No News No Shoes

Masters of the universe out, political correctness in – boy is the long road to economic recovery going to be boring, predicts abcmallorca lifestyle guru, Adrienne Cullen.

It’s been one heck of a year! Last summer seems like several lifetimes ago. In the meantime, excess and self-indulgence have become the new capital crimes – and those of us who manage to get away from it all during Summer 2009 may never want to go back.

One of the strangest things about this utterly unprecedented global meltdown – as my girlfriends and I were discussing over a relaxing light lunch at the new Simply Fosh at Convent de la Mision the other day – is the way traditional roles have so rapidly been reversed.

Masters of the Universe – who previously owned and ran everything that mattered and made damn sure you knew it – are suddenly penniless, or at least down to their last few tens of millions, which they have absolutely no intention of squandering on their shareholders.

And, for the time being anyway, the meek appear to be inheriting the earth, or what’s left of it. So expect the next decade to see newly-appointed financial regulators, green and broadly-left-of-centre politicians, and greasy-haired anti-globalization protestors getting their own back.

I suppose it’s a matter of global equilibrium …

So, where, you ask, do I stand in all of this? My view is very simple. I plan to let them all at it and adopt a cunning no-news no-shoes strategy, at least between now and the end of September. Our politically-correct American cousins would probably call it “taking time out” – or “a mental health break”.

Let’s face it, the Masters of the Universe – and the Mistresses too, I must concede – really screwed things up, and but for their stalwart Swiss and Lichtenstein bankers wouldn’t have a euro left between them. (Not for nothing do they say in Lichtenstein, by the way, that “Swiss bankers are born to a strict code of discretion – but Lichtenstein bankers are born without tongues!)

Unfortunately, my prediction about the new lot is that they’re going to be deadly earnest and absolutely no fun at all. If they do have the good taste to come here to Mallorca for a Summer break they’re likely to be the ones wearing grey socks with their sandals – and tormenting super-talented Michelin-starred restaurateurs with wholly irrational demands for vegan menus.

So not only is the road to economic recovery likely to be long and boring, it might, in fact, be the very same road as the one referred to in He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, that awful sanctimonious old 1969 ballad by The Hollies .. “The road is long, with many a winding turn, which leads us to who knows where, who knows when …”

The lyrics, according to Wikipedia, are by the unwisely-named Rufus Wainwright, to whom – if he’s still alive – I would say this: perhaps it’s time for a tarted-up re-release under the timely title, Economic Recovery Rap. It could be a nice little earner.

In the meantime, my friends and I are planning to add a book circle to our weekly lunch chez Fosh. Over excellent espresso – though without petits fours, of course (unless they’re complementary) – our first choice next week will be Atlas Shrugged by the mysterious Russian-American, Ayn Rand.

To those of you who haven’t read it, read it now.

First published in 1957, it’s about a “strike” by America’s most talented businessmen (women didn’t feature in those days, apparently), the “Atlases” who support the US economy on their under-appreciated shoulders. The strike precipitates anarchy and a restructuring of society along free-market lines.

You can see how this appeals to our rip-roaring girlie circle – who call ourselves The Keynesians – after the economist, John Maynard Keynes, by the way …

Well, according to The Financial Times and The Ayn Rand Institute in California, Atlas Shrugged is experiencing a remarkable revival. Despite its age, sales of the novel have always ticked along nicely. But according to the Rand Institute – www.aynrand.org – twice as many copies were sold in the US in 2008 as in 2007, with three times the 2007 total sold in the first seven weeks of 2009 alone.

So who was Rand? Born Alisa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg in 1905, she saw her father’s pharmacy confiscated by the Bolsheviks in 1917, before escaping to America, changing her name, becoming a script-reader for Cecil B. deMille, studying economics and reading Nietzsche … something the Keynesians plan to do after dealing with Atlas Shrugged. Anyway, no wonder she developed a lifelong abhorrence of collectivism, is all I can say!

Our circle has already had a preliminary look at the book and figure the only person to play the part of Ayn Rand in the movie is Julia Roberts, who’s getting on a bit but still commands a decent audience.

And before you tell me that Rand herself isn’t actually in the novel … yes, I know that! But we figure the film should be a moving story of self-sacrifice and survival against overwhelming odds, and that Rand herself should be the heroine – rather than another bunch of self-serving old Fifties-style Masters of the Universe.

And we’re thinking … let’s see … craggy Daniel Craig as John Galt, about whom you’ll find out more once you read the book.

Anyway, if you feel like joining our book circle, we meet at Simply Fosh every Wednesday lunchtime, and the only requirements are to be pretty, witty, insightful and well-versed in popular culture and economics.

We usually start with a glass of something light and sparkling – and I don’t mean water – before working our way through the reasonably-priced Menu del Dia – and once we’ve quenched our bodily appetites (or some of them anyway), we move onto the intellectual ones over coffee.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Ayn Rand ever visited Mallorca? It would be a much more colourful setting for the movie. And maybe Daniel Craig could play Marc Fosh, the dashing chef who distracts Rand from the horrors of collectivism. I can see it now: the first Summer hit of the post-recession era.