A series dedicated to explaining Britain's manufactured celebrities to an American audience.

We must begin today, I’m afraid, by sullying our hands with the unsavory subject of brand association, that ineffable pillar of culture responsible for such teachable moments as the Kardashianisation of Christian Louboutin stilettoes (poor Christian must look at Kim’s plastic parts hovering atop his red-soled nude peep-toes and wonder if it’s all worth it) and Abercrombie & Fitch’s callous proposal that our old friend Mike the Situation be paid not to wear A&F clothes. So here’s a tricky philosophical conundrum, a Zen kōan for the 1 percent set, as it were: a famous Russian oligarch [...]

OK, so it's not like a real forcefield to where if you dropped an anvil on it it'd ping off and ricochet onto the deck of some Russian tugboat that was just trying to live-but it's close. Way close. AND this one doesn't even have a fontanelle like the one around Springfield in the Simpsons movie that was maybe not so good, so you know it means business. Big, hard-headed business. Roman Abramovich, the guy who owns a bunch of oil, the Chelsea football team and a 557-foot boat called Eclipse, has installed a paparazzi shield around his $1.2 billion vessel. The pap precaution is a series of [...]