ANOTHER VOICE
A glimpse into the Black Hole lying in wait
AUBERON WAUGH
Twenty-four years ago, when I was enrolled as The Spectator's political corre- spondent and started the regular columns which have continued, with only two breaks, ever since, I was so poor that when I covered party conferences for the maga- zine in Brighton I used to stay in some rooms over a Cypriot café. The café was called the Brighton Belle, and its welcome in those days was warm but distinctly homely, with nylon sheets on the beds and a shared bathroom for the whole corridor.
Among the Cypriot waiters there was an exceptionally lively — some might say impudent — youth with the short legs and low-slung bottom characteristic of northern Cyprus. His chief delight was to pretend that his clients were drunk as he served them in the bar. He was called Costas, I think, as in Costas Lotta, and we had many merry exchanges along these lines. Later I saw him again, as I thought, at a cocktail party in the Boltons, where he had presum- ably been hired as a waiter. He was addressing himself to a very attractive blonde whom I had never seen before and have never seen since, a mother of four as I later discovered, divorced from a rich Greek.
`Hello, Costas,' I said, or words to that effect. 'Things looking up, eh?' Costas gave me a blank stare and informed me that he was the Greek middleweight boxing cham- pion, an Olympic yachtsman, and a noted sprinter. Later he was introduced to me by the host, Mr Alistair Horne, who said that he was called Taki Theodoracopoulos and was a mysterious millionaire from Greece with connections in the hotel trade.
That was over 20 years ago. I did not expose Taki then as a Cypriot waiter from Brighton on a razzle, nor have I done so since, even when old friends like Alexander Chancellor and Nigel Dempster came up to tell me about this exciting new Greek mil- lionaire they had met. I certainly do not propose to do so now, particularly as it is always possible that I am wrong, that Costas and Taki are not the same person at all. The end of the cocktail party at the Boltons was that the attractive blonde lady said to me: 'Thank you so much for rescu- ing me from that dreadful man. But you must be careful. He will kill you.'
In those 20-odd years since the Brighton Belle — if my identification is correct Taki has achieved universal acceptance as a Greek millionaire (Proud to be Greek' High life, 30 November, 1991) with a large yacht moored somewhere over the horizon as well as breaking through as a much- loved Spectator columnist, dope-smuggler and gaol-bird.
How can I explain why it was that, asked by The Spectator to give his own short- legged, hairy-bottomed, baboon-like opin- ion on the best or most overrated books of the year, he should plump for my autobiog- raphy, Will This Do? (Century £15.99) as the most overrated (`disappointing, rather, as few rated it at all')? I would be most sur- prised if he had read the book. My guess is that he spent a total of six minutes on it, probably in somebody else's house, to check his name in the index and flick through the pictures. Tor his sake, he should have kept out the pictures of his family. They're so ugly . !.' he writes, as his only substantive criticism.
But why, given the opportunity to insult any of the tens of thousands of unread books published last year, should he pick on my own brilliantly funny, unusual and informative memoirs? I do not mind in the least being singled out in this way, and in Taki's case am rather grateful, seeing it all as part of the rough and tumble of show business, but what are we to suppose the punters make of it all? Is there really so much entertainment to be derived from the contemplation of a small, self-regarding group of acquaintances, not particularly well known outside their own circle, slag- ging each other off?
Last week, Rory Knight Bruce, a former Spectator boxwallah, now editor of the Standard Diary, wrote a weasellish piece against journalistic feuds, obviously scared out of his mind by the prospect of a vendet- ta from John Osborne. In the course of it, he pompously took me to task for an alleged feud against Lord Gowrie, the pop- 'Did he jump or was he pushed?' ular black auctioneer and expert on mod- em art. It was one of 11 references to myself by other contributors in last week's magazine (not counting the letters page). My point is that this has got to stop or else the magazine will collapse in on itself like one of Adrian Berry's Black Holes in space. And while on the subject, I must warn Knight Bruce that he is under the Curse of Waugh. On page 133 of my masterpiece I refer to a woman with whom I fell in love at Oxford. There was no great secret about her identity, but I saw no reason why she should be dragged from her private exis- tence for the amusement of the vulgar throng. So I decided to call her Beatrice `and implore any reviewer or gossip colum- nist who knows her identity to hold his peace under pain of an orphan's curse'. Only the Standard Diary chose to reveal it. Knight Bruce's understrapper, young Sebastian Shakespeare, smarting under having had an article rejected by Literary. Review (which I edit), telephoned All Forbes (whose girlish shrieks of spite and frustration at not being asked to review the book echoed through last week's Spectator) . . . All three now exist under an orphan's curse. In Forbes's case, at the age of 76 3/4, the outcome is all too easy to guess. Knight Bruce reveals that Osborne is after him. Exit, pursued by a bear. As for young Shakespeare, we will have to wait and see what fate has in store for him.
Of course this was a particularly bad sea- son for the Black Hole tendency. 'Books Of the Year' is traditionally a time for old friends to pat each other on the head and enemies to settle old scores. My point is that it is getting out of hand. Who on earth is this miserable fellow called John Jolliffe, people will ask, who presumes to piss on The Spectator's longest-running columnist with his own fatuous opinions about the masterpiece? Has he, too, had some drivel- ling copy spiked by Literal), Review? I could enlighten Spectator readers on both points,' but see no reason to do so. Why should they carry one more dismal, forgettable name in their heads, or be expected to digest more information of an utterly unim- portant and unwanted nature? The tenden- cy, as I say, has run amok. Unless the editor is prepared to make a rule that no contrib- utor to The Spectator is permitted to refer to any other contributor, except on the let- ters page, I fear the Black Hole will be upon us.
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