHenry? With his neat little bow tie and carefully combed hair, the congressman from North Carolina presided over the chaotic race to be Speaker of the House with aplomb. McHenry gobbled up column inches with his unfashionable brand of equanimity, although his ultra-aggressive gaveling technique belied a certain frustration with events. With the eventual election of Mike Johnson, McHenry handed over the gavel and rode back into anonymity, presumably on a gadget-bedecked red Schwinn bicycle.

2.

TRAVIS KELCE AND TAYLOR SWIFT

Jesus Christ had better not be planning a Second Coming anytime soon, because Taylor Swift just kissed her football-playing boyfriend on the cheek and, quite frankly, Our Lord and Savior is going to have a hard time topping that. No one doubts the seriousness of Swift’s affections: nothing says “true love” better than voluntarily attending a New York Jets game. But TayVis are not so much attention whores as attention black holes. God forbid they should break up. The space-time continuum wouldn’t be able to handle it.

3.

JAVIER MILEI

It seems that a disheveled head of hair and populist politics are no longer enough to win a presidential election. Javier Milei, the shaggy-headed “anarcho-capitalist” and front-runner for the Argentinean presidency, came in a surprising second in the election, triggering a November 19 runoff. It was suggested that voters had started to worry about Milei’s fiscal responsibility, although whether this was triggered by his proposal to replace the Argentinean peso with the dollar, or the revelation that he had paid $50,000 to clone his dog, Conan, is uncertain.

4.

DONALD TRUMP

Speaking of tousle-haired losers, the 45th president went on a follicular rant after it was claimed that he had shared classified information on U.S. submarines with Australian billionaire, and Mar-a-Lago club member, Anthony Pratt. Trump called Pratt a “red haired weirdo” and denied everything on Truth Social. “I never spoke to him about Submarines.” Then again, he also denied that one of his attorneys, Sidney Powell, had ever represented him after she entered a plea deal in the Georgia election-interference case. As one law professor commented on X, formerly Twitter, “So much for any claims of attorney/client privilege. Not smart.”

5.

SHAUN KING

The professional activist famous on social media for promoting social-justice causes, most notably Black Lives Matter, and infamous for using those same causes to fundraise for himself—he’s been nicknamed “Scamuel L. Jackson”—claimed that he had helped free a teenage American girl and her mother taken hostage by Hamas during the attacks on Israel. He said that he had “worked frantically behind the scenes” and was “lobbying nonstop” for their release. The problem? Neither of the women had ever heard of King, releasing a statement saying, “Our family does not and did not have anything to do with him, neither directly nor indirectly.”

6.

GIORGIA MELONI

Although the far-right, anti-immigration Italian prime minister has been a champion of traditional family values and the need for children to have a “mother and a father,” when a lewd audio recording of her partner (and the father of her child), Andrea Giambruno, was aired, she dropped him like he was a drowning refugee. Giambruno had harassed his female work colleagues, even propositioning them about having a “threesome or a foursome.” Is that Italian for “it takes a village”?

And now for this week’s Diary …

A specially chartered train carrying hundreds of European Parliament officials from Brussels to Strasbourg ended up at EuroDisney by mistake due to a signaling error, reported Politico. The special train—which costs $110 million a year to run—is chartered once a month to transport European officials between the twin seats of parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. Cue endless jokes about the E.U. having a “Mickey Mouse” parliament.

Tsingtao beer is one of China’s most popular exports, with a bright fizzy character, and a slightly bitter aftertaste. However, the beer appears to contain a secret ingredient that might make its admirers think twice before drinking it again. A video of a worker at “Tsingtao beer No. 3 factory” urinating into a vat of ingredients has gone viral, reported the BBC. “A piss that will ruin a lot of money,” wrote one commenter on Weibo. Shares in Tsingtao Brewery fell sharply after the video was released.

Japan Airlines was forced to lay on an extra flight after sumo wrestlers traveling to a sports festival in the far south of the country were adjudged to be too heavy for their plane, reported The Guardian. Concern over fuel capacity emerged when staff learned the 737 would be carrying a large number of sumo wrestlers—average weight 265 pounds—as opposed to ordinary passengers—average weight 154 pounds. “It is extremely unusual for us to operate special flights due to the weight restrictions on this aircraft,” said a JAL spokesperson.

Tens of thousands of women in Iceland, including the country’s prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, went on strike to protest the gender pay gap and gender-based violence, reported mlb.is. A similar event happened in 1975, paving the way for the first female prime minister of the country, in 1980. These strikes certainly seem to be working. Iceland has been ranked the best country in the world for gender equality by the World Economic Forum for 14 years in a row.

A 22-year-old man pretended to be a mannequin in a store window, by holding a bag and standing extremely still, until the mall the store was in closed. He then went on a robbing spree, stealing jewelry and treating himself to a meal at one of the mall’s food counters. Mall security guards eventually noticed the larcenous display and took him into custody.

Police expected the worst when they were called to this rural area of England because a walker had reported seeing body parts jutting out of the undergrowth. What they found was not as grisly as originally feared, although not exactly pleasant. Metro reported, “It is with great relief that we can announce that the pathologist was able to identify that the foot and hand beneath the bush did in fact belong to a discarded and realistic life-size doll,” a police spokesman said. —George Pendle

George Pendle is an Editor at Large at AIR MAIL