High life
Making enemies
Taki
Things sure ain't what they used to be. Last Monday, at Paul and Marigold John- son's garden party, I tried to introduce a very pretty girl to Alan Clark. 'Sorry, I've got to go and park my car,' said my favourite MP, leaving the young royal rather disappointed. I made it up for her with Sir Tom Stoppard, whose Invention of Love has to be by far the most intellectual and irresistible play going. Sir Tom is a very pleasant man and a shrewd observer. When I told him that I was related to the Marx Brothers, he pointed out that this was by far my greatest connection. He is, of course, right. As Ogden Nash said, 'The world would not be in such a snarl if we had more of Groucho and less of Karl.' (My sister-in-law Victoria Schoenburg- Hartenstein is married to Harpo Marx's grandson.) When the pretty young thing began to make goo-goo eyes at the play- wright, I went over and asked Mary Killen for advice. 'Do not worry,' said the modern Pythia, 'he is spoken for.' Well, that never stopped me, so I am worried.
But back to Alan Clark. He was waiting to take Frank Field's parking spot, so for a joke I said who the hell is Frank Field? An unknown American woman approached me and remonstrated: 'You don't know Frank Field? Why don't you try to broaden your horizons?' Now there's nothing that annoys me more than to be given advice by an American woman in the midst of a wonder- ful party full of friends like John Keegan,
The descent of man
Jonathan Aitken, Conrad Black, Drue Heinz and so on. (There was even a rock star, Paul's nephew Crispin Hunt, of the Long Pigs. Do you believe it? Paul's nephew a rock star?) American women can be awfully bossy, but when they try it over here, and to a male chauvinist like myself, they become pathetic.
Almost as pathetic are those ludicrous American females who are complaining about Mount Athos. They feel discriminat- ed against. Greek women, in their infinite wisdom, argue that Mount Athos's anachronism is a false issue for feminism. Mount Athos is unique, and it has stayed unique because of its sexual inequality. These American busybodies should do us a favour and shut up. We Greeks are not Clintons. We do not take feminists seriously. Mount Athos will be integrated over our dead bodies. The monks are not misogynists. They are simply committed to the aesthetic life. Which means no women.
Mind you, it is not only the feminists who are being a pain in the you-know-what. In the Sunday Times book review section, some jerk complained about Barry Humphries's defence of Jeffrey Archer in the Speccie diary. Barry Humphries is a great man, a far superior writer than the pseudonymous jerk in the ST, and since when is it wrong to defend a friend? I, too, want Jeffrey Archer to become mayor of London. First of all he is the type of man to get things done. Second, anyone hated by the grotesque Stalinist low life Paul Foot and the pathetic social climber Max Hastings has to be a great man.
And while I'm on the subject of the Sun- day Times, I saw an interview with my NBF Sebastian Coe. The interviewer, Cosmo Landesman, a man I do not know, asked the greatest track and field British athlete ever (he is the Paavo Nurmi and Emil Zatopek of England) why he was so boring. Coe is a gent and, having been an MP, is used to such crap. He fielded the stupid remark well and went on. I would not have been so kind. 'I suppose everyone seems boring to a man once married, and jilted for a woman, to Julie Bulldyke,' would have been the Taki answer.
Just as well I wasn't around. Making new enemies is great fun, but I have accepted Murdoch gold week in week out for four years, a fact that drives the hacks green with envy. As I write this, rumour has it that the Observer has been caught yet again telling a whopper. I am no friend of the Labour party — and not having passed leg- islation to rein in the yellow British press, it deserves all it gets — but what else is new? The Guardian-Observer axis is out to ruin the innocent and guilty alike. Rusbridger is an evil man. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits. Poor fleas.
Next week I shall be reporting from the Swiss Alps, where I shall be going for some truly needed rest and recreation.
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