Plumping For Paranoia

I did not escape entirely unscathed from my fine dinner with Warren Buffett. I, along with my chauffeur Ahmed, had returned him to his hotel. At the entrance, the paparazzi thronged; apparently Britney was giving a concert at a hockey arena, a not entirely inappropriate venue for La Spears, and they were awaiting her return. Ahmed and I managed a quick escape, but Warren was recognized, and immediately besieged with questions. Not on finance, mind you, but on just who was the lady he had been with. (They had glimpsed me briefly in the back of the limousine). He replied as he made his way through the crush, "Oh, that was the Sibyl of Cumae."

Oh, good on you, I thought, as he let me know in a later telephone call, and both of us wondered just how the tabloid media would handle that little bit of classical information. We were not long in finding out.

A week later, my butler Irving brought one of the tabloids to my attention. The headline screamed "Daring Buffett Dines with Reclusive Soap Heiress!" What on earth?

I read further. Apparently the reporter, lacking a sound education, thought Sibyl of Cumae was someone with the surname Camay, "the soap of beautiful women" (if memory serves). A long, long way from a Greek oracle at Cumae, near Naples. I could only recall Cicero: "O tempora! O mores!"

But yes, I am frightened by the paparazzi, or indeed any unwanted publicity, something I share with the English Royals. It's too bad all this happens in the current age. In an earlier time, paparazzi would have found themselves in the Tower, where the perpetrators could have been properly re-educated. One way or the other.

But why this fear? Well, if you were the subject of four fatwas, all asking for a beheading, you might be a little antsy too. Not that I couldn't cope with these louts on an even playing field (such as a dark alley) but there really is no defence other than obscurity against the long gun. A trained sniper on a rooftop presents problems with which I'd rather not contend. So the less publicity, the better.

Yet one must continue to act, to take chances, if you will, and I keep in my mind the following. There is a mountain located on the Trans-Canada Highway between Calgary and Banff, called The Three Sisters. Legend has it that a Blackfoot chief placed each of his daughters on a separate peak to keep them away from unworthy suitors. The strategy succeeded so well that the three daughters died up there.

Hell, even old Wotan gave Brunnhilde a better chance than that.