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Sleb Safari: It's goop gift guide time

Maeve Connoly

Maeve Connolly

Maeve is the deputy digital editor at The Irish News. She has worked for the company since 2000.

Cotton candy tennis balls, anyone?
Cotton candy tennis balls, anyone? Cotton candy tennis balls, anyone?

Jade egg enthusiast Gwyneth Paltrow thinks of everyone, young and old, rich and richer, when it comes to curating her Christmas gift guide and the 2022 catalogue is a corker.

Last year she introduced us to a $10,500 Chanel sledge that looked like a bin lid and a picnic basket that held two wine glasses and a bottle of wine yet cost $7,550 and this year is no different.

Cotton candy tennis balls, anyone?
Cotton candy tennis balls, anyone? Cotton candy tennis balls, anyone?

For the gardener at your Hamptons’ pad, what about cotton candy pink tennis balls at $45? Doing Secret Santa with your book club? It’s the perfect opportunity to give that person who always finishes the book first a pair of weighted wrist bangles. $55 well spent if you’re a Mean Girl. 

There’s also a $360 air filter that “uses natural, biodegradable materials to help provide clean air” but looks like a couple of handfuls of moss in a glass beaker. Pretty, though.

Elsewhere you will find a set of four Kama Sutra dinner napkins and it’s not the $88 price tag that will make your eyes water.

A cupping kit for $68
A cupping kit for $68 A cupping kit for $68

In the under $100 category there's a $68 Body Cupping Kit - “the simplest, gentlest way to DIY cupping at home”. Sleb Safari is no cupper but it’s going to suggest you don’t do this unaccompanied if you live alone. What happens if you get them on but can’t get them off? A night of no sleep, an uncomfortable drive to the office and an embarrassing conversation with your work husband.

Cashmere everything?
Cashmere everything? Cashmere everything?

Gwyneth’s selection every year of cashmere travel gear is always good fun because you simply cannot travel without dressing head to toe in cashmere. That is a fact, and Gwyneth stands by it, in a cashmere hoodie, jogging bottoms, eye mask, neck pillow and socks. And yes they are colour coordinated and she does wear them on the bus into town (travel), when nipping to the garage for two litres of milk (also travel) and in the first class cabin between LA and London (very important travel).

Sleb Safari will admit that it is very taken with the hand/arm cushion for desk naps. Best to utilise when working from home though. It’s $35 and is called the Mini Handy Pillow. It comes in only one colour - midnight grey - which is handy because it completes your head-to-toe cashmere travel wardrobe.

Handy for a snooze at the desk
Handy for a snooze at the desk Handy for a snooze at the desk

Comme toujours, the ‘ridiculous but awesome list’ is a gift in itself - there’s a $30,000 Rolex, a $2,400 Louis Vuitton skimboard for beach fun that Sleb Safari would mount on the wall (behind glass) at that price, an upcycled dog bed frame costing nearly $400 that looks like a few old bits of wood lifted out of a skip and nailed together and $125 custom wrapping paper.

Gwyneth, as always, thank you for the laughs.

Bill Nighy on the honor of raising young women

Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy Bill Nighy

Sleb Safari has long been a fan of actor Bill Nighy and very much appreciated a description he gave of what it means to raise a girl to adulthood. 

 "It's a great honour to be involved in the raising of a young woman," he said.

"It's the most serious responsibility you're ever given and it's also the thing that threatens you the most because you fear any harm coming to them. It's the thing that can hurt you the most and that also can bring you the most pleasure. It's a great privilege for a man to be part of that, and it's the thing that brings him the most dignity."

MacKenzie Scott continues to give away her fortune

MacKenzie Scott
MacKenzie Scott MacKenzie Scott

YOU have to admire a woman who is determined to ‘empty the safe’ and donate billions to the organisations and charities she believes in.

MacKenzie Scott’s latest donation is $84.5 million and it's going to Girl Scouts Of The USA who say it’s the largest single donation in their history.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates that Mackenzie is the 41st richest person in the world and when she and ex-husband Jeff Bezos divorced she stated her intention to give away the $38bn settlement.

She has already donated around $12bn. Now that’s classy.