Attention attention LiS readers! Loathe as I am to counsel you to take note of a far inferior rival, it is my duty to instruct you to go out and buy the Independent. My friends, The Independent - the Independent! - has done a cover story - cover! - on the battle between Tinsley Mortimer and Olivia Palermo.
Now, for those of you who have a life or don't read The Independent (and I suspect there may be a correlation between the two) Tinsley and Olivia are two self-proclaimed New York socialites. Gripped already, aincha? Anyway, blah blah, something about a forged letter to a socialite website, blah blah blah the upshot was, Tinsley and Olivia got their Oscar de la Renta gowns all in a twist over who got the best seating at gripping events like charity dinners for the American School of Ballet and Zac Posen eye shadow launches.
So as you can, see a truly earth shattering story, one that the Independent thought worthy of trumpeting on their masthead and devoting two double paged spreads to, replete with captioned photos of the main American socialites, should any Independent readers be caught sitting next to them at the next Plum Sykes baby shower and need to know which oil companies their father owns.
Oddest of all, The Independent actually bought this story from another publication - in other words, they paid what little cash they have left as opposed to just making one of their remaining six staff writers knock it out for free. And not just any publication, but New York magazine, Now, New York magazine is one of my favourite magazines in the world but that is probably because I am, in fact, a New Yorker. It's a magazine completely devoted to, as the name suggests, local issues. So for the Independent to buy an article from it would be like Le Monde purchasing a piece from Time Out.
I have to admit, I'm impressed. Impressed that the Indescribablyboring, to purloin the Private Eye's nickname for this studentishly self-righteous paper, has at last stepped down off of its daily campaigning perch and into my level. Impressed, too, that it seems to think the biography of a young woman called Byrdie Bell is as important as, to quote the front page headline, "the hidden cause of global warming", seeing as it devotes the same amount of space to both, i.e., a full page.
I am less pleased that they have stolen LiS' logo, with the shooting stars speckling the background of the photos, but any irritation is mitigated by the thought that this suggests that Marina and I exist in the same universe as Zani Gugelmann and Lydia Hearst-Shaw.
I am impressed, too, at the Independent's thoughtfulness for Marina's and my welfare. This story, surely, beats the Ralph Lauren pants off of LiS in terms of odd oasis of superficiality in an otherwise cerebral and lofty organ and will thus, presumably, distract all the bloggers out there weeping in their keyboards about the sad decline of the Guardian, signified by our existence. So thank you, Simon Kelner, thank you.
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