If you’re one of the many people outraged by Fairfield Greenwich Group’s Walter Noel, who directed some $7.5 billion of his clients’ money towards Bernie Madoff‘s schemes–all the while collecting sizable fees for himself–perhaps you’ll find this video enjoyable. The clip is from a 2000 documentary from Britain’s Channel 4 called the The Man Who Bought Mustique. In it, Colin Tennant, the former owner of the island, who was forced to sell it when he ran into financial trouble, berates the couple in an endearing British accent (thereby making his insults all the more biting).
In the video, Mr. Tennant, also known as Lord Glenconner, returns to the island that he no longer has control of, sighing and scoffing at the rude Americans who have taken over–i.e., the Noels. (When Mr. Tennant first bought the island, it was visited by his friends Princess Margaret, Mick Jagger, and David Bowie.) And so when the Noels try to visit him at his home on the island, he shoos them away and says to the interviewer, "These people are worms. They’re terrible snobs, those people. They’re frightfully badly behaved snobs."
But the surfacing of this video is just the latest item to surface in the growing backlash against the Noel family.
Earlier this week, Page Six reported that residents of Mustique have grown so tired of the Noels that a local bar created a "No Noel" cocktail, described as a take on the Mojito. Meanwhile, Taki, the society columnist for the Spectator, writes about the time that his wife, Princess Alexandra von Schönburg, ran into one of the Noels’ sons-in-law, Andres Piedrahita, at an airport. Apparently Mr. Piedrahita remarked at how surprised he was that she was flying commercial, for which he is now being ridiculed. (The Noels’ sons-in-law brought business to Mr. Noel’s company.)
Finally, according to the Daily Mail, Walter Noel claimed he donated some cash to the Port Regis School in England that the school has no record of. A headmaster tells Daily Mail, "I am afraid I can’t shed any light on this. The name Walter Noel doesn’t mean anything to us and certainly it doesn’t ring any bells as far as a specific school project or building fund is concerned."
