Doing 2011 the Roman way

Mr Abramovich threw a 5 million pound bash at the complex he bought recently at Governor Bay on St Barts.

Mr A bought the complex, shown on the R, in 2009. (The photo was taken by Laurent Benoit, famous for great shots of megayachts, and the marina at St Barts, where he lives). It comprises 70 acres and cost approx. 90 million dollars, which makes it one of the most expensive private properties ever sold.

 It consists of a cluster of cottages round a main villa, open Balinese bungalow-style buildings,  so it's apparently like you're living on the beach.  Personally, I've never liked the sound of this, a bit like a super version of carry-on-camping - not for me.  I wouldn't turn it down if it was offered, mind you, but I'd sell it on immediately and find something a little more civilised.

As the for the NY Eve do, well, absolutely everybody who was anybody in the entertainment world seemed to be there and they're all listed in the popular papers, all predictable, and so I want bother naming them all. You know who they are, anyway: the surgically beautiful Miss Demi Moore and her like and the shoals of pretty little things who swarm around the big fish as they cruise the world's oceans on their megayachts.

 Lots of money sloshing around and every entertainment money can buy - including underwater speakers and a swim-up bar - but as I've said before, wealth does not necessarily equate with power, and show-biz wealth, outside the flimsy world of illusion the celeb/showbiz crowd inhabit, definitely doesn't equate with real power in the real world.  So, who were the really powerful people at that shindig? As often, the really interesting people didn't get a mention and no doubt very wisely kept well away from the cameras.

 So let's move on, nothing interesting to see here.

And by the photo of Roman in the Daily Maily, he's bored by the whole thing. After all, he's done it so often before.  Maybe he's just doing it for Daria Zhukova ('Dasha' to her friends), his present partner.
This photo was taken by BigPicturePhotos( this is quite a routine one for them, for they do take the most magnificent photos). 

I'm a great admirer of Abramovich, he survived the fire-storm of the fall of Communism. He deserves everything he's got - for his courage, his brain power, and for holding his nerve when so many others lost their's. He remains one of the oligarchs who is still safe in his own country.  He remains a friend of Vladimir. He hasn't made any mistakes. Machiavelli would bow before him. And I mean that as a compliment.

 Intelligence is not much good if it doesn't go hand in hand with the survival instinct. I don't see any intelligence in deliberately alienating  people who have real power, unless you're pretty sure you have the resources and back up to win them round to your views.  Otherwise you end up like poor old unwise Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in all Russia, and now languishing in a prison cell in Sibera. Where's the sense in that?

So that's the end of the NY celebrations - back to more serious things tomorrow.