High life
Requirements for happiness
Taki
To Sebastian Taylor's terrific spread in St Tropez for a weekend of sun and games. For the poor little Greek boy, the rays are as important as spin and lying are to New Labour. Sebastian's parents are academics, which means he wasn't exactly brought up like Christina Onassis, or Taki, for that matter. I take my hat off to him, although we had a rocky start about 25 years ago when I invested in Toil, his oil exploration company. We dug and dug, so deep, in fact, that we faced the China syndrome, but the only oil we found was on the hair of a Mex- ican digger called Chico. Now Sebastian has made it and, incredi- bly, he's become much nicer as a result. This is almost unheard of. Most people turn arrogant and smug and flash with moolah, but in his case it's the opposite. His farmhouse lies on a hill surrounded by vineyards, pines and olive trees. It is truly wonderful and done in very good taste. It was a very un-St Tropez kind of weekend because we actually exchanged ideas and didn't once talk about the jet set. Robin Birley sat reading all day and discussing politics late into the night.
I read Green on Capri and picked up a quote from it which was bandied about during a lunch with Riviera types. As Flaubert wrote to a friend, 'To be stupid, selfish and have good health are the three requirements for happiness, though if stu- pidity is lacking, all is lost.' A Swedish friend of ours, leader of the international jet set, disagreed. 'I'm as happy a person as there is,' he announced, 'and I'm not at all stupid; I run an Internet investment group.' He then resumed his conversation on a mobile with some blonde on some beach about the party they had attended the night before. Oh well, it takes all types, especially modem man, stuck in some eternal adoles- cence talking about leveraged buy-outs and the latest beachwear from Prada.
Which brings. me to a John O'Sullivan article in the National Review. It's about the manly ideal, and in it O'Sullivan remarks how eminently mature actors like Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy seemed whether playing in romantic comedies or, say, play- ing fathers. 'They wore suits, went to offices, drank cocktails, danced foxtrots and solved problems. It was an adult world they inhabited, and we could all imagine their handling life's difficulties with effi- ciency and even aplomb.' He then goes to ask if we can imagine Brad Pitt or Sean Penn giving us the same confidence. Just the clothes they wear inspire doubt that they could even give street directions. Back in the good old days on the Riviera, grown-up men wore slacks, loafers and silk shirts. At night we went to civilised nightclubs wearing either a dinner jacket or a blazer. We danced cheek to cheek to Cole Porter and his ilk. Manners were paramount, and the nouveaux riches aped their betters. Now it's the other way round. Two people who came to lunch one day sat opposite each other talking business, dropping numbers and occasionally speak- ing on their mobiles. A few golden oldies of the screen may help, but I doubt it. These new entrepreneurs know as much about gracious living as Clinton knows about courage under fire. Rock music, discos and flashy houses the modern man make.
The social world nowadays has switched its currency based on good breeding to one based on ostentatious display. The boats in St Tropez harbour were perfect examples. Never have I seen such horrors. Where once beautiful, flush-deck sailboats like the Agneta, the Zaca and Moonbeam bobbed gently against the dock, now grotesque behemoths looking like giant refrigerators on steroids lay siege. Their ghastly owners, surrounded by blondes, look down on the gawkers with disdain. At least in my day the gawkers looked down on us as we sat in the open cockpits.
As always, it was nostalgia time for me. I grew up in that part of the world, and read Tender is the Night before I was 14. When Nicole finally leaves Dick for Tommy Bar- ban, Dick, his career shattered and his youth gone, goes to La Garoupe for one last time. Nicole and Tommy watch him as he blesses the beach. 'I must go to him,' says Nicole. But Tommy holds her back, and Dick leaves alone in his agony. Last week, under almost similar circumstances, I went to another beach next door. I did not bless it, just waited for a while for someone who never came and then left.
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