David Cameron (top row, second from left) and Boris Johnson (bottom right) with other toffs at Oxford
In writing this article about the exclusive social networking site aSmallWorld, I really wanted to stumble across the kind of scandal and corruption that would bring the Conservative party, Shell Oil and a cabal of investment banking firms to their knees. I wanted to reveal to the world that there’s this secret and exclusive online social network that the world’s masters, the Lord Mandelsons and Bill Gates of this world, use to meet fellow evil-doers, bringing forth solid evidence that the wild conspiracy theories out there are actually true. I wanted to reveal the secrets of a dastardly online boys’ club of outrageous embezzlement and debauchery, with government officials posting status updates detailing their explicit dealings with drug barons, photo galleries of men in pinstripes cackling as they pump toxic waste into third world water supplies, and Italian prime ministers pimping it in jacuzzis with hookers.
So I set about logging into aSW with my stolen password, in search of the next Watergate. The site refers to itself as ‘a private online community for those who already have strong connections with one another. By invitation only.’ It sounds very much like the online companion to the Bilderberg group, which conspiracy theorists claim is the meeting point for members of the world’s shadowy elite, or the ‘Illuminati’. After logging in, my first task was to search for every member of the Shadow Cabinet in the hope that should one of their ranks be a member, the Tories could be dragged through the mud as bigoted, elitist snobs out of touch with reality and conspiring to construct glass ceilings in society etcetera, and they would be ruined for another generation. My task would be complete, I would be the great investigative journalist of my generation. Bob Woodward and Seymour Hersh would kiss my feet.
Erik Wachtmeister is the founder of aSmallWorld
The search turned out to be fruitless, but whilst none of the politicians themselves are members, quite a few of their advisers, such as the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s adviser, Mohammed Ali Azeem, are. Perhaps (and judge me at your will here), Mohammed Ali Azeem is linked to Al-Qaeda or the Saudi royal family in some way? I have no way of verifying this hunch which was based purely on prejudice, and since Conservative HQ aren’t returning my calls, I have to assume that he is as sound as a pound. So I abandon the search for politicians, in the realisation that even though they do certainly move in these circles; such as Cameron and Boris’s notorious antics in the exclusive Bullingdon Club at Oxford University; or John Kerry and George W. Bush both being members of the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale; they are too smart to be openly supportive of such potentially damaging ventures while holding public office.
Over at the classifieds, someone is selling an original Monet painting for €2 million. This is more like it! It’s bound to be stolen, I think to myself. But again, a bit of research tells me it’s all above board. Some little snotty-nose probably lost his trust fund in the recession and needs to sell Daddy’s art collection to pay off his tab at the Ivy. I keep looking for a stolen masterpiece. Aha! A Degas statue on sale for $7.5 million- this could easily have been bundled into a van at the back of the Louvre while nobody was looking. But alas, it is not to be, I am getting disheartened for lack of dirt to be dished on these people.
I have a quick read of the Daily Telegraph for motivation and head over to the chat forum, nauseatingly titled ‘Le Café’- perhaps in an attempt to make the fifty year-old businessmen using their lunch breaks to talk about themselves on an internet forum feel like James Bond on a foreign mission. ‘I’m Awesome’ is the title of one thread. If the guy who started this thread was a bar of chocolate, he would spend all day licking himself. But there are a surprising amount of threads which are cries for help from people who have just realized, long after the rest of us, that they are actually a vacuous, materialistic scumbag. ‘lonely…’ is the title of a thread by Evgenia Tarasova, which nearly made me spit coffee over the keyboard I was laughing so hard. One of the responses really gets to the heart of the problem: ‘Maybe if you wore something a little more eye-catching so people notice you more,’ replied a suave guy in sunglasses called John Spodek. This really struck a chord with all the other toffs- ‘=))))))))))’, replied Ana Mexsen, evidently nodding so hard in agreement she could not type words. ‘i agree. red is the new black. almost unnoticeable,’ dead-batted Rachel Divine, disapproving of the lonely woman’s red dress on display in her profile picture. What women really want- ‘shoeeeeees’ comes the reply in another thread. This really is tedious, like watching the Sex and the City film next to girls who like totally go up at the end of their sentences. Even worse, I’m beginning to feel sorry for some of the poor sods on here who have come to realize that all that they previously coveted and drooled over- the yacht parties and lunches at Claridges- are actually dismal affairs, full of people just as dull as themselves and devoid of any intellectual or spiritual depth.
Miss Lonely's gonna have to get used to this on aSmallWorld
For callous bastards like myself there is plenty of fun to be had on here, laughing at the threads which, with no sense of irony, ponder: ‘should I wear my kilt when I travel?’ or advertise ‘£200m to invest’, but that’s about all. Certainly, the elitist principles behind aSmallWorld are awful, and the people on here are shallow and will die alone and miserable in their Xanadus. But they were probably locked in the cupboard of an embassy and fed pins by their au pair as a child, so we should cut them a bit of slack. As far as the next political scandal goes, I think I’m looking in the wrong place. People with real influence don’t have to brag about it on social networking sites, they just torch the village. What I’ve learnt from my time on the site is that its members are nothing more than second-rate socialites who are only ever interesting when Evelyn Waugh writes about them.
Post-script: For the purposes of full disclosure, the author of this piece notes that he attended an independent grammar school and usually finds rich kids more than agreeable. He has attended rugby matches, counts Brideshead Revisited among his favourite books, and was against the fox hunting ban.