An art dealer whose boiling point has passed
Everyone’s seen the images and everyone has a view but it is not just because of the pictures of Charles Saatchi supposedly trying to choke his wife on the terrace of Mayfair restaurant Scott’s that lead to us making him The Steeple Times Wally of the Week.
Mr Saatchi, aside from the police caution he received for what he calls a “playful tiff”, it seems, has got troubles on other fronts. According to this morning’s Richard Kay column in the Daily Mail, Marchill Investments, the company that runs the Kings Road Saatchi Gallery, reported losses of £1.2 million in the last year. In the same article, Kay adds that Blyth Films, which also forms part of Charles Saatchi’s empire, lost a further £3.2 million.
Another reason Saatchi, whose wife has supposedly moved in with her sister in Mayfair and who has been seen in public without her wedding ring, is a most worthy wally is because the artist best known for exhibiting her dirty bedsheets in public, Tracey Emin, has leapt to his defence. In a comment to The Telegraph’s ‘Mandrake’, Emin suggested that:
“All those people who are being judgmental about that situation have obviously never been in love… They are in love and either they will or will not sort it out among themselves. Meanwhile people are now more interested or concerned by this than they are by how many children are having their legs blown off in Syria”.
“As dark as that sounds, let’s get this into perspective. No one knows how that conversation went between them at that restaurant. For all we knew, she could have said to him ‘Oh, do you have to smoke another fag?’ and he had jokingly said: ‘Yes, and I could just throttle every time you ask me that’”.
“I know it sounds silly, but it is as likely as any of this other speculation that is now being bandied about. And I honestly believe that those people who are wasting their time speculating have never been in love”.
We actually find ourselves feeling a little sorry for Mr Saatchi. With a mouthpiece like Emin speaking on his behalf, what hope has he got?
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