The Attention-Whore Index

It must be the momentum. Surprisingly, Prince Harry hung on (to this crown, anyway) with the most A.W.I. reader votes for the sixth straight week. But Harry’s victory wasn’t nearly as decisive as previous ones. He polled 29.3 percent, and was followed by Tucker Carlson at 20.9 percent, and the dead-heating Beyoncé and Prince Andrew (12.6 percent). The rest of the pack: Boris Johnson, King Charles, Kim Kardashian, and Joe Biden.

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

1.

DONALD TRUMP

Back on the campaign trail. In New Hampshire, claimed he won the state twice. (He lost it twice.) Talked about World War III, and promised to build an “impenetrable dome” over the U.S. in anticipation of a nuclear attack. Meta and Twitter accounts restored. And the Manhattan D.A. began presenting evidence to a grand jury regarding the Stormy Daniels (hush money to porn star) case.

2.

David Boies

His firm filed lawsuits against Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Larry David, and other boldfaced names over the Super Bowl ads they appeared in last year for FTX—claiming they were promoting an illegal product.

3.

PAMELA ANDERSON

Published and promoted a new memoir. Among her assertions: Tim Allen flashed her. Sylvester Stallone offered her a Porsche and a condo to be his “#1 girl.” Hugh Hefner was the only man to treat her with complete respect. And “there’s just nothing [Julian Assange] says that isn’t fascinating.”

4.

PRINCE ANDREW

“Appeared” in a bathtub in a staged photo posted by Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother Ian—with stand-ins representing the duke and Virginia Giuffre—to prove, apparently, that the two couldn’t have been “frolicking” in the tub, as Giuffre had claimed. No room, risk of messy splashing, etc.

5.

HILARIA BALDWIN

Hours after her husband, Alec, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, accompanied him to the members-only club Zero Bond (popular also with New York’s mayor, Eric Adams) for poker night. Took to Instagram to post family photos and thank people for being “our village,” and to her podcast (sin the sporadic Spanish accent) to express gratitude for everyone’s support.

6.

GEORGE SANTOS

Having lied about his “Jewish heritage,” gave a speech from the House floor on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Went to karaoke night at a Washington barbecue restaurant and took selfies with other patrons.

7.

JAMES DOLAN

Madison Square Garden’s owner defended the use of facial-recognition technology to ban from the arena any lawyers working for firms that are suing him. Threatened to ban beer at hockey games because the state liquor authority is investigating the facial-recognition matter.

8.

PRINCE HARRY

Still the defending champeen …

And now for this week’s Diary …

The Web site for Gwyneth Paltrow’s Notting Hill Goop store announced, CHUFFED TO BE HERE. No longer. The British branch of the lifestyle emporium, which offers Psychic Vampire Repellent (“an energy-refreshing scent with a tendency to conjure up positivity,” $27), as well as less practical items, is closing—or, rather, not reopening post-lockdown—following significant losses in revenue.

Another possible pandemic victim: the Ähtäri Zoo, in Finland, which announced that, because of a drop in numbers of visitors, it can no longer afford to keep Lumi and Pyry, two giant pandas on loan from China since 2018, and would return them.

A blind-dating event in this province in eastern China drew 20 men “queuing up to scan [one] woman’s QR code on WeChat in the hope of a future date,” reported the South China Morning Post. A video of the gathering has been viewed 48 million times. “I am speechless at this ratio,” one person commented.

The Vatican “is investigating allegations of a lockdown ‘sex party’ at a cathedral as part of an inquiry into a former bishop’s tenure,” reported The Times of London. Father Michael McCoy, then the dean of St. Mary’s—he committed suicide in 2021—“is said to have approached several worshippers within the diocese asking them if they would like to attend ‘a party’ at the cathedral.”

Last week, Heka-shepas became “the oldest and most complete mummy” to be found in Egypt to date. And maybe the richest. His remains, found in a 4,300-year-old sarcophagus near the Step Pyramid of Djoser, were covered in jewels and gold leaf.

The French government has ordered the removal of all “sexist” or “pornographic” images from hospitals, where they have been something of a tradition. Most notoriously, in 2015 at the Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital, in Auvergne, topical speech bubbles (Take that, health reform!) were Photoshopped onto a mural, and then posted online, depicting a superhero orgy—or rape—involving Superman, Supergirl, the Flash, Batman, and Wonder Woman. —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