I have just returned from the Cannes film festival, in whose many packed and disorderly parties I witnessed a strange new mannerism, which had to be explained to me by the showbusiness lawyer I was with: right-to-left scoping. Now, we have all had the experience. Someone you’re talking to shifts their glance over your shoulder, and then they reluctantly return their gaze to yours. They have clearly spotted someone more important and must wind up this tiresome conversation with you as soon as decently possible. But this is different. Loads of people seemed to be raking the crowds with their gaze continuously, right to left, even while talking.
My friend explained to me that this “scoping” has been borrowed from the security services. The right-to-left visual sweep is important because if you just let your eyes drift left to right, like reading text, you’ll miss important things in the crowd. So you force your eyes against the grain, right to left. In this way, special branch or the Mossad can spot the flash of a knife or the glint of a revolver in the crowd: and an ambitious director or actor will register a glimpse of Harvey Weinstein’s stubble through a densely packed party at 3am.
A monument to self-belief
Now that all of our politicians cultivate a faux-modest air of ordinariness and self-deprecation, it’s a relief to see some real honesty in a leader. The president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has this week unveiled a gigantic 21-metre statue of himself in marble, bronze and gold in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat – after his administration announced that public demands for such a statue had become impossible to ignore.
The marble part of the monument is like the rocky outcrop on which the new lion-cub prince is held aloft in the Lion King, and Berdymukhamedov is depicted on horseback at its pinnacle, proudly holding up a dove. Our correspondent Shaun Walker reports that the monument resembles the statue that Catherine the Great erected in honour of Peter the Great. Either way, this is what I call irony-free self-promotion: perhaps even Sacha Baron Cohen wouldn’t dare to dream up such a ruler. Before he became president, Berdymukhamedov was a dentist. If he attained high office in this country, his statue might show him sheepishly holding up a bottle of Listerine and some flossing string. At least some politicians have a little self-belief.
Moral guidance for Fifa
What horribly dark days these are for football’s governing body Fifa. How far up and down the Fifa chain of command does the guilt reach? Everyone there must be experiencing a terrible crisis. If you have ever worn a Fifa blazer, you must right now be in the purest ethical agony. What path should you take in this dark forest of footballing disquiet? Fortunately, moral guidance is at hand from a trio of souls appointed by Sepp Blatter in 2011 to attend to precisely this kind of problem: Fifa’s very own “council of wisdom” – there to lend guidance. This remarkable body consists of Plácido Domingo, Henry Kissinger and Johan Cruyff. I tried telephoning Fifa’s Zurich headquarters to ask if the council of wisdom was now in permanent emergency session. My queries fell on stony ground. But presumably Henry, Johan and Plácido are right now locked away in their own council of wisdom chamber, brainstorming some moral solution to the crisis. Plácido may occasionally be breaking into an aria of Fifa-related despair. Let us pray they find a solution. If they cannot, they might give themselves a wisdom boost by appointing Tony Blair as the fourth Fifa wisdom councillor, now that he is no longer burdened by the Middle East.
@PeterBradshaw1