Obama’s Family Loss

When I first heard of of the passing of Madelyn Dunham, 86, grandmother of Barack Obama, my reaction was like that of my friends: “Oh no. How tragic she missed this by just a few hours: the likely culmination of an historic journey to the Presidential nomination by her own flesh and blood.”

This morning’s press pays far more attention to the races in the swing states – the weather there and the usual political speculation on Election Day – than to her death.

But then I thought about her grandson’s reaction.

Yesterday Obama said simply “she has gone home.” He had visited Mrs. Dunham at in Hawaii last month, knowing she might not see him through on his likely journey to the Presidential nomination tonight.

His words reminded me of how I felt during own grandmother’s death this time last year.

She’d been sick in England; I was in New York; we were very close. But she was ready to go. And she made it very clear she didn’t want me blubbing by her bedside as she left this earth.

“Don’t come and see me darling” she told me over the phone. “You’ve got children, a job…you’ve already given me the greatest gift, just by being you. What I need for you now is to go on and live your life to the full. I absolutely insist you do not come.”

Such was her determination that I never visited the death bed. But I was ok with that. I’d seen her a month or so before – so my last memories of her as fragile but still beautiful and in full command of her faculties. She was the sharpest nonagenarian I’ve ever known.

Thus, I’d said goodbye to my grandmother in a way we both understood – and I suspect that’s what happened last month when Obama visited his grandmother for a day. And that’s why he went ahead with a rally in Florida, yesterday morning, having just learned of her death.

I speculate, of course, but if Madelyn Dunham is the kind of “unsung hero” Obama speaks of, then like my grandmother, a woman of quiet decency who did not seek the limelight, she didn’t need to linger on to watch the grand finale of her son’s journey. She knew enough of her grandson’s character to know that however things turn out – he’d make her proud – and that he’d be all right without her.

He would, of course, just miss her like crazy. V

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For One Fearful Moment I Long For Home

On the eve of Thanksgiving, just as I was about to go on TV to deliver a light-hearted spoof about what life would be like for Barack Obama without his BlackBerry, the screens filled with the terrible footage of the attacks on Mumbai. While we watched the gruesome spectacle, ticker-tape warnings at the bottom of the screens stated that the FBI had got wind of an al Qaeda plot to bomb subways and other public transport in New York city for Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving when stores give one-off huge discounts and people get up as early as 4am to shop.

Pundits were quick to point out the obvious: the fear generated by a combination of the Indian attacks and more local threats could turn Black Friday into Red Friday – in other words, despite massive discounts, consumers wouldn’t venture into Manhattan to spend. And that would have a disastrous knock-on effect for the economy.

Even before the return of al Qaeda, the recession has made New Yorkers fractious and fearful – unlike themselves, in fact. Many people who aren’t tied here have left. “Life is much happier in LA,” a German friend emailed me. I envied him. Last week, for the first time since I moved here 11 years ago, I really wanted to get out of this town. It has become the hotspot for lightning-speed changes in one’s circumstances. One moment, everything’s fine; the next, it’s absolutely not.

Right after I saw the Mumbai footage I got an email from a British friend, my son’s godfather – he’d been staying in the Oberoi hotel, targeted in Mumbai. He’d got out of the hotel and was safe in a friend’s apartment, but shooting was going on around him. He was without his passport and he was worried about the hostages.

At that moment, the idea of delivering a satire on TV (which obviously didn’t happen) paled in comparison to the important stuff: life, death things many of us New Yorkers can be too quick to forget about as we avidly pursue our careers.

For me, last week, the uncertainty of things in New York was, for a moment, overwhelming. I climbed into my bed in the afternoon and wished I could return to England. Things are not safer or more economically stable there but I just really wanted the comfort of the family I grew up with. Around me Americans were travelling to be with their families. And I, too, wanted to come home. V

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Laugh, Baby, Laugh

I love the concept of the “Smash Shack” the store opened in San Diego, where according to CBS News, victims of the credit crisis are taking out their frustrations by buying fragile objects and hurling them against the wall.

