“Well, I lost half a day of skiing”

Everyone loves a good low-stakes put-up-yer-dukes between self-absorbed silly people, and this one is the best example since the immortal 2022 "Wagatha Christie" trial. Marina Hyde has the measure of this utterly inconsequential event:

Before we go any further I want to make a deeply serious point. Something happened that day. Something happened on that mountain in that luxury ski resort, up there in God’s cathedral – and, like anyone who has watched either the plaintiff or the defendant on the stand at any length … I literally could not care less what it was. I mean, this is as low stakes as it gets. Asked about what had been taken from her by the events on the Deer Valley slopes, [Gwyneth] Paltrow delivered the sociopathically straight-to-meme line: “Well, I lost half a day of skiing.” (Bear in mind this is a woman who claims that water has feelings.) For his part, Terry Sanderson’s lawyer put things into perspective by declaring: “After the crash, he’s no longer charming.” [...]

First, a reminder that Mr Sanderson is seeking $300,000 in damages, which – to us country mice on this side of the Atlantic – feels a little eye-catching. Of course, we only have an outsider’s grasp of the baroque flourishes of the US legal system, but it is surely our understanding that any citizen of that great nation making some kind of personal injury claim understands that this is America, and asks for at least $30m just as a point of principle? Then again, having watched him, I think I’m on the verge of understanding why Mr Sanderson values his lost charm at a mere $300,000.

- Marina Hyde, 'Did Gwyneth Paltrow ski into a retired optometrist? I couldn’t care less, but the farce is unmissable', Guardian, 28 March 2023