It’s well known that Thomas Mann set his novel The Magic Mountain in a Davos health clinic in the years before the elite took over the sanatorium. Less well known is that Robert Louis Stevenson, following his doctor’s advice, spent two winters in the town’s clean air, finishing Treasure Island in situ.
As the London Review of Books points out, it didn’t agree with him: “Shut in a kind of damned hotel,” he wrote. “The company? Alas the day that I should toil with such a crew.” The only thing that kept him going was “tobogganing alone and at night”, ES Turner, his biographer, recounted. What would he make of the current crew?
An orderly queue
Snow, rain and a fleet of black limousines don’t mix well at 1,540 metres. Davos was so congested with traffic on its opening night that there was a three-hour tailback from Klosters, 20 minutes down the mountain. Last year, there was a three-hour jam down to Klosters at midnight. Could this be a new Davos tradition?
In the spotlight
According to billionaire sources, there is a possibility that President Trump will feel a little insecure when he delivers the Davos keynote address on Friday. Not because the world will be watching, of course, but because so many people in the audience will be richer than him now that Forbes has downgraded its estimate of his wealth from $3.7 billion to $3.1 billion. When this was pointed out to the president by one of them, apparently he replied: “Well, you’ll be in the audience, but I’ll be on the stage.”
Flights of fancy
Will Davos shun Donald Trump? Not out of protest, you understand — Davos Man has never been that fussy about who he sups with — but the logistics of a 2pm slot on Friday and then lockdown as the president departs prompted one white badge-holder to ask whether delegates may slip off to fly home before he speaks. It seems unlikely, but brace yourselves for a row about “fake” photos of empty seats at the back of the hall.
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He ain’t heavy . . .
Ask David Rubenstein, co-head of The Carlyle Group and self-made billionaire, what his biggest worry is and the answer is surprising: gravity. The 68-year-old confided to a packed gathering that things were sagging more than they used to and he was finding it harder to shoot basketball hoops. Jes Staley, of Barclays, stepped in to try to make him feel better, revealing that his daughter had studied gravitational waves for three years and had detected some around him.
Uber-popular boss
Uber boss Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC that his user rating had improved since becoming chief executive. “Somehow my rating is getting better,” he said. “I’m not sure why. I think it’s aggressive tipping.”