High life
Cool castaway
Taki
ANew York hack from the diary section of the Times rang earlier this week and asked me whether I was surprised to be appearing on Desert Island Discs this coming Sunday. I got his drift but played dumb. 'Well, you know, they invite people of the Establish- ment,' he screeched, 'and you have a some- what chequered past. . . . '
Had the Atlantic ocean not been between us, I would have given him a knuckle sandwich right then and there, but I managed to keep my cool and simply said that as most of the Establishment belongs behind bars, the poor little Greek boy hav- ing done bird for three months wasn't such a big deal.
I nevertheless find it amazing that a hack can ring someone up and ask such a ques- tion. After all, it wasn't as if Michael Jack- son had just been appointed head counsellor at a boys' camp. I showed off, got caught, paid my debt to society, and c'est tout. I am ashamed about it, but I'd be far more ashamed to have dodged the draft like Baron Miinchhausen in the White House, or to pretend I never inhaled.
And speaking of this side of the pond, during my first day in the Bagel 11 murders were committed in a space of ten hours. Even the New York Post was shocked. But not shocked enough to say that all 11 were committed by our Afro-American brethren, most of whom were below drinking age. This was the bad news. The good was that even in Dodge City a good guy sometimes plugs the bad. Arthur Boone, a 41-year-old Brooklyn factory worker, twice mugged and once pistol-whipped and sent to hospi- tal, took to carrying a 44-calibre Magnum pistol. You know the kind. Like the one Dirty Harry shoves in people's faces.
At 3 a.m., while leaving his job, he was attacked by two black hoodlums, who put a gun to his head. That's when my hero pulled out the Magnum and opened fire, killing the thieves. Both hoodlums had long records and neither should have been on the streets at all. But when the gun they threatened him with turned out to be a fake, Boone was arrested and charged with illegal gun possession. If I were mayor I would have given him the highest civilian medal available. Plus a house. And a car. And a permit. He will probably get a sus- pended sentence instead.
Otherwise, everything is hunky-dory. Now that the Bagel night-club scene is as cheerful as a turkey awaiting execution (pray, dear reader, do not forget this is Thanksgiving) all I do is entertain at home. My friends the Niarchos boys, Philip and Spiro, with beautiful wives in tow, came for dinner, along with the producer Michael White, who was accompanied by Kate Moss, the mega-model. Michael was dis- creet and introduced her only as Kate. Then my little girl came in and did a double-take. Miss Moss became one more reason to seek oblivion, and for once I had the company of my close and dear friend Philip. Needless to say, the mother of my children was so disgusted by my snivelling attitude towards someone almost as young as my daughter, she went to bed.
Oh well, nobody's perfect, but despite the drunkenness and all-round indolence, the biggest-selling newspaper in the Bagel has offered me a job, one I am so eager to accept I decided to play it cool and did a Pinter. When addressed as Taki, I asked whether we had been at school together.
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