It's been a long, long time since an Observer profile inspired us to pants-soaking rage (Cheban nostalgia runs deep), but today the pretty pink paper has served us a new object worthy of our ire: Italian Baron Cody Franchetti, who currently resides in Manhattan, leaving a trail of snot wherever he goes. Some of his better quotables:

• "I am an elitist. I believe in an elite, I believe that people want an elite ... because there s always been one, whether it be an oligarchy or a dictatorship."
• "I m reading a book and I m thinking about a pussy, but I find when I get the pussy, I m thinking about the book."
• On Lisa Loeb: "She is very how should I put it? petit bourgeois."
• On pursuing his own reality show: "Yes, absolutely, [it s] cheap, trashy I m well aware of that. But we live in the age of Paris Hilton, my dear, so what am I going to do a show where I discuss Flaubert with people that call in? No, I don t think so."
• "I want to be reduced. I would like to be a teenage heartthrob, I want to be on the tabloid, I want to be reduced to shit. But I don t identify myself with that. I don t have an identity problem. I know who I am."
• "Have you noticed that you can tell that your plate has been wiped on the sides? They always wipe it to keep it clean, but you shouldn t see streaks. Or at least they should arrange that the light be less direct so you wouldn t see these streaks of the wipe, no?"
• "I know that I ll retire in the castle with my books, and I don t really give a damn."
• On women: "Often, if they re very aristocratic, they re ugly because they re inbred."
• He would wants to be "hated correctly."

No problem there, Cody. We recall his irritatingly arrogant appearance in Born Rich, Jamie Johnson's documentary about privileged youth — but when surrounded by assholes, even the biggest asshole doesn't seem so gaping. As the subject of his own profile, however, Cody Franchetti is a human goatse.

Baron Franchetti Gets Ready [NYO]

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