High life
Setting sights
Taki
I think it's time for me to move on. The great American climber invasion has be- gun, and there is no room on these isles for both Taki and those in search of dukes and ducks. Only last week I was dining at Annabel's when from the table next to mine this terrific bore explained in a very loud voice how much he spent every year shooting in England. After a while I couldn't stand it any more, and just before the main course I asked Louis to move me. Needless to say, my new location was no better. Except that the second bore was a nicer type of American, more innocent and less pretentious. He kept repeating the fact that he was off `to hunt grouse', and I longed to ask him whether he would wear a purple coat.
Now please don't get me wrong. There is no one more pro-American than the poor little Greek jailbird, but I draw the line where rich American social climbers are concerned. I also know that social climbing is not a recent phenomenon, but has been around as long as time immemorial. (In fact the very first Ancient Greek social climber was one Menelaus, who married into the Taki family, a certain Helen Taki, if memory serves me right.) What bothers me is that come autumn the nouveaus seem to get into a frenzy, especially Amer-
ican ones from the East Coast. What they do is land over here en masse, buy out all the Purdeys and tweeds Britain can pro- duce, pay through the nose (no pun in- tended) to people who own shoots, and bore the pants off innocent bystanders like me whenever I have the bad luck to be in their vicinity while they recount tall tales about shooting with earls, marquesses and dukes.
Once upon a time hearing such nonsense was fun. Especially when their lock-jawed wives would complain about the vulgarity of peers who talked openly about their running cocks and being pricked. My favourite story was of the Greek shipowner who decimated a group of newly rich record-company executives by shooting across the line of guns. While they lay writhing in their brand new tweeds and cursing the Greek, as well as their stretch limo chauffeurs for not warning them the man couldn't see, the predictable hap- pened. One of the social-climbing wives ran hysterically into a nearby village and summoned the fuzz. When the host ex- plained to the cops that the offender was a guest and that he was the finest shot in Greece, the officer was not impressed. 'No wonder,' muttered the copper, 'the way he shoots he must be the only one left.'
This is not to say that the indigenous social climbers are hibernating, however. Come the hunting season (and I don't mean grouse) the local mountaineers are out in force. Take, for example, my good friend Sebastian Taylor. He is probably the most accomplished and sophisticated social mountaineer there is. For years he climbed on the backs of peers' daughters, or wives, but now that he's getting on, past 30, he's decided to climb on a horse. 'I just need that blue and boff,' (sic) he told me last time I saw him, 'and I'll never have a problem again.' He was referring to the Beaufort hunt, needless to mention, and the next thing I knew he got himself invited to Badminton, which in turn caused Bounder Basualdo to have a nervous breakdown.
Speaking of Badminton and the Beauforts, I spent my last English weekend there, probably the only non-royal weekend in that wonderful house. (Taylor got himself invited to one with royals, even if it was only with Princess Michael). The topic of the conversation was Bounder Basualdo, and how he was up at 4 a.m. in order to be ready to go cubbing with the Duke. When I asked the bounder how come he was feeling so energetic suddenly, he said to me: 'I love His Grace the Duke of Beaufort more than I love even Chris- tina Onassis!!!!'
And no social-climbing story would be complete without a mention of the in- genuous manner Nigel Politzer, known among us jailbirds as 'the rat', discovered to keep himself with people born above his station. He simply volunteered to become the manager of the Business Connection, — proving himself an immediate success in promoting them — and he's now seen seven days a week discussing business with his clients, people like Teresa Manners, John Somerset, Michael Cecil, Harry Worcester et al.
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