I don’t empathise with Scaramucci. But political pranksters aren’t funny | Peter Bradshaw | Opinion
Wouldn’t you need a heart of stone not to laugh along with “Sinon Rebornâ€, the hoaxer from Manchester who tricked White House staff with his phoney emails? He wound up poor Anthony Scaramucci into a volcanic rage by baiting him in the fake persona of former chief of staff Reince Priebus â€" whom Scaramucci has now joined on history’s scrapheap.
Just as the nuclear situation in North Korea gets tense and calm heads are needed, Donald Trump’s courtiers can be tricked into screaming alpha-storms of arrogant anger. And how will they vent their feelings, do you suppose? However, my enjoyment of this was clouded by memories of a very strange man called Michael “Rocky†Ryan, who repeatedly hoaxed British newspapers in the 1980s with false stories about Lord Lucan, Shergar and others. He claimed to be behind loads of “scoopsâ€, but you never knew if he was just bragging. Then something deeply horrible happened.
In 1990 the Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft was executed on a nonsensical spying charge by Saddam Hussein’s government. Ryan had recently lost a British court case with Bazoft. He later claimed that, in revenge, he had pranked the Iraqis, telling them Bazoft was a spy. Was that a stupid lie? Or might he actually have punked Saddam? Even now that case makes me queasy. And if Trump’s cohorts are as gullible and excitable as Saddam’s were, then maybe hoaxing isn’t that funny after all.
How not to say sorry
Connoisseurs of the non-apology will have savoured the display of black-belt impenitence from Kevin Myers, the columnist sacked from the Sunday Times’s Irish edition for his antisemitic remarks about Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkleman. In response to Feltz’s complaint about his column â€" “so obviously racist it’s surprisingly hurtful†â€" Myers has said: “Speaking as I think, and sometimes you can make the wrong noises, I have been gravely insulted by them. A stigma has been placed on the name Kevin Myers which I don’t deserve. I’m not blaming them.â€
So he’s not “blaming†the two women he insulted (only one of whom has in fact responded). How decent of him! But perhaps it’s worth remembering that this whole row began with a classic zero-apology. His offending column was headlined: “Sorry, ladies …†It’s the textbook non-sorry: the “sorry†that says: “Sorry if my tough-love common sense plain talking offends your snowflake sensibilities.†In other words, not sorry. But Myers is now sorry. For himself.
Art for whose sake?
My innocent pleasure this summer is Riviera, the Sky Atlantic TV drama created by Neil Jordan, set in the outrageously seedy-glam Côte d’Azur. The basic premise isn’t a bad one. The art market is the last great unregulated wild west of speculation. Huge values are assigned to artworks â€" and the resulting colossal profits mean wealthy attractive people in swimwear lying next to infinity pools in Antibes, Cannes and Monte Carlo.
I had a Riviera moment when I heard about a row in Canada involving the sale of an important collection of Annie Leibovitz photographs. A wealthy patron of the arts, Harley Mintz, bought 2,070 original Leibovitz pictures for $4.75m in 2012 â€" then donated them to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax. He made the donation in his mother’s memory. But he happens also to be eligible for a tax deduction.
Now, having taken soundings from three independent appraisers, the gallery has submitted a new valuation of its patron’s donation to the Canadian government â€" $20m.
• Peter Bradshaw is a Guardian columnist
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