The Attention-Whore Index

Elon Musk outdid, and undid, himself in last week’s competition. Musk’s idea of damage control in the wake of the latest speculation that he’s anti-Semitic-curious (or worse) entailed—apart from flying immediately to Israel—telling X’s fleeing advertisers to “Go. F***. Yourself.” His efforts rewarded him with 37.1 percent of your vote, enough to edge out departing diva George Santos (31.1 percent). Man of letters Omid Scobie placed third (15.9 percent).

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

1.

DONALD TRUMP

“Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy … it’s him and his people … they’re criminals that think they can do whatever they want. Break any law, tell any lie, ruin any life, trash any norm and get away with anything they want.... They want to talk about your dishwashers and how much water you’re going to have in your dishwasher, even though they don’t work and all of the other things that you have that were so precious and dear and that you never really appreciate it until now because they want to take them away, your heating and cooling in your house. They want to change it, they want to change everything. These people are sick. These people are sick.” Oh, and he admitted that, if elected, he’d be a dictator, though only briefly—kind of like temp work.

2.

MANUEL ROCHA

The retired State Department official and onetime ambassador to Bolivia was allegedly a spy, accused of having been a “clandestine agent” for Cuba for 40 years—and arrested. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that in secretly recorded conversations with undercover F.B.I. agents Rocha referred to the United States as “the enemy.”

3.

OMID SCOBIE

The House of Windsor seems to be everywhere again, earning another nomination for last week’s third-place finisher because, more than anyone, he’s to blame. (Scobie has claimed that a “translation error” landed King Charles and Catherine, Princess of Wales, in the Dutch edition of his book. How exactly does one mistranslate proper names?) The Daily Mail said that “the King is said to be taking the furore over the book ‘very seriously’ and will consult senior advisers … on the family’s next step, with ‘all options’ including legal action set to be considered.” Newsweek reported that the Sussexes are being urged to sue Scobie. The British tabloids are clamoring for Harry and Meghan, who have been laying uncharacteristically low, to make a statement, which we worry they might do.

4.

GEORGE SANTOS

What, you thought he was gone? HBO has bought the rights to film Mark Chiusano’s book The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, to be produced by Frank Rich, the former New York Times theater critic and columnist, as well as a producer of Veep and Succession. Santos himself, meanwhile, has already joined Cameo, the celebrity video-message operation. Of course he has.

5.

Megyn Kelly

The podcaster and former fixture at Fox News and NBC—and one of many women on whom Donald Trump has bestowed the assessment “nasty”—returned to prominence by hosting the Republican presidential candidates’ debate. Sort of. Only 4.1 million viewers tuned in to the joint NewsNation/CW Network broadcast—down from the last one—and Trump again did not participate, despite Kelly’s importunings (“Mr. President, you would be more than welcome and we would love to have you”). Still, it’s perhaps a better career move than Cameo.

6.

Boris Johnson

Back in the spotlight, testifying before the coronavirus inquiry in London. Among the former P.M.’s admissions regarding his government’s reaction to the onset of the pandemic: “I regret very much using that language [that coronavirus symptoms were “bollocks” and “Gulf War syndrome”] and I should have thought about the possibility of future publication.” “We should collectively have twigged much sooner, I should have twigged.” “I was bewildered [about a graph charting available hospital beds] to be honest.... At this point there is a certain amount of incoherence in our thinking.” “I do think I shouldn’t have [shaken hands with patients] in retrospect. I should have been precautionary but I wanted to be encouraging to people.” “With hindsight, it may be easy to see things that we could have done differently.” Both days he gave testimony, Johnson was booed on the street upon entering and leaving. Whether this was for his slow twigging in 2020, or for one of his many other wrongdoings, was hard to tell.

And now for this week’s Diary …

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader already sentenced to more than 30 years at a maximum-security prison for “extremist activities,” has just been additionally charged under Article 214 in Russia’s penal code with … vandalism. According to The Guardian, Navalny wrote (via associates) on social media, “I don’t even know whether to describe my latest news as sad, funny or absurd.” He added that the Kremlin wants to “initiate a new criminal case against me every three months.... Never before has a convict in solitary confinement for more than a year had such a rich social and political life.”

Officials at this ski resort in the Italian Alps have reversed their reinstatement of the town’s original name, Le Breuil, after just 24 hours. In 1934, Benito Mussolini had dubbed it Cervinia, part of the dictator’s Italianization campaign that saw municipalities renamed, the croissant transformed into the cornetto, and (speaking of cornets) Louis Armstrong referred to as Luigi Braccioforte. But many locals, as well as Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government, squawked at the idea of shedding Cervinia’s Italian and, sure, Fascistic associations. “It’s an ideological frenzy that is equaled only by the eradication of historical identity that was carried out by the Taliban,” said one M.P.

Despite—or because of?—a swirling snowstorm, the annual re-enactment here in the Czech Republic of 1805’s Battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon’s small army defeated those of Czar Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Francis of Austria, drew a record number of participants (1,200 from 15 countries) and spectators (more than 10,000). The popularity of this year’s re-enactment, which “is meant to commemorate and promote knowledge of a common European history,” according to Euronews, is thought to have had something to do with the release of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. Bicorne-mania!

Tomoko Horino, 100, is being fêted as the world’s oldest beauty adviser. “At 39, she started working for the cosmetics company Pola, going door to door in high heels — a style choice she kept up for 41 years,” reported the South China Morning Post. “According to Pola, Horino’s total revenue has amounted to more than 125 million yen (US$835,000), and she still nails her sales goals.” Horino maintains a beauty regimen of nightly hot baths, stretching, and, naturally, the liberal application of lotions and creams, and she stays sharp by watching the evening news—keeping up particularly with baseball.

This Cambridgeshire town’s “wonky” 30-foot Christmas tree—it leans—was at first mocked by some March residents (“embarrassing”), but now others have rushed to embrace it. (Figuratively; those pine needles are sharp.) “The Italians have got the leaning tower of Pisa”—and also, at press time, that one in Bologna that urgently needs reinforcing—“March has now got the leaning tree of Christmas,” one resident declared to the BBC. And you’re welcome to it, said the neighboring town of Chatteris: “The volunteers of Chatteris Christmas Lights erected on Saturday not one, but two 30-foot Christmas trees, in the traditional manner bolt upright.” —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