High life
Where's my peerage?
Taki
Unlike the cowardly Salman Rushdie, I am not about to demand protection from the Home Secretary. In fact, I have just saved the British tax-payer millions. If Tony Blair had more class, he would recognise my sacrifice and reward me with a quickie peerage. After all, having spent millions in feeding and clothing the British upper class- es, I deserve something in return, yet the only thing I've received are death threats.
For any of you who may have missed it, I wrote something quite rude about the Puerto Rican parade in the Big Bagel last month, and, bingo, the next thing I knew I was Salman Rushdie — a man with a price on his head. Well, not quite. The Puerto Ricans being far nicer than the Ayatollah's rabble, the only thing they did was threaten to kill me. They have not as yet offered a bounty. The moral of the story is never trust a gossip columnist who wears a dis- gusting toupee and is envious of the rich.
The man who took my Puerto Rican spoof out of context and sent it around to macho Puerto Rican types is called George Rush, and he works as a gossip-monger for the Daily News, the low-life tabloid of the Bagel. I once spotted him wearing a neck- tie of a club he not only didn't belong to but where he would have been unwelcome even in the tradesmen's entrance. I pointed this fact out and the rug-wearer has never for- given me. Oh well, things could be worse.
Things like asking Jack Straw for protec- tion. I once wrote something rude about the Home Secretary when he was still in the shadow cabinet, and he reacted as if I had jammed the tip of my umbrella in his you-know-what. He wrote a ferocious letter to the Sunday Times reminding them of my Pentonville stay — as if I have ever tried to hide the fact that I am an alumnus.
So how can I now go to him for protec- tion? I am a tax-payer and a British resi- dent and should be protected, but even the ridiculous nanny state will not protect one unless one asks for it. Rushdie cried and begged and trembled and 'Mrs Torture', as he called our sainted ex-leader, gave him year, month, week and 24-hour prophylac- tic. I don't think the present Labour gov- ernment would waste good money to keep Taki intact. Lady Thatcher was a fool. She should have sacrificed the unreadable one and gotten cheaper oil into the bargain.
Mind you, I don't think I could bear to live with five protectors all the year round. When my father was on the hit-list in Greece, one of his bodyguards went and told him what I was up to and I ended up the poorer for it. (Old Dad cut the allowance.) After his death, I told the prae- torian guard the party was over. They whimpered and cried a la Rushdie until I gave in. I assigned them to guard the hotel I then owned. They ended up alienating the few clients we had. In fact, they beat up our oldest guest, a doctor from Salonica whose idea of a good time was to buy everyone drinks. The doctor lived in the Lord Byron bar. Apparently he never drank while practising medicine in Saloni- ca, but then would fly down and stay stinko for days on end. He once admitted to me that his success rate — he was a heart sur- geon — was 50 per cent immediately fol- lowing his stay at the Caravel.
No, unlike the Indian coward, I shall not ask for protection from Mr Straw or any- one else. Vivere pericolosamente!
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