9 NOVEMBER 2002, Page 100

Family values

Taki

Nice to be back in London, if only for a week. Not so nice to have to read about such low lifers as Angus Deayton and John Leslie, not to mention the feuding Spencer family. Mind you, I've lived in England for more than 30 years — no longer, thank God — and had never heard of Deayton and Leslie until now. (For our foreign readers, both men are TV presenters, and both have been fired by the BBC, the former for taking cocaine and sleeping with whores, the latter for allegedly raping various other presenters.)

For me, however, the Spencers are far worse. So much for the family values Charles Spencer was going to instil in Princes William and Harry in his infamous Diana funeral oration. He wouldn't allow Diana to live in the house because of her fame, but then he cashes in on her death big time by creating a shrine in his backyard. Before he said no to Di, he proposed to charge her £12,000 rent for living in the house she was born in. Her sister, that awful McCorquodale woman, grabbed Diana's possessions immediately after the crash, including things which the tragic Princess had left for her various godchildren. (This reminds me a bit of my own family; when my mother died in 1998, one of our employees who had cared for her in hospital approached me during her funeral and handed me her wedding ring. He looked embarrassed. 'I know you'd like to have this, Mr Taki,' he said. My 'dear' brother had lifted everything else, and had even sold her flat, which supposedly belonged to both of us. I did nothing about it because I've got enough and because life's too short when dealing with such greed.) And speaking of hypocrites, the idea of a poisoned dwarf like Ian Hislop passing judgment on a colleague for taking cocaine and screwing whores is more than just rich. Hislop deals in ruining people's lives through falsehoods, half-truths and gossip. Deayton harmed only his nose and his girlfriend's feelings. When that court high up in the sky gives the final verdict, the poisoned dwarf will come off second best.

But enough of such grotesque low lifers. This is, after all, supposed to be high life. And high life it sure was at Nicholas and Eugenie Clive-Worms's spectacular bash at the Wine Vaults, Vinopolis, last Wednesday. The last time I was in Southwark a fat judge gave me four months in the pokey. This time I got to sit with Gwyneth Paltrow for dinner. A change for the better. even if I say so myself. Not that she bent over, so to speak. Miss Paltrow had complained about how English men were useless — I could have told her that — so now she's gone Greek, and big time. I would happily reveal his name, but I cannot ruin the poor man's life so that the paparazzi and the gutter press can make a better living than they already do. All I will say is he's very handsome, very tail, and as good as it gets Greekwise or otherwise. I asked Gwyneth during dinner whether by any chance she preferred older men, and got a very sweet smile but that is all. She soon left with her Greek. So the next day I had my own revenge with .. Rachel Hunter.

No, she has not left her pop star boyfriend for the poor little Greek boy. We went out on a date, so to speak, and I took Charlie Glass with me and another dizzy blonde for company. As it happened, we ran into Charles Price and his wife, so I announced that Rachel was the future Mrs Taki. a trick I've been trying to pull the last 45 years or so. The other good one is my imminent death. 'I have an incurable disease,' I tell them, 'nothing very disgusting, but if you marry me you will only have three to four months to put up with me. Then everything will be yours.' However strong the message, and however dumb Britain is getting by the minute. I've had very few takers. Oh well, the best laugh I had with Rachel was when I asked her why she left Rod Stewart. 'It was the age difference,' she said shyly. I am eight years older than her ex, a fact that amused the very pretty Rachel enormously. She went back to California the next day, leaving me as broken-hearted as poor Rod.

Which brings me to the English and their trouble with sex, English men, that is. The papers are full of stories about 'cocainefuelled sex sessions' and three-in-a-bed situations, and those caught with prostitutes are immediately disgraced or they have to lie about it and eventually go to jail for having lied. Sex, in other words, except when practised in a dark room and only in the missionary position, is very, very bad. But sex is fun and it's good, and the only thing English men ought to do is beat the shit out of those hypocrites in the media who write about such matters. Fuckers of England unite. You have nothing to lose but your inhibitions.