The Attention-Whore Index

Last week the beleaguered royals-beat journalist (or, depending on your point of view, disingenuous Sussex mouthpiece) Omid Scobie did his best to ride successive news cycles, and it got him a solid 23.9 percent of your vote. And simply by joining the Cameo celebrity-video service, former congressman George Santos polled 18.5 percent. But even those numbers were good enough only for second and third place. Donald Trump found a winning combination: addressing an issue none of the other G.O.P. candidates are willing to go anywhere near (how much water you’ll have in your dishwasher if Biden is re-elected), and bluntly acknowledging the eager dictator within. That put him on top again with 42.9 percent—not quite as big as the lead he has heading for the Iowa caucuses, but impressive nonetheless.

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

1.

KIM JONG UN

Wept openly at the National Conference of Mothers as he spoke of North Korea’s declining birth rate and urged women to do better: “Our mothers shoulder the weighty responsibility of nurturing their children as pillars for the construction of socialism and communism, shaping them into protagonists of our future society.”

2.

ELON MUSK

Not a surprise: Musk reinstated the X account of odious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who last year was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which Jones had repeatedly dismissed as “a hoax.” Welcome home!

3.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY

Left his mike on while taking a bathroom break during a live X Spaces chat with Musk and Jones (how do these people all find one another?), with predictable, audible results. “Someone’s got their thing open peeing,” Jones observed, while the presidential candidate was off doing what he had to do. “Sorry about that, guys,” Ramaswamy said on his return.

4.

HUNTER BIDEN

Another embarrassing indictment, bringing the total charges against the president’s son to nine—three felonies, six misdemeanors. But Biden still lags way behind another high-profile defendant who’s also likely to be in court in the coming year. And unlike him, Biden—this Biden, anyway—isn’t running for president.

5.

ERIC ADAMS

The ongoing rough patch for New York City’s fun-loving mayor got a little rougher. In November, Adams—who has not been charged with anything—had his phones seized by the F.B.I. as part of an investigation into a possible straw-donor scheme involving his 2021 campaign. (Adams later announced that his chief fundraiser, caught up in that investigation, was “no longer doing fund-raising for the campaign.”) Then he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 1993, which he has denied. This month it was reported that his team canceled fire inspections, including for some schools, in order to fast-track V.I.P. ones for developers (and donors). Last week, inevitably, came the poll: the mayor has an anemic 28 percent approval rating. Party on!

6.

SHOHEI OHTANI

Well, in fairness, who among us wouldn’t have signed? A free agent after several seasons with the Angels, the phenomenal 29-year-old designated hitter/starting pitcher is remaining in Los Angeles—but it’s the Dodgers Ohtani signed with, in a 10-year, $700 million contract that makes him the highest-paid athlete in history, and worth almost as much as Dodgers Stadium ($1 billion) itself.

7.

MEGyN KELLY

Building on her turn as debate moderator, she gushed to Tucker Carlson that he’d be president or vice president someday: “It would be so fun, because you really would just be saying what’s real, there’d be no massaging of message, and everyone would respond so well to you. When someone is as authentic as you are, the people know!” Called for a boycott of Taylor Swift because the singer attended a comedy show that raised money for humanitarian relief in Gaza. Who slams Taylor Swift?

And now for this week’s Diary …

A downright operatic reaction to the Teatro Real’s new production of Rigoletto: audience members fleeing at intermission, boos for the director at the curtain … and ovations for the performers. Why the fuss? This “feminist” interpretation of Verdi’s warhorse, according to the promotional material, means “to emphasise the helplessness of a woman in the face of a group of men in which society’s concept of masculinity is discussed.” Making this point, reported The Times of London, involves depicting “a city wasteland overrun by prostitutes. A sadomasochistic orgy. Women wandering naked in a funeral procession. And simulated fellatio to the aria La donna è mobile.”

In other opera news (a phrase we’re pretty sure is making its first appearance in the Air Mail Diary), Italian opera singing was voted onto UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list for 2023, following a meeting here. “This is an official confirmation of what we already knew,” said Italy’s cultural minister. “Opera singing is a world excellence.” The UNESCO list now includes 730 cultural practices from around the world that need safeguarding, among them, NPR noted, “Syrian glassblowing, olive cultivation in Turkey, the wedding dish of Xeedho in Djibouti, Ingoma Ya Mapiko, a celebratory-dance tradition practiced by the Makonde people of Mozambique, and the Poncho Para’í de 60 Listas de Piribebuy, a handmade garment from Paraguay.”

The Seine isn’t known for its swells and rolling waves, so it’s no surprise that Paris has off-loaded the surfing competition for next summer’s Olympics. But staging the surfing in Tahiti, French Polynesia—which amounts to, oh, the 9,759th Arrondissement—has raised some unwelcome issues. “Flying 48 surfers, judges, journalists and others so far looks awkward against Paris organisers’ stated ambition of reducing the Olympics’ carbon footprint by half,” Euronews reported. “Controversial plans for a new aluminium judges’ tower have also drawn criticism from environmentalists and local surfers for its potential impact on marine life.”

Nicolas Puech, the 80-year-old grandson of Hermès’s founder, has begun the process of adopting his former gardener and handyman, a married 51-year-old “from a modest Moroccan family,” according to the Tribune de Genève, in order to make him the beneficiary of his estimated $10 billion fortune. Puech, a Frenchman who lives in Switzerland, is unmarried and has no children. He resigned from the Hermès board in 2014 but has remained a shareholder. Swiss adoption laws (and potential legal challenges) make this far from a done deal.

The black Porsche awaiting the bride and groom here in Jiangsu Province was festooned in flowers … and, on its tires, 40 padlocks—a modern addition to a traditional Chinese wedding custom that involves “the groom participating in games, rituals and challenges which symbolically demonstrate his dedication to his bride,” said the South China Morning Post. “It is also customary for the groom to give red envelopes with cash inside, confectionery, cigarettes and other gifts as a way of sharing his happiness and bringing good fortune to the guests.” Cigarettes, in fact, function as the locksmith in this scenario: one carton for every two locks opened is reportedly the going rate required by friends and relatives of the happy couple, who are now running late. —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 at AIR MAIL