High life
Bonding with the best
Taki
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Greek boy in possession of the right values will sooner rather than later be asked to debate in the Cambridge Union. The motion was 'This House Believes that Cambridge is Elitist ... or it is Nothing,' a belief very close to my heart, as it happens, as everything worthwhile in life nowadays seems to be under attack by the bureau- crooks who run our lives.
And Cambridge is worthwhile. This was my first visit. The last time I debated was at the Oxford Union, where Auberon Waugh and I wiped the floor with the two lawyers that dared oppose us outside a courtroom. Although I was pleased to meet my hero Norman Stone, I thought some of the Oxford types arrogant and rude, but I should have known better. Oxford, after all, denied the then Mrs Thatcher an hon-
our, and has just elected James Fenton its professor of Poetry. Fenton is a homosexu- alist who has consistently advocated the communist line in the Philippines and Fiji, and had falsely claimed to have ridden on the lead Hanoi tank into the presidential palace during the fall of Saigon. I suppose his poetry hopes to attract the support of the great progressive unwashed, as well as the clapped-out charlatans who would like to tax Taki to the poorhouse.
Mind you, there were no charlatans or left-wing sycophants in the Cambridge Union last week. Just some very cunning linguists, a wonderful dinner, served while naked Swedish maidens offered us their curls as hand towels after the feast, and enough wine to refloat the Bismarck. The president, Colin Farmer, was as gracious as Edward Heath is not, and my team-mates, Gavin MacColl and Nicholas O'Shaugh- nessy, as formidable as, well, the Bismarck. Unlike that brave ship, however, and against the same odds, we won.
Our main opponent, Paul Kersey of Corpus Christi, was undefeated until then, but opposing elitism in the finest place of learning was a bit like trying to educate Rwandans in aristocratic values. My main point was that we depend on men and women who have good ideas, who work hard and who bring advances in medicine and science and who write delightful books and music, even those who think up profitable businesses that employ thou- sands, all these people are elitists, a word that the left has subverted into meaning having a privileged background. Equal opportunity does not mean equal results. The poet is born, not made. I finished by asking how many among the audience would go for an operation to a one-legged, black woman doctor suffering from Parkin- son's, in view of her political correctness.
After the debate it was drinks time, and the Greek contingent took over from the academics. Michael, Alex, Foti and Spiro, all about to graduate in three weeks, gave me and the love of my life (unconsummat- ed) a tour of student digs in St John's. Leave it to the Greek boys. While some foppish undergraduates were punting in the river, we had three beautiful girls tight- ly squeezed inside. After a while things got confused, and I must confess it is only because I'm related to Theseus, that I man- aged to find my way out with unconsum- mated. But I shall not soon forget the wonderful hospitality and evening.
And speaking of things to forget, here is a letter I received from obviously a non-eli- tist, Mr Alan Bond, America's Cup winner in 1983, billionaire entrepreneur for a while, now a bankrupt. 'Dear Taki. Mate, I have always found you to be a loathesome and odious sort of personality. There are frequent irritations in your parasitic weekly dribblings in a journal which I read for the forthright political analysis. Indeed, you are a disgrace to the journal. . .. You are just vomit on the pavement of a good neigh- bourhood.... I am sickened by your obvi- ous toadying to both Conrad Black and Kerry Packer, close friends of that unstable Buthelezi. Sincerely Alan Bond.'
Well, I answered Mr Bond, without using a single word of abuse. After all, as the good Dr Johnson said, it is impossible to criticise unresisting imbecility.' But I did point out certain painful truths. They had to do with the root of all envy.
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