13 MARCH 2004, Page 52

Posh peasants

Taki

Gstaad

When Marlene Dietrich heard Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor complain they were fed up with staying in hotels blockaded by fans, she advised them to stay in ones where she wasn't staying at the time. The Kraut, as Ernest Hemingway always called her, knew how to tell publicity seekers a in Taylor where to get off. I thought of Marlene a couple of weeks ago, when some jeweller flew in Jade Jagger and boyfriend privately (that's as in a private plane) in order to publicise his wares. Luckily I never saw the wretched couple — she looking simian with an attitude to match, he dressed in a black T-shirt with hair sticking out of it — but I was told all about them. The last thing this station d'hiver needs is third-rate celebrities like Miss Jagger. Or secondor first-rate, for that matter. But it's always the thirdand fourth-raters who make it unpleasant. Mesmerically talent-free, Jade manages to be successful — at what I do not know. Attitude, I guess. She must have inherited this from her mother, the unspeakable self-publicist Bianca. It is difficult to describe. It is not like a duchess having smelled a fart — God only knows most of them are experts at that — but more like a faux grandeur, which the celebs, as the plebs they are, cannot pull off.

Mind you, I don't mean to be mean about Jade Jagger, a woman I have never met. But I've seen pictures of her hauteur, and it's really a no-no. Youth confuses courtesy with deference, ergo the rudeness, but she ain't as young as she used to be. Actually, it's her old lady who perfected the look, the Margaret Dumont 'how dare you speak to me' kind, and it's the last thing I wish to see here in this peaceful alpine village full of bad-tempered peasants.

Ill get back to the peasants in a jiffy, but first a question: why does our culture celebrate third-raters? Why isn't true beauty the template any longer? We have plenty of beautiful young women in Gstaad, starting with the exquisite Tatiana Blatnik, the good friend of Prince Nikolaos of Greece. Now there's a truly beautiful couple, straight out of F. Scott Fitzgerald, without the self-destruction. Tatiana is tall, greeneyed, with a figure to kill and a manner to match. Next to her, the It Girls look like freaks, which most of them are, especially without their PR gurus. But back to the peasants.

Why are they, of all people, in a bad mood? Because they're subsidised by Berne, have grown rich by milking us suck ers instead of their cows, and because they've overdosed on democracy.

Mountains tend to make people dour, as do riches, so I've answered my own question. Still, democracy on the local level is a damn good system. Although I'd prefer the selective kind, now that its being practised by all Western countries, I'll stick to the local Swiss kind. There's a club here in Gstaad where both locals and visitors go to have — in the immortal words of Sir Les Patterson — their rockets polished. Some, again in Sir Less words, Swiss pillow-biters might find having Russian ceiling inspec tors indecorous for Gstaad. Well, keep biting your pillows, boys, the place stays because some of us think it adds colour. (And a shot of penicillin now and then.) No, what bothers me is that Gstaad is getting so popular with the wrong people.

For one, they drive these enormous SUVs, which hog roads that are already too narrow. Personally, I drive a yellow Mini Cooper and rage at those road mon sters owned by people who have never been on a dirt road in their lives. Recently the first Hummer arrived, with Monte Carlo plates, natch. I have not been able to see who drives this ridiculous machine, but it's surely someone with a very, very small penis. Or with very, very big tits. Noel Coward used to sing 'Why, oh why, do the wrong people travel?' All I do is think about why the wrong people drive the wrong cars and come to the wrong place in winter.

Mind you, we've had a fun season. Good snow conditions have helped. The nou veaux stay indoors — one doesn't learn to ski while busy screwing your fellow man — and now, thankfully, the so-called season is over. It's time for the Taki Cup, a competi tion that starts on the bottom and goes to the top, My son J.T. is having an exhibition of his paintings, and I have joined the pro letariat. I am writing 16 columns per month — two in America, two in England, two in Greece and one in Switzerland Germany-Austria — which means I got it the wrong side up. I had a carefree youth, and now I work like a Nepalese coolie. I'm coming to London for a rest and Annabel Goldsmith's book launch — a must.