Hard on the heels of Donald Trump’s Aberdeen golf complex for
the rich and famous comes an even more exclusive playground, not for the rich,
poor things, but for the super-rich!
According to a report in the Scotsman newspaper: ‘The Dall
Estate, on the shores of Loch Rannoch, is set to become a "mini
Monaco" in the heart of the Scottish countryside – a home from home for
billionaires, Russian oligarchs, heads of state, the international glitterati
and Hollywood and sporting superstars.’
The idea is being led by Malcolm James, a reclusive
property developer who lives in a baronial mansion, Dall House in the heart of
the Rannoch estate and was rather anxious to put his plans to the Scotsman
newspaper.
The plans include a luxury hotel with 104 rooms,
two 18-hole golf courses and clubhouse, a state-of-the-art health spa, a
concert hall, a "body-enhancement
clinic," a retail arcade, a
shore-side restaurant and so on and so on. The cost of a night’s stay in the hotel,
centred on Dall House itself, would start at £6,000, rising to £14,000 per
person for the most luxurious rooms on the shores of the loch. Presumably this is on top of the membership fees
which will be "way over" £2 million a year. If you want an exclusive
holiday home, prices will start at just £1 million.
But before ordinary “ten penny” millionaires get
excited about the prospect of whooping it up on the bleak Rannoch Moor,
remember the complex is being aimed at the super-rich, as well as celebrities,
film stars and famous footballers, and heads of government. But only the super-rich will be able to
apply, as the minimum liquid asset net worth of individuals will be set at
£100m. So while Beyonce Knowles and Christina Aguilera might well jet in to
perform, very few pop or Hollywood stars will have enough spare cash to actually
make it as members.
According to James; "Tiger Woods isn’t rich
enough to join, but he can come as a guest because he is known.” I am sure
Tiger will be very grateful.
James goes on to paint a picture of a Highland utopia where only the
"multi-multi-billionaires" of the world will have the right to enjoy
and relax in one another’s exalted company because, “They want somebody that
loves them from their heart. They want somebody to have a real cuddle from, not
a fake cuddle. And that’s something that money can’t buy." Apparently the
super-rich have a hard and stressful life holding on to their hard earned
pennies. According to James, “Billionaires can go to any hotel and they are the
target of the beautiful, greedy people in the world who try and move in their
circles and then, twelve months or so down the line, they take them to cleaners.”
You see it’s
only really rich people who are genuine; everyone else is after their money so
they have to shut themselves away from the spongers and rogues in society. It’s
a pity they will still have to arrive at Aberdeen
airport in a private jet and therefore be exposed to real people scraping their
money together for a caravan holiday in Skegness.
And just in case you were wondering about the
struggle to survive in the present economic recession and how these people can actually
afford to spend such fortunes on the luxuries of life, Malcolm James concludes:
“The recession is a bad recession, but it doesn’t mean to say the money has
disappeared in the world. It is all here. It’s just gone into a lot fewer
pockets." There we have it, an
admission that it’s the rich that get richer even in a recession.
The whole issue of playgrounds for the super-rich,
protected from the rabble that is the working class sums up the
degeneration of the capitalist society.
Like the Roman emperors before them they fiddle in their luxurious
surroundings whilst the world is collapsing around them. Presumably they hope that their enormous
wealth will protect them from the dangers of war, famine and environmental
disaster. But you cannot eat money.
We must ensure that billionaires’ paradises
such as this are scrapped and that the wealth of these rich parasites is
distributed among the population that produced it, so we can create a world
where we are all equal and all share in the rich environment that the world has
to offer.