I haven’t got to that place mentally myself. But nonetheless I think the “Smash Shack’s” basic premise – the idea that we all need some form of release from the unbearable tension of these times is correct.

For me – and apparently millions of others – that comes either in escapist television (I’ve already mentioned my addiction to True Blood on this site) but mostly it comes in the form of laughter. I find myself laughing at the smallest things these days – a line in the paper; my son’s school report; anything to distract me from the ghastly news.

I noticed that Paul Krugman’s recent column in the New York Times that Obama is winning because of the “seriousness” of his campaign as opposed to what Krugman perceives as the “trivialities” of McCain’s.

This may well be true. People don’t want a joker for a President. We’ve just had one of those, with results that defy belief. The other night a group of friends and I were discussing the mentality of a serial killer: what it would be like to push all of society’s boundaries until inevitably you’d be caught – and, suddenly, I realized that’s exactly what George W. Bush has done. He’s pushed the envelope at home, and abroad until the world is on the state of collapse. Now he’s been caught – but too late. The devastation he has inflicted may take years to fix.

But meanwhile how are we to cope through this crisis if we are not smashing glasses? Paul Krugman makes a further interesting point in today’s column. He talks about 9/11 and reminds us that at the time of the horrendous attacks, people said we’d never laugh again, but, in fact, we did – and fast.

This is because laughing is a necessary part of the human psyche. It’s essential to put things into perspective. Yes, the world is in a disastrous state, but if you find no humor in your lives or funny situations, then you are in a tragic state of mental imbalance. Yes, you may face losing your job, your home…but you are still alive and there is still something to fight for. An election is on the horizon and who knows what changes that will bring?

Hopefully you still have friends, family…there is always someone worse off than you. Think of poor Jennifer Hudson, finding her dead mother and brother and missing nephew. Think of Anne Pressly, that beautiful 26-year-old news anchor from Arkansas, killed possibly because of a tiny cameo as a Republican in the film of W.

The latter in particular is a sign that right now we – just as much as our leadership -are mentally imbalanced, victims of fear-mongering, that we journalists must partly take responsibility for.

That’s why I am glad CNN has just brought in D L Hughley to satirize the news; I’m glad SNL’s audience figures have gone through the roof, as have Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s.

Tina Fey is a godsend. Sarah Palin may be a living nightmare as vice-presidential candidate – but unless you can see the funny side of a woman who sees Russia from her bedroom window, who sells herself as a hockey mom but buys designer labels and who fires her pesky ex brother-in-law over a divorce, then you are living in a destabilizing nightmare. And it’s time you woke up and believed in yourself and tomorrow. You will get through this. Sarah Palin is a joke. So don’t cry; laugh. Just don’t vote for her. V

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For some, this crisis is on another planet

We’re told a global recession of almost Depression proportions is taking place, fragmenting the social hierarchy. At the bottom end there is tragic chaos represented by suicides and rising crime. At the top, there’s divorce, misery and a small effort to be less ostentatious about one’s wealth. Meanwhile, in the middle, according to New York Times columnist David Brooks, it’s just depression.

Well, that’s not what I see around me here in New York, where theoretically the pain ought to be the swiftest and most searing.

Yes, I hear from saplings at banks that they’ve seen all their friends fired and they’re so underused that they’d like to quit. Yes, I hear from wealthy people that their stocks are worthless. But do I see gloom and doom in their faces? Have I noticed people staying home at night? Have I seen, as the surveys claim, that hemlines are turning long and Penthouse models are large, earthy types?

No. Reed-thin models are still on magazine covers. Hemlines are high, as are chins, determined to party like never before – perhaps even harder.

Black-tie charity dinners continue apace, with the women dressed to kill. At a movie premiere recently I heard a media executive brag about his bonus (oblivious, apparently, to how sensitive a subject this is on Wall Street). And a tycoon held a dinner party the other night where the only sign that anything was amiss was that the host – who would ordinarily have his ear attached to his cellphone – is so bored he’s smoking pot. “I preferred it when I was poor and busy,” he said.

