Paris Match

It is sad to read in Paris Match that two of my favorite people have come to a bad turning. Christophe Rocancourt and Catherine Breillat are having a petit contre-temps over the meager sum of 850,000 euros though it is well known to some that I will jump in for as little as $300,000, so I am not one to talk. Catherine has gone so far as to bestow upon him the nickname of le rauque or rat face, if you will. The charge she has leveled against him is Abus de faiblesse, a term which will feature prominently in all of my future litigation, to be sure.

Christophe claims that all this has to do with an advance for his participation in the director's upcoming film "Bad Love". How perfect is that?

Dubai

I am told by a friend with wisdom beyond his means that Dubai was intended as a safe haven in the event of an economic apocalypse where the world's richest could escape the rioting, dispossessed masses--in other words, you and me--and where they could wait out the anarchy comfortably in a secure environment. A penthouse in Manhattan wouldn't do, as some of us--and I include myself--would figure a way to get to them through the elevator shaft and express our indignation, as you might well imagine. The 'Jump you F%*kers' placards that people displayed on Wall Street during the early days of the financial meltdown were but the thin edge of the wedge, if you see what I mean and I think you do.

So it is appealing to my appreciation of irony that Dubai finds itself upside-down in advance of the full-blown chaos it was intended to avoid. If Dubai doesn't get itself right-side-up, the world's richest will have to do some fence-mending with the have-nots, a diplomacy that, no doubt, goes against all their instincts if not their DNA.