And I’m not just talking about the way she hoards the cheesecake and baked ham at the Christmas party either.

At the urging of filthy rich philanthropists Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, dozens of America’s biggest moneybags have pledged to give away at least 50 % of their fortunes to worthy causes.

Since most of the seriously rich are men it comes as no surprise that there are so few women on the list, what does come as a surprise is the absence of supposed do-gooder Oprah Winfrey!

Apart from Gates and Buffett, other well known billionaires taking part include Michael Bloomberg, George Lucas, Ted Turner (who I’m glad to say has recovered from his disappointment at not being cast as the Mad Hatter in the recent Alice in Wonderland movie) and Barron Hilton, who it would seem is a far better person than his notorious granddaughter.

Yet despite having to a great extent built her fortune  on her image as someone who cares about humanity and helping others, no Oprah. Clearly what Winfrey does with her ill-gotten gains is her own business, but if she isn’t willing to put her money where her mouth is she should drop all pretense to moral superiority and stop telling everybody how bloody wonderful she is!

Winfrey was a prominent guest at the billionaire’s dinner at which the initiative was launched in May of 2009. Here we are more than a year later and she still hasn’t signed on to the list, so it is starting to look as if  America’s richest manatee isn’t about to give up any more of her moolah than is necessary for PR purposes.

List of apparently decent rich people (did I mention Oprah isn’t on it?) here