The United Nations and MeOddly, the trail of media adulation that has marked the UN’s Francesca Albanese visit to Australia this past week or so inspired not revulsion at a handmaiden of Hamas — not at first, at least — but, rather, a nostalgic gratitude to the United Nations for inadvertently dropping in my lap one of the greatest real estate bargains ever snatched. The $225,000 asking price for the large apartment in Midtown Manhattan seemed cheap, but why not have a look, my then-wife insisted? The tub in the second bathroom, epicentre of that cloying, sweet and sickly stench, was splattered with a mysterious brownish gunk. We learned, for example, that the co-op board would not permit any further diplomats to move into the building. Somehow, he had acquired the cash for a very plush weekend home in the ritzy Hamptons, on Long Island.