High life
Private paradise
Taki
S Porto Helli toying on a friend's private island off the Peloponnese can easily become a habit. There are no wake-up calls and no regi- mentation whatsoever. One can breakfast at 8 or at 11. Guests have their own bunga- low and meet the rest of the freeloaders on the beach for lunch and at the magnificent main house for dinner. We are about 20, with other nearby house-parties joining us - at dinner time, swelling the list to about 35. Never have I drunk more Château Mar- gaux and Mouton-Rothschild, thanks to my host's generosity and good taste in wine.
Despite ending my evenings downing vodka after vodka, I have had very few hangovers the next morning. The wonderful sea breezes have a lot to do with it. This is a very pretty part of Greece, verdant and less rocky than most, full of history and civilised living. This time, seduced yet again by a place I have been visiting for more than 40 years, I have got three eager beavers looking for a peninsula on which to build a house. The irony is that by the time everything is finished — Palazzo Pinochet, Buschido the boat, and Pentonville, as I plan to name the peninsula house — I will probably have killed myself through drink. Oh well, there are worse ways to go, through working for example. The good news is that I have lost two stone, which gives me confidence to go out and chase women.
Oh yes, I almost forgot. I ran into one of my heroes at one of the nightly parties around Porto Helli. Michel Deon, the French novelist and an Immortal, as mem- bers of the Academie Francaise are called, is a very old and good friend. We used to see a lot of him when he had his house in Spetsai, just across from Porto Helli, until the Shylocks pulled a Greek on him. Although completely illegal, the Spetsiotes, a ghastly lot of Albanians and the worst people in Greece, erected a monstrosity next to his traditional and beautiful island house. Michel packed up and went to Ire- land, where at least people kill each other rather than beautiful sites.
Michel was staying with the Mavroleons, which made it a double pleasure because Bluey Mavroleon and I made up over some very silly quarrel we had long ago. We Greeks can be the best people in Europe, warm and friendly and extremely generous. But we have a tendency, derived from my ancestors, to quarrel over nothing. My res- olution is never ever to start anything against a Greek, only people like Blair and Clinton, Cook and Straw, Rusbridger and Hislop, Leigh and Young and the rest of the scum of the Guardian and Downing Street.
Oh yes, I almost forgot. There is also a beautiful green football pitch high up on the island, where five-a-side took place last week comprising the guests vs the staff. The staff side was a very good team of young men in their early twenties, which competes against other semi-pro teams in the area. The guests were not on their level, but we had a secret weapon. Well, not so secret: Frank Le Boeuf, staying with his wife and child on board George Goulandris's boat, and as nice a person intelligent, well-mannered, charming — as Dennis Wise is unpleasant, untalented and an oik.
I will be 64 next month, have been drink- ing non-stop, and made the mistake of run- ning my butt off in the heat. Suddenly the spots before my eyes signalled to my mini brain that I was about either to have a stroke or faint. So I stuck to defence for the duration and even managed a success- ful tackle or two. But rarely have I had more fun on a football field, and we fin- ished the day with some tennis doubles against George and Frank. This was the good news. The bad is that no matter how much I spend, I will never be able to dupli- cate this private paradise.
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