Love and money the talk of the town

“SO how is Gerry Adams,” asked Osama, the New York taxi driver, when he learned I was Irish.

He was surprised to hear the Sinn Féin president was, at that moment, in Manhattan explaining to a glittering gathering of leaders and tycoons how to defuse religious wars.

There was something of a celebrity auction atmosphere about the Clinton Global Initiative. Tycoons or their representatives were waltzed into the press room at regular intervals to announce they had donated a large sum of money and say what it was going towards.