High life
Mind your manners
Taki
Gentility Recalled, edited by Digby Anderson, is the most needed opus since the New Testament. The rot began with those God-awful hippies, the permissive society and the anti-Vietnam war move- ment in America of the Sixties. The decline of civility and good manners over here was only a matter of time. Hollywood and tele- vision also did their bit, not to mention a mind-set that tells us to let-it-all-hang-out a la ghastly Susie Orbach.
I thought of Digby Anderson last Sunday evening when in the Cadogan Square pri- vate garden a very loud football game with four on each side was taking place. Ball games and noise are strictly forbidden in the gardens, but the eight Turks who were spoiling my evening did not speak a word of English. One woman spectator friend of theirs who did asked me, 'Why no football? Grass is for football.' Despite my assuring her that it was not, the game went on for another hour. I think the whole bunch are domestic servants and simply don't know any better. Those who do, the Cadogan Estate, are lining their pockets with our tremendously high rents — no wonder only foreigners can afford the place — but until 'I've bought your soul can I have a receipt?' now they have failed to have a supervisor to make sure that the rules are obeyed.
Mind you, why should eight poor Turks have manners when — as the saying goes — the fish stinks from the head. I am thinking of Princess Michael of Kent. Last October, I was invited to a black-tie dinner chez Lord and Lady X. I wasn't sure I would be in London, told them I would take a raincheck, but they asked me to ring them if I was in London even at the last second. I did, and they said to please come. I was seated one away from Michael of Kent. We exchanged only a good evening. The next thing that happened was that a furious Marie Christine rang the hostess and complained about my name not having been on the list when she vetted it. Having been told why my name was missing, she still went on. This from the person that started the rot of Rent-a-Royal, a couple that had a row on Robert Balkany's boat in Greece which ended with them leaving the boat (mind you, Balkany's manners are on a par with Gazza's, without the talent) and being taken in by a conman whom I consid- er the biggest gangster in Greece.
Now, I have not been very nice about this Austrian lady in the past, but she hasn't exactly given me reason to. Last summer, at Sir James Goldsmith's ball, she told my wife that they were cousins. It was probably the only time Alexandra said something snobby. 'No, I don't think so.' Demanding to vet a dinner party of some- one as respectable as my hostess was a titanic breach of manners, especially after the company this lady has been known to keep. One copy of Gentility Recalled should immediately be sent to KP. At best, it might be a lesson to them. At worst, some of its contents might surface in one of the princess's future books.
Even more in need of the book is one Mercedes Tavacoli, an Iranian woman now married to the billionaire Texan Sid Bass. Tavacoli was born in modest circumstances in the unpleasant land of the Ayatoilets, a fact made obvious because of the airs she puts on now that she's struck it rich. Once upon a time, she was married to a very nice American diplomat, Francis Kellogg, whom she dumped for Bass. Her demeanour changed overnight: from eager to please to a Hollywood version of what constitutes upper class. The bone I have to pick with her is that I've been told she called Maya Flick an 'Austrian maid'. That's wrong on two counts. Maya was born a German countess, a fact that's immaterial in today's 'classless' society of John Major, but still. When the lower classes begin to abuse the upper ones because of the latter's station at birth, it's time to call time out. Please, Digby, send a book post haste to la Bass. I'll pay for the postage.
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