Sterling Moss
Taki
St Tropez
The last — and only — time the wonderful Kate Moss was at my house in the Big Bagel was about 12 or 13 years ago, when my buddy Michael White dropped in with her in tow. ‘This is Kate’ was the way he introduced her, leaving the rest of us in awe of how a middle-aged man like Michael could still come up with such goodies. She was sweet and pleasant, and no one in the room had the foggiest who she was, until my young daughter came in to say goodnight and was momentarily open-mouthed. ‘But that’s Kate Moss,’ stammered Lolly. ‘I didn’t know daddy knew her.... ’ A couple of years or so ago, while gambling at Aspinall’s, Kate said hello. ‘I came to your house. Do you remember me?’ ‘How could I ever forget you?’ was my obvious reply. Apart from flattering me by remembering, she also brought me luck. I hit an ‘onze, noir, impair et manque’ with £100 ‘en plein’. Now poor Kate has the muck-wallowing tabloids after her at their squalidly sanctimonious worst. Role model lets down our youth, they cackle, as if Kate were that ghastly Widdecombe woman or, better yet, a Tony Blair-appointed antidrugs czar. An utter indifference to embarrassment is a British tabloid trademark, but surely this is much too over the top. Since when is a fashion model a role model for the young? Role models are people like Charles Lindbergh, Dr Salk, Mother Teresa and the Pope, not the beautiful Kate, nor, for that matter, any of the rest of the young men and women who have become famous by using their looks in the celebrity culture we live in today. Why are Kate and Naomi Campbell repeatedly singled out as letting the side down? Beautiful fashion models, as far as I’m concerned, let the side down if they go home to hubby every night and watch TV.
The problem, of course, is not only the tabloids. It’s also the scum Kate and Naomi rub elbows with, scum that takes pictures while pretending to use mobile phones and then sells them to the filthmerchants. This role model business is indeed getting out of hand. Celebrities were never supposed to be role models. What kind of role model could Paris Hilton be? Could anyone — except those who wish to film themselves while being shagged in order to get their picture in the papers — look up to her? This tiresome Widdecombe woman wants the fuzz to take action against Kate. Law-abiding people are being mugged and knifed left and right, and this bore wants the cops to go after a pretty little thing who has only turned violent against her septum. Go figure. The implication that the weak and vulnerable will turn to cocaine once a superstar has abused the drug openly without being prosecuted is as valid as implying that because the Prime Minister lies lying is now acceptable in public life and will also be taught in schools.
Actually, it’s far worse. The government encourages crime by giving cash incentives to young women to have children out of wedlock, children who grow up without fathers and who indulge in crime when they’re old enough to run. Kate made her own way up the greasy pole, pays her taxes, has never asked the state for anything, not even the protection she deserves from the ghastly paparazzi, and here we are going after her, rather than those politicians who got us into the mess we’re in. Talk about having the wrong priorities. Stick to going after the real criminals, boys, or, if you have to, those vacuous, rigged celebrities with overdeveloped egos, and leave beautiful taxpayers like Kate and Naomi alone.
And speaking of those devoid of talent, beauty and embarrassment glands, St Tropez was mercifully without them this time around. It was like time remembered. The way we were, you name it. No slobs, no Abramoviches, no Paul Allens, no sons of bitches of any kind. No Larry Ellisons. (I will write about this bum next week.) I had the Bismarcks on board, Chantal of Hannover, Nick Scott, Jean-Claude Sauer, and a recovering-from-the-Parker-Bowleswedding Timmy Hanbury. Needless to say, Timmy did not recover on Bushido. We also ran into the Dean of St Tropez, Rupert Dean, infamously attacked by the gutter press for his astute remarks about miners during the strike of 1984. (Pheasants are bred to be shot, Labradors are bred to retrieve them, miners are bred to go down mines.) What I’d like to know — and I love miners — is: what is wrong with that remark? Miners traditionally followed their fathers and grandfathers down mines, and were proud to do it. Just as journalists are proud to lie, invade people’s privacy under false pretences, file phony expenses and judge those far, far better than themselves.
Did we enjoy ourselves on board? Even if I say so myself, yes, we did; in fact so much so that I have come to the conclusion that Bushido is as lethal for my health as the code of Bushido was once upon a time lethal for the health of Lord Toranaga’s enemies.
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