Even an economist at the New York Federal Reserve told me he’s been perplexed by the time-lag between the appalling state of the economy and people’s reactions – especially in New York.

If you look hard you see small signs of change. At book launches, people swill wine instead of water and linger instead of leaving. People debate the financial collapse endlessly but as if it were a theoretical scenario far away on another planet not connected to them. Even a retailer I visited was positive. “It’s all about Dubai now,” he told me.

So either we’re all in denial, putting on a desperate façade, or as the brainy man from the NY Fed told me, the market is simply moving faster than us humans, who will soon wake up to our moment of reckoning. Then the party will really be over. But for now we’re squeezing out every last drop. V

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How I Became an Expert on High-Class Hookers

Recently, CNBC interviewed me for an hour-long special documentary on high-class prostitution, due to air on November 11 at 10pm and 1am — a date and time when hopefully we will no longer be worried about politics and our minds will be back on the important stuff: illegal sex.

CNBC just posted a promotional clip for the documentary, and just in case my parents see it, I would like to clarify the following:

1. I became a so-called expert on this subject only because of my research and report on the late “D.C. Madam” Jeane Palfrey for Vanity Fair.

I found what she, her employees, and some of clients said sufficiently fascinating to follow up with some research on other high-class madams, such as the late Madam Alex in California (famous for supplying the world’s richest men with extraordinarily beautiful women) and the French courtesan Madame Claude (who was arguably the best madam ever: legend has it she transformed street girls into women so stunning intellectually as well as physically that they often married her very powerful clientele).

I also started to cast around and ask what was going on in New York and across America. I wanted to know about the risks people take to be with prostitutes: what happens in an encounter with a woman at the top end of the profession? Why would a man risk everything for an exchange with a stranger?

The simplest answer, I found, lay in the word “risk.” That’s the point. The men — often high-rollers in finance, government, or industry — want, need even, to be made to feel vulnerable. There’s the thrill, and the reward.

2. I myself am not a high-class prostitute. Nor even a low-class one. It is true that Palfrey, even in the face of prosecution, made the startling suggestion that I would make an ideal employee. Given that she hired women who were both educated — they had college degrees — and extraordinarily attractive, I will not deny, partly, that this suggestion was as flattering as it was comic. However, despite the credit crisis, I have not yet felt any inner call suggesting I make my body my vocation. So note to the vice squad: please, no calls.

How I Became an Expert on High-Class Hookers

Vicky Ward on ProstitutionRecently, CNBC interviewed me for an hour-long special documentary on high-class prostitution, due to air on November 11 at 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. ET—a date when hopefully we will no longer be worried about politics and our minds will be back on the important stuff: illegal sex.CNBC just posted a promotional clip for the documentary, and just in case my parents see it, I would like to clarify the following:

1) I became a so-called expert on this subject only because of my research and report on the late “D.C. Madam” Jeane Palfrey for Vanity Fair.

I found what she, her employees, and some of clients said sufficiently fascinating to follow up with some research on other high-class madams, such as the late Madam Alex in California (famous for supplying the world’s richest men with extraordinarily beautiful women) and the French courtesan Madame Claude (who was arguably the best madam ever: legend has it she transformed street girls into women so stunning intellectually as well as physically that they often married her very powerful clientele).

I also started to cast around and ask what was going on in New York and across America. I wanted to know about the risks people take to be with prostitutes: what happens in an encounter with a woman at the top end of the profession? Why would a man risk everything for an exchange with a stranger?

The simplest answer, I found, lay in the word “risk.” That’s the point. The men—often high-rollers in finance, government, or industry—want, need even, to be made to feel vulnerable. There’s the thrill, and the reward.

