High life
High stakes
Taki
Gstaad Back in the middle Sixties the then Prince Fand was a regular chemmy player at Aspinall's wild game. Fand was always accompanied by a young and beautiful Palestinian girl, and was extremely polite to us lesser mortals. Despite his wealth, however, he was a cautious gambler. Yet he was one of Aspers's favourites, the reason being, I suspect, the prompt pay- ments he made. (During those good old days, punters gambled on credit, and worried about payment the next day.) I particularly remember one night, when the game had as usual got out of hand, and I was down tens of thousands of pounds. Fand had the bank and had passed three hands at the expense of Lord Lucan, later to become known for other things. When `Lucky' did not call suivi, I asked for banco. I recall taking a large gulp of my whisky — again, before the law prohibited us poor gamblers from the odd booster and slowly looked at my first card. It was a four. I then quickly looked at the second one. It was also a four. 'Shredded,' I yelled, and showed my cards to the Saudi. Fand smiled, and slowly turned his own cards over. I was in the habit of never looking at the cards being turned over, until I heard him softly say sorry. He had a nine.
I said well done, got up and went to the lavatory, where I was sick. My bride of three months gave me the kind of con- temptuous look brave men give their ex- ecutioner when asked if they need a handkerchief to cover their eyes. It was the beginning of the end of my marriage, not to mention my solvency.
Needless to say, I informed Aspers that the future Saudi king would have to wait, which meant that Aspinall had to come up with the loot. But Aspers did not have to wait long. That winter, I ran into Harold Lever, back then still a commoner, and virtually took him to the cleaners: 50,000 big ones to be exact, enough to wipe out my debt to the Clermont. Although Lever was later to be knighted and ennobled, I don't think he ever got over my throwing three double fives in a row to win an unwinnable game that he had doubled me to 16.
After Fand became king he turned into a ghost gambler. By this I mean he kept gambling but not against people who were liable to do an Andrew Wilson. But a private room at Aspinall's with unlimited stakes was always available when Fand was in town. Which in a way is ridiculous. Gambling when one is as rich as Fand is as futile an exercise as Arnold Schwarzeneg- ger entering a strongman contest in a small village fair. Which brings me to the point I wish to make.
Fand and the Saudis have the guts of a popinjay. They think that by going around bribing evil they can survive. Well, I've got news for them. If they don't fight now, they'll soon be gambling regularly with Taki chez Aspers in the very near future. What outrages me even more is the fact that they have the planes to do it. As Paul Johnson very correctly wrote, the Iraqis are novices in the air, and even without American help the Saudis — if they had any bottle — could establish air superiority after one week and then take the bully's armour out at will.
And what about King Hussein siding with his namesake and accusing the Kuwaitis of having too much? I guess the heat helped him forget his expensive hook- ers, his private planes and yachts and night-club bills even bigger than mine. He will also be joining us soon.
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