High life
Raker's progress
Taki
LRougentant ooking out from my window I see an old, white-haired lady raking the field. Once she has collected the grass in neat piles, her husband, a robust Swiss farmer, drives up in his van and she fills it to the brim. He then drives off and she goes back to raking. This is Switzerland at its best. The wife does the hard work, while the boss does the driving.
Jump from this idyllic scene to the hor- ror of Brussels, where a grotesque-looking Greek woman, Anna Diamantopoulou, has Just drawn up a 46-page draft for a strategy on gender equality. Until today, I had never heard of this greasy Greek woman, but I assume that her father has only one testicle. Because it is a well-known fact among us Greeks that the offspring of men suffering from monorchism are appointed to Brussels by the ruling socialist party. This smiling Greek wallet-lifter is Commis- sioner for Employment and Social Policy, a post that should read Unemployment and Anti-Social Policy. All it does is burden businesses with extra costs for PC purposes.
Trying to transform the role of women in the workplace through draconian legisla- tion is Big Brother come true. The trouble is we're not in Orwell land yet. Most peo- ple would rather shut down their business than face catastrophic losses because of some gender-equality-obsessed daughter of a man with only one testicle. Mind you, for the moment Switzerland is safe. Farmers' wives will continue to rake and do the heavy lifting because that's the way they like it. In fact, they'd rather be raped by a Transylvanian leper than allow the scum at Brussels to dictate how they should live and work. Feminist rants are fine when ugly Guardian women scribblers disgorge them on their dumbed-down readers but not when they interfere with people's liveli- hoods for PC purposes. Blair the phoney signed up to the Social Chapter quicker than his wife bills clients, so the English have been warned. Soon a Greek or French or Italian vastly overpayed non-person in Brussels will order you to employ someone not suited for the job at hand, but someone Whose only credential will be that she has one less testicle than the father of Anna Diamantopoulou.
But enough of ghastly people with one or less testicles. Last week I chartered a plane and flew to St Tropez in order to lift my gloomy outlook. And it worked wonders. I stayed with Sebastian Taylor and his French common-law wife, Elizabeth, the perfect hostess. The beautiful Nicola Form- by was also staying, and as soon as I landed I was whisked to Charles and Pandora Delavigne for a terrific lunch. And my spir- its rose quicker than Gordon Brown has stealthily raised your taxes. Her name is Elodie, and I was about to ask her to be the next Mrs Taki but, alas, it was not to be. She is only 16, so I just sat and stared and suffered horribly. The Delavignes are extremely nice people, attractive and won- derful parents, and they pulled my leg non- stop because an ex-girlfriend now goes out with a repellent-looking man who weighs 350 pounds. (I reminded them that he also has 350 million.) 'It is as if the Ingrid Bergman character in Casablanca arrived in tow with Sydney Greenstreet [the fat man] rather than the elegant Paul Hen- reid,' was the way Sebastian put it.
That night the household was invited to a Gatsby-esque party hosted by an American billionaire who, incidentally, also owns Claridge's and the Connaught. As always, bored with polite conversation about hous- es, boats and the weather, I got completely wrecked. My host and hostess, although American and strait-laced, did not seem to mind. The old ticker, however, did not take kindly to the 22nd night in a row of a Kara- mazovian bender. At Club-55 the next day, where the elite meet to eat and show off their boats anchored off the beach, I was about to order when my left hand and arm got pins and needles. Then I felt the proverbial elephant standing on my chest. I knew that if I fell down the jet-set would have something to talk about for the rest of the week other than houses, boats and the weather. Luckily my daughter was present and quickly whisked me off home in her lit- tle car. The next day, feeling refreshed after a night's sleep, I flew everyone back to Gstaad and, as of writing, the closest I came to dying was trying to find a hole in the clouds among the Bernese Alps.
'We've never been to a TV-dinner party before.'
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