2) I myself am not a high-class prostitute. Nor even a low-class one. It is true that Palfrey, even in the face of prosecution, made the startling suggestion that I would make an ideal employee. Given that she hired women who were both educated—they had college degrees—and extraordinarily attractive, I will not deny, partly, that this suggestion was as flattering as it was comic. However, despite the credit crisis, I have not yet felt any inner call suggesting I make my body my vocation. So note to the vice squad: please, no calls. V

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Cancel Christmas – sorry, but no one gets anything this year

Given that it hasn’t yet got properly cold here, it feels like a very strange hallucination. In a naked effort to make us forget that we are living in an economic meltdown, the stores are full of Christmas trees and fairy lights. Their illusion makes you feel you are in some sort of dream world – everyone is friendly, everything is cheap. Never mind what the news says about the collapsing auto industry, all is just fine and cheery.

The major department stores have begun their holiday sales, with 40 per cent discounts, a month early. The high-end designers, too, have been holding secret friends-and-family sample sales, desperate to find any way to lure consumers into parting with some of the dollars currently held tightly in our fists.

I will admit to sneaking into a few of the above – I mean, who can resist an email that says the following:

1) This is for you and a select few only. Do Not Pass On.

2) Dresses reduced from thousands to as little as $100 ..?

I didn’t read points three and four – one and two were enough to get me through the relevant door in the garment district at the appointed hour. After all, I reasoned, what’s the harm in just looking?

I’d expected to see the lines of women that are the usual nightmare at high-end sample sales but to my surprise I was the only visitor at one major label: not a good sign. Nor was the fact that as I tried on a couple of things, a tailor was right on hand to help me in case I wanted something to fit better. When does one ever get service like this, I mulled as I looked from the tailor to my reflection in the mirror?

The answer was right there in the glass: when one is a gullible idiot who believes a dress that doesn’t quite fit and you wouldn’t ordinarily choose is worth buying if it’s one-fifth of the price you’d have paid for it six months ago in a shop.

I took it off, said a polite goodbye to the fitter and retreated to the inner sanctum of harsh reality: home.

That night I watched yet more commercials for holiday gifts and made a mental note. Other than the kids who can have a couple of presents each, no one else gets anything this year. Sorry. Those fairy lights will not make a fool out of me. V

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How Poor Are You?

“How poor are you?” That’s what formerly rich guys ranging from hedge-fund kings and tech pioneers to bankers and trust-fund heirs are now asking each other at dinners around town.

This group doesn’t care who ends up buying Wachovia. That’s all background news; just one more sorry piece of detail in the carnage of a lost battle that’s left them ruined. None believes US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan or its revisions can stave off devastation.

For a society that has pretended not to talk about money, while caring about little else, suddenly the experience of being nouveau pauvre is all that’s on everyone’s lips.

Startlingly, Manhattan bankers who once flew private, had yachts, homes, wives and servants, and owned art worth hundreds of millions, are not afraid to say: “We’ve lost everything.”

Some of them even compare themselves with workers in Detroit: “At least I’m not as badly hit as that,” they say.

Well, thank goodness for the reality check.

Last Friday night at a birthday party given for 200 of the former rich at a downtown circus where socialites wore jeans and the bar was open one financier asked about 10 other men in turn: “So how much have you lost?” All said: “Too much or enough to be ruinous.”

People are even openly asking: “Dumped the wife yet? If not, why not? You hate her; she hates you. Now, you’ve nothing to lose …”

On Saturday, I was invited to a baby shower. At the last moment we were called to be told: Absolutely No Gifts, Please. Social liberation is the upside of what many fear will be the most harrowing few years anyone under 80 has experienced. One financier was so troubled not just by the fact that he’s lost his millions but also by the effective collapse of government that he told me he is planning to retire to study government and to develop a think-tank to ensure we never see a breakdown like this one ever again.

