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By Root 281 0

at odds with Bethenny and have managed to offend even the countess. A woman of many whims and at least as much alimony, Kelly is a tremendous figure on the Manhattan/Hamptons/Owl Jewelry scene. And she works, too: she goes to parties and “writes for articles.” I’m not sure what that means, but in any case, Kelly is fiercely protective of the Bensimon brand.

Simon van Kempen and Alex McCord have always reminded me of the Veneerings, Charles Dickens’s nouveau riche climbers whose furniture “smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.” Their one-night stand born of an Internet chat room has blossomed into a beautiful life in Brooklyn with their two small but vigorous boys, Johan and Francois, who impress everyone with their command of Latin and their genius for running around at parties, screaming and stabbing things with steak knives. The show takes every opportunity to insinuate that Simon, often called the seventh housewife, is gay. I don’t think he’s gay. Nor do I think he’s straight. I think he’s just Australian, and a con man. The van Kempens don’t fool me. Simon has implied on camera that he owns the Manhattan hotel he only manages, and everything about them tells of colossal debt and vague horseshit. When their sons are old enough to comprehend their parents’ publicity, I’m confident the boys will, as they say, “go Menendez.” Naturally, the van Kempens are writing a parenting memoir. (No word yet on who’s ghost-writing.)

Ramona Singer is the one with the “crazy eyes.” Her husband, Mario, sells religious jewelry, and must sell an awful lot of it from the looks of their Hamptons house. Despite her protests otherwise, Ramona doesn’t do anything, leaving her plenty of time to offend people at parties. “You’re, like, blind, right?” she asked New York Governor David Paterson, who is blind. She went on to tell him that she’s, like, blind, too, without her contacts. Convinced of her irrepressible youthfulness, Ramona is “developing” a line of anti-aging skin care products that she hopes to sell one day on QVC. She also has a line of jeweled T’s—but these days who doesn’t?

Which brings us to Jill Zarin, the Fabric Queen. Jill, in the space of one episode, bought that $16,000 bag, turned down her husband’s gift of a new Mercedes because it lacked a specific dashboard dock for her iPhone, and spoke at length about the size of her diamonds. But it’s all right, because Jill does charity work—or, I should say, helps organize some charity fund-raisers. (Choosing a tapenade and deciding where the Zarin Fabrics logo will appear on the invitation is work, after all.) On one episode, Jill spoke to the BBC about the world economic crisis. “Economic crisis” would have waved the red flag of mockery right in the face of most people, but not Jill Zarin, who is ravenous for publicity. When asked if she thought it fair to have so much when people in Africa, for example, are starving, Jill said that life isn’t fair—but, funnily enough, she had just raised money for a school in Africa. She even cited the “teach them to fish” idiom so popular with the very rich. To her credit, she was able to repeat the phrase correctly, unlike the time she spoke of “kicking a gift horse in the mouth.”

With so many vivacious personalities competing for screen time, it’s no wonder our housewives occasionally step on one another’s toes. What usually happens is something like this: Bethenny Frankel is chosen to be on the cover of Social Life magazine (the only magazine I’ve heard of where the stylist picks the cover story). Immediately upon hearing the exciting news, the countess asks if the magazine will be doing any retouching. Bethenny is understandably hurt, and asks the countess to lunch to discuss the hurting. When pressed, the countess explains that her comment was not evidence of jealousy, but merely her protective model’s instinct kicking in. Furthermore, the countess can’t understand why Bethenny is being so “attackive” toward her. Later on, Bethenny goes on the attackive herself by calling into question the countess’s authorial