Posted on 04/15/2002 8:03:13 AM PDT by Hillary's Lovely Legs
We do like to alternate between the elegant and the absurd here at the Guild.
We're having a charity fashion show here to benefit the women's shelter and our planning meeting is today. I'll have to print these up and show them to the committee. One of the ladies showed up at a tres formal charity event last year with a Bjorkie-swan hat. She was the belle of the ball.
And looks like Chelsea knows the party spots in San Francisco now. Add that to the growing list which includes New York and London. Hmmm...wonder how she will react if Mama pulls her out of school to accompany her on a listening tour of America. Don't know how Chels will adjust to the party spots in the Red Zone. Hee hee....
From the San Francisco Chronicle;" It looks like the Bay Area is going to be rife with Chelsea Clinton sightings now that her main dude, Ian Klaus, is a local. Not only has she been hanging out in the Mission and closing down the Redwood Room at the Clift, but it's looking like a big SF or Napa wedding may be in their future.".
While all the press has commended the former first daughter on her classy transition from gawky teen to hip Donatella Versace pal, the real goods on Chels is supposedly the way her name's printed on her credit card: says "Miss C.V. Clinton."
No one - not even Bill and Hillary - will be more pleased than Tony Blair when Chelsea Clinton enrols at Oxford University next week. The friendship between the Blairs and Clintons is well known, but few realise that Chelsea has exerted a spiritual influence on the prime minister. Blair now carries a copy of the Koran at all times for "inspiration and courage" - a habit he picked up from President Clinton's daughter.
Chelsea is also now a key national asset. Even before the terrorist attacks in the US, the Stanford University history graduate had been recruited by the government to help convince the rest of the world that Britain, despite the recent ravages of foot and mouth disease, is still a place worth visiting. Now Chelsea's decision to do a two-year masters degree in international relations at the country's oldest academic institution has taken on an even greater symbolism: it is still safe for rich American kids to fly across the Atlantic to study over here. (Although for Chelsea this will now come at a greater price: she will be accompanied by an even bigger army of security guards.)
Overseas students are important to Blair for two main reasons. The extortionate fees they pay make them one of the few profit-making activities for UK universities. But even more importantly for the country's future trade, today's high-flying foreign graduates are tomorrow's sympathetic leaders in governments and businesses across the globe.
Nowhere else has this nurturing of international contacts worked better than at Oxford, where a young Rhodes scholar called Bill Clinton studied and made lifetime contacts during 1968-1970. [Why no mention of the rapes, I wonder?} At Oxford, Clinton was drawn into the orbit of future writers, academics and politicians - many of whom remain close friends and advisers. Blair (himself an Oxford man) knows that Oxford is one of the few genuine global brands based in the UK. The university is synonymous with ancient scholarly traditions. And academic standards - from one Clinton generation to the next - are still second to none in the world.
Or are they? This question - unthinkable when Bill took up residence at University College 33 years ago - is now being asked by prominent academics on both sides of the pond with worrying frequency. The causes may differ - a lack of funding, poor management, even complacency - but the prognosis is the same: Oxford is in steady decline, falling increasingly behind the academic powerhouses - Stanford, Princeton, Yale and Harvard - of the US Ivy League. [When did Stanford join the Ivy League?]
.... All this seems a distant cry from the Oxford of Bill's (marijuana-smoking, but not inhaling) days. Despite the emerging challenge from young upstart universities such as Sussex, as well as the fledgling "university of the air" (otherwise known as Open University), and the US Ivy League, Oxbridge remained the world's unrivalled centres of academic prestige. Oxford, it has been said, made Clinton a candidate for the world's power elite. But now the question appears to be not what Oxford can do for Chelsea, but what Chelsea can do for Oxford. [Maybe she's doing more for Oxford by avoiding it.]
.... The final decision, of course, comes down to Chelsea's friend, prime minister Blair, who is the person who can free the university of the current government constraints preventing it charging extra fees. As a product himself of the Oxford system, he has an awful lot of soul searching to do, and who knows, may draw some inspiration and courage from the holy verses of the Koran.
This week, it's Chelsea Clinton. For one thing, we finally saw a picture of her beau the other day in the London Evening Standard's "Who's rich and having a party" section. Cameras can often be cruel. But we feel duty bound to point out that the chap looked about 12, but with grown-up glasses. He appears to be around three feet tall too. Still, each to their own.[LOL!]
But, according to the Independent on Sunday, Chelsea's romantic happiness is causing a degree of tutting in Oxford quads. The Indy reckons that even though she's barely been at Oxford long enough to inhale, American newspapers are already asking if the university is going to give Chelsea the elbow (although they probably used some American euphemism). Oxford "sources" are quoted as saying that her high profile partying in London (coupled with Ian Kraus's spectacularly low one) is drawing attention to her residence record. Oxford administrators are, allegedly, concerned whether she is spending the requisite number of days per term in the city.
Does she believe that she is on the level of a Donatella Versace or Tony Blair? It's just odd behavior for a college student to be globe hopping and bar cruising. You would think her parents would tell her that it's unseemly behavior. Oh that's right, her parents are of the barnyard variety. Suuuuuuey!
Poor dear. She tries.
Oh...CRAPOLA...The Clift is my favorite SF hotel. Now I can never go back.
On our 1 year anniversary (Tax Day, 1989), MrL and I stayed at the Clift. We went to the 4th floor exercise room to work out. One treadmill was directly in front of an open window. I do not remember what Mr.L did, but he FLEW backwards off the treadmill and was almost launched out the window. Fortunately, half of his body crashed into the wall. I know it is odd, but every time I think of it, I laugh.
Ditto that. Even at the ripe old age of 27 (and Mr.L's 31) we felt waaaaay out of place in the Redwood Room. Nor were we high-powered. But it IS a beautiful bar.
And while we're Clift-spotting, the power troika of mustachioed Sean Penn, Metallica's Lars Ulrich and Pam Anderson's new fiancé, Kid Rock (dressed in what was described as "a wreck of an outfit"), were recently seen imbibing at the chic hotel and trying to convince a few ladies to accompany them for some after-hours fun at Tosca.
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