There was talk of the end of America as a superpower. “We’re done. Watch China rise,” people are saying. Yet a few loners weren’t about to quit. “This is the time to put our thinking caps on and innovate,” said a Silicon Valley overlord. Well, let’s hope he’s thinking hard. With Wall Street in tatters, Silicon Valley may be our last hope. V

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My night of joy, then exhaustion dawns

F or a moment last week, around midnight on Tuesday, we all went mad with joy. Mad in a way I’ve never seen or heard. As I went to bed around 4am I could still hear the screams from people in the street: “We did it!” Emails came in from friends the next day: “I’m still drunk; you?”

No, I wasn’t, but nonetheless the relief that we were finally free of the reign of George W. Bush was still flowing through my veins.

And then? Then, exhaustion. The market fell and it was time to return to reality. This is the time that employers have promised they will make their job cuts – after the election. We face the holiday season with abysmal figures in the retail sector and unemployment rising.

People are moving out of the city in droves to the cheaper suburbs. Suddenly coveted spaces in private schools, once impossible to get into, are open. Sales reps are calling to notify consumers of 40 per cent reductions, desperate to fill their empty stores.

I went to get my hair cut on election day. My hairdresser’s wife had just been laid off. They have a new baby and he is deeply worried about how he is going to get by. “Eighty per cent of my female clients either work on Wall Street or are married to people on Wall Street,” he said. “They’re stretching out their appointments from every eight weeks to 10. And the men, they come in here and try to make jokes – but each one says the same joke and it’s not even funny.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m earning half the money – and I’m still stuck with the wife.”

He’s right. It’s not funny.

Last night I watched the movie Kit Kittredge starring Abigail Breslin; it’s a tale of how grim life was in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1934 when houses were foreclosed, respectable people became outlawed “hobos” and even the most resilient of spirits could be trampled on. All the friends I was watching it with couldn’t take it. They left. “Just too depressing,” said one.

By the end I was the only one watching, perhaps because it shows a resourceful 10-year-old aspiring journalist getting her first story into print. “Never give up,” her father, played by Chris O’Donnell had told her. I’ll try to remember that in the coming months. V

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Why ‘Thrift Chic’ Comes As A Relief

Last week saw not just the initial failure of Hank Paulson’s bail-out bill, but also the death of the $800 bottle of wine.

“It’s just not OK to have that on your expenses at a time like this,” one restaurateur says he has been told by banker clients. In this cut-throat world of mergers and firings, one imagines the quickest route to being fired would be to get carried away with a client and put a particularly fine Château Margaux on the office tab.

Inevitably, the owners of New York’s 22,000 restaurants are worried about how to survive the downturn. In previous periods, many have had to close, bringing that number down to 16,000.

According to Alex Von Bidder, co-owner of the Four Seasons — the ultimate power-lunch hot spot in Midtown — the answer is to be careful in good times as well as bad. “We never sell $800 bottles of wine,” he tells me. “In these times we know we lose the bankers who’d come in from the suburbs on a Friday or Saturday night, so we are careful about pricing, staffing, etc. It’s about quality, not quantity.”

Indeed I notice that lunch or dinner companions are more careful than usual about what they order: it’s one course, not two, and no coffee.

But then everyone is trimming back — and, for once, there’s no shame in it. If they used to take limos, now they take taxis; if they took taxis, now they take the bus or subway. I’ve also seen society women scale back their requests from friends for philanthropic money. Those just seem tactless at a time like this, despite their valid arguments that charities are losing out too.

Ironically, people are buying more designer clothes — because they’re on sale. Salespeople call to say they’re willing to come to your home to show you clothes if you haven’t time to visit the stores.

Private clubs are also increasingly the preferred dining spot for many New Yorkers. These are no longer aimed at rich wealthy Upper East Siders. One hot club is the Montauk Club in Brooklyn; it invites members to bring families and friends, but it costs $500 a year.

So thrift is the new chic in New York — and, as one dinner companion and I reflected on it last week, we felt relieved. “It’s almost like people can really be themselves for the first time,” he said. “There’s no longer that need to pretend to be something you are not. The reign of Gatsby is over.”