A great piece by Taki (Taki Theodoracopulas, a Greek aristocrat) in today’s online version of The Spectator (free registration) about the differences in the British and the French take on Cecilia Sarkozy’s alleged affair.
In case you haven’t kept up, Cecilia is the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, the odds on favorite to become the next leader of France. Paris-Match magazine, in an American-press-like intrusion in to the private life of a politician, published pictures of Ms. Sarkozy and Richard Attias, one of her husband’s supporters, dining together in Paris and walking hand in hand in New York. Although not exactly in flagrante delicto these photos and the accompanying piece have set tongues a wagging because Mr. and Mrs. Sarkozy have been portrayed as a power couple, powerfully bonded together.
The Taki piece is, in my opinion, a brilliant skewering of the British attitude towards such things.
The Spectator is my absolutely favorite weekly news-magazine because it is totally irreverent and the writing is nothing short of spectacular. I subscribe to the print version, which I get about a week after publication. It’s kind of pricey at about $190 per year, but a pittance when compared to the amount of pleasure it brings me. The non-subscription online version contains about 30-40% of the content as free access. My only aggravation with The Spectator is that the hardcopy subscription doesn’t include an online subscription and I can’t bring myself to spend 50 pounds ($90) to be able to read online what I can find in my mailbox about a week later .
Can you imagine an article such as Taki’s appearing in Time, Newsweek, or any of the American weeklies?