London is the International Place to Be! (But save your pennies if you want to buy a house here!)

LONDON IS THE INTERNATIONAL PLACE TO BE, I have just found out. The local news reported on Sunday that more billionaires now live here than in any other city on earth. When I moved to London in 1996, Time magazine and other American publications were reporting that we were "swinging" again (presumably like we used to do in the 1960s) ~ that Britannia was again cool. In 1998, Madonna came here. She met her husband-to-be Guy Richie in 1999 and married him the next year.

Before I came here I did look into the possibility of migrating to New York City, but for a nobody like me who had only ever worked in menial office jobs the visa regulations were so forbidding that I didn't even bother (and I never have been the type of person who would wing it and live as an illegal alien!) But then I came here and found that everything I'd wanted of New York, London actually did better; I'm talking about dance clubs, theatre, museums, parks, art and culture in general. What London never has done as well as New York is self-promotion. I have always known far more about the "high society" of New York than I do here ~ perhaps because America has more celebrity names and, until recently, had far more famous billionaires than London ~ all of which made the city seem as glamorous to me as its sparkling skyline. The billionaires who have chosen London today comprise an international set, and most of them seem to come from Russia or Asia.


As a result, house prices at the top end are absolutely ludicrous, with properties going on the market with asking prices in excess of $100 million. Posh Spice and David Beckham recently moved back here into a £40 million ($67.3 million) double-fronted Kensington townhouse. In late 2012, a rather nondescript property on one of our "billionaires' rows" (Bishop's Avenue, Hampstead) went on the market for £100 million ($168.3 million) with the cheeky estate agents demanding £5000 ($8410.50) just for the brochure. And nobody was allowed a viewing without first purchasing said booklet.

So why of all places is London so internationally appealing?Well partly it has to do with so-called "non-dom" (non-domiciled) tax regulations, where if you come in and live here on earnings from businesses outside the UK you can get by paying no UK income tax at all! British immigration and visa requirements have always been more liberal (for example, the USA demand to know whether visa applicants have ever been arrested (not convicted of anything ~ just arrested!) Britain is far more laissez-faire and you'll only run into trouble if you've done prison for more than four years. We're geographically closer to much of the rest of the world than New York. The climate is milder (and contrary to myth it doesn't rain all the time!) British private schools are said to be among the best in the world (though the same cannot be said about the state sector).

I suppose most cities are nice places to live when you have a net worth in nine figures. And London is a wonderful place. That said, I would really like to see the Big Apple for myself. Every time I see a film set there, I spend as much time focusing on the beautiful backdrop of New York City's streets than on the rest of the action. I suppose billionaires will always go where it's most convenient to be a billionaire and if that means London then so be it. But I have to say, if I ever did have £40 million to spend on a house, I'm not sure I would buy where everybody else does. (I'd actually rather have a large apartment with roof terrace than a house ~ wouldn't you?)

Hmmm anyway. Anybody planning to become a billionaire in the near future is welcome to comment on whether they're most likely to opt for London or New York City as their primary place of residence and why... in the meantime, best of luck to all of you in your attempts to cross that pesky barrier dividing £999,999.99 from the crème de la crème of this wonderful world of ours!

Illustrated: downdown Manhattan viewed from Central Park; the Beckhams' $67 million London mansion; $167 million house in London; One57 building in New York ~ the penthouse has already sold for $95 million; The Shard building in London with apartments for up to $83.6 million ~ and you don't even get a terrace!; One Hyde Park in London ~ not our prettiest development, but one of the smartest addresses in the metropolis and at least you get a balcony! Prices range from £3.6 million ($6,059,547.48) for a one-bed to £136 million for a penthouse (wouldn't you just love to take 2 and knock them together?!) ~ and by the way £136 million calculates to precisely $228,916,238.27 ~ do you think they'd accept $228916238.26??

Monte Carlo Cool

I HAVE JUST ENDURED yet another session of crapping on about drugs in a group. It's so exhausting having to be respectful of other people's sobriety when really all I wanted to say and ~ ha! ~ I did say it was ~ WHAT'S SO WRONG WITH TAKING HEROIN ANYWAY? The only thing wrong with it, as far as I can see is that it's too expensive and illegal.

So when I was put the inevitable question: So why do you want to stop? And do you actually want to stop? I said Well I wanna stop because I'm so BORED of being a junkie and besides it's socially unacceptable and now I'm old I wanna be respectable and not just a great inflated raving hypocrite who still uses on the sly (like Valerie, Australia and the world's Greatest Housewife Heroin Dealer).

Also I intend to become the Andy Warhol of my generation (and I'm not put off by being "old": old, after all, is the new young). I wanna do something new with my life and I don't want to do it on drugs. By Andy Warhol,

I mean the Andy Warhol of children's books. Something like that. Also I want to become a great painter because new canvasses can go for millions these days. Also I plan on becoming a shameless social climber. Well I want to meet interesting people: great artists, fashion designers, photographers, writers, polar explorers and the like. I'd like to meet a real live titled aristocrat ~ just for the novelty value. I've never knowingly met a true upper class person in all my entire life. The crème de la crème of international society shall flock to my fabulous club nights. They will be like a more glamorous Monte Carlo version of Studio 54 (I won't live in London when I'm rich ~ the taxes are too high). I'm also planning to go into business setting things up and finding things for people with too much money and not enough time. Example: if Elizabeth Taylor were alive and wanted to dispose of her Bulgari emeralds on the quiet, I'd broker the deal for her. (Why do you think I want to mix with the rich and the fabulous? To make money off them, of course!) I'd specialize in houses, yachts, planes, art and jewellery. All the stuff I really love! I might also set up an introduction agency for billionaires who want to find heiresses who aren't gold diggers. That would be a good one. I'd make my introduction fee a cool quarter million euros ($322,450.28)... Would that be too much? Or not enough? I don't want to sell myself short...

Anyway back to the drugs. Boring, huh. No more drugs for me. I haven't used for two whole days! Or three actually... maybe... whatever... I can't remember.

There's not much else to post except my elevated mood is falling! How terrible is that. I hate feeling human and fallible and normal. I actually deigned to pick up my writing last night and the last page I wrote was amazing. I wrote it when I thought I was in a hurry or couldn't concentrate and it just goes to show that genuis is unreliable. Because usually when I write something I think is marvellous it turns out to be crap!

Here's some hardcore trance music. Do you know I've just found out the music I really like is called "hard trance" ~ how pathetic is that? To love something dearly your whole life through (from 1998 onwards) and not even know the name of it? As per usual the first track is crap but about 4 mins in it starts getting good (that's the "Dreams" track I posted up before). And I really like the one after it that sounds like aliens in the forest sawing away at a Giant Redwood-sized magic mushroom....



Illustrated: Monte Carlo; Andy Warhol; Elizabeth Taylor's Bulgari emeralds that I want to sell...
BTW: the whole lot went for $24,799,000 (£15,871,360/€19,095,230) ~ which I suppose is a reasonable price but I'm sure I could have got more... but hey if I took just a 5% cut of that, I'd have $1,239,950 (£793,568/€954,761.50) ~ not bad for a day's work...

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Death of the Billion Dollar Junkie

EVA RAUSING, 48 year-old wife of Hans Rausing, 49, heir to the £5 billion ($8 billion) Tetra Pak drink carton fortune, has been found dead at the couple's £50 million ($80 million) Belgravia mansion here in London.

Eva made the news in 2008 after she was busted attemptedly bringing heroin and crack into a reception at the American embassy in Mayfair. Their home was raided and about £2000 worth of crack cocaine seized. For this she was sternly reprimanded by the Metropolitan Police and then let off scott-free ~ a move that was roundly criticized at the time.

The daughter of a top American Pepsi Cola executive, Eva met Hans at an American rehabilitation centre in the 1990s. Despite giving millions to drug charities, the couple continued to be plagued by their own addictions.

Hans was stopped for bad driving on Tuesday night and found to be in possession of crack cocaine. His home was then raided, leading to the discovery of his wife's dead body in a bedroom. Police suspect that he lived with her corpse for over a week. It is expected that Mr Rausing, who is currently undergoing in-patient psychiatric care, will be charged with concealing the dead body.

What else can I say? What a sad, sad tale. Proof, as if any more were needed, that though it can pay for just about everything else, money cannot buy happiness.


London Evening Standard ~ Heiress Eva's drug agony: I fell into dark hole of addiction

Eva Rausing's Myspace Page


PS The term "junkie" refers to the "junk" heroin addicts take. I call myself a junkie too!



BARBRA STREISAND: YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE
This Rogers and Hammerstein track is most famous in the UK as fans' theme tune for Liverpool Football club!