High life
Climb every mountain
Taki
ne of my few virtues is a total lack of Schadenfreude — until, that is, I arrived in Gstaad and thought of those hundreds of thousands of fools frying themselves alive in beach resorts around the Mediterra- nean. Mind you, I was just such a fool throughout the month of July, so I know. Never again.
But even if the French Riviera were not the avatar of vulgarity, the Italian coast more polluted than Yokohama, Porto Cervo as crooked a deal as Ivan Boesky, and the isles of Greece as unfit for gracious living as Pentonville, I'd still insist that only masochists and pickpockets wouldn't prefer Gstaad in the month of August. I mention pickpockets, because if it wasn't for them — at least according to Rodney Dangerfield — no one would have sex on the Riviera. The hookers are too expen- sive, the young have fled, and the place is full of Aids.
Not that there is a lot of it here. The presence of my children's mother has turned me into an amoeba, which as all of you who have studied biology know has neither sex nor gender. Still, I've never been happier. I rise early in the morning, breakfast in the garden while the tempera- ture is in the high teens, walk to the Palace Hotel's tennis courts where I practise for exactly 45 minutes with a pro and then swim five lengths of the 50-metre pool adjacent to the courts.
After that rather energetic morning, it is time to read the newspapers, which in Gstaad arrive on the same day, unlike Italy and Greece where if one is lucky they might find the Tel Aviv Herald Tribune of the day before. After lunch I walk up various mountains surrounding Gstaad. This takes up to two hours, and is the most exhausting part of the day. Exhausting, that is, when one thinks about it after- wards. While climbing, the scene is so spectacular, so verdant, so breathtakingly beautiful, even a sybarite like yours truly
has no time for selfish thoughts.
And speaking of selfishness, I have discovered one of the great cheeses of our time. It is called Appenzell, and it bears the name of the canton in Switzerland where the women have no vote. Needless to say, I have already instructed my solici- tors to try and get me a residence there, but in the meantime I am feasting on the cheese.
Leave it to the good old Swiss to do the right thing, although it is terrible to con- template that Appenzell is now the only canton to do it. Back in 1700 Germany went a step further. A fine or tax was levied on unmarried women, something I hope the new united Germany may rein- troduce. (Just as the Big