High life
Victory for Sparta
Taki
When Andy Warhol was shot by a woman who was seeking her 15 minutes of fame, he uttered probably the only true words that ever emerged from his mouth. 'I used to think crazy people were only being creative. Now I know some crazies are sim- ply crazy,' said the great manipulator.
I thought of Andy last week, at Wimble- don of all places. What brought him to mind was Gary Muller, a losing doubles semi-finalist and a man whose manners were obviously learned in the Pol-Pot school of charm. Three days earlier, at the Aspinall pro-am, I had the bad luck to play against this bully-bum twice. My partner and I won the first match during the round robin, and lost to him in the semi-final. Muller is six foot four, with long blond hair and a muscular body. His brain is the size of a very small pea. In this charity event, he played very hard against the amateurs, some of whom were in their late sixties and frail. Whenever he missed a shot he swore.
Needless to say, when my partner and I got the best of him and the Kraut Dumm- kopf he was playing with, he called me a name I wouldn't call Clinton. My response was to tell him that I'm not intimidated by people in general, and genitally challenged South Africans in particular. This confused him, but not for long, alas. He and his demented partner won the tournament. As a wit put it, if Dr Mengele were alive, he would have been the perfect person to give them their trophy.
And it got worse. Three days later I watched as the actor Richard Harris, wear- ing pyjamas and a schoolboy cap, cheered wildly while the biggest prick in the All- England Club (with the smallest prick, of course) was knocked out in straight sets by the eventual Aussie winners. The reason Harris was cheering is that Muller is Har- ris's ex-wife's squeeze, and if you knew the wife (as I do) you'd have been cheering too. Anne Turkel, Harris's ex-wife, can only be described as being as ornamental as the bottom half of a mermaid. She is, however, as intelligent as Muller, a fact that the authorities should note. If those two ever produce a child, Herod should become compulsory reading.
Mind you, it wasn't only Muller who upset me last week. Going to Kerry Pack- er's tent with my buddy Joe Dwek, we were stopped by a Gestapo wanna-be and asked to explain where we got our passes. Joe went ballistic and asked him for his moth- er's health certificate. The Nazi got angry and called for more SS. I finally calmed him down, and then more Vopos attacked us when Joe rang his bookie from his mobile telephone. More threats, more screaming, until I produced my Greek identity card and told them I was the Greek ambassador. I believe that did the trick, but it's a sad day when bullies can go around threatening people right in the middle of Wimbledon, people who had even paid for their own tickets.
But there was a happy ending. A Spartan won the singles, beating a Persian in the quarters and two barbarians after that. My wife-to-be (11-1 odds on, according to the Tatler) cheered the Spartan to victory, and if any of you were surprised that Di was so one-sided, it was because she was sitting next to ex-King Constantine of the Hel- lenes. Or perhaps because of the 11-1 odds, who knows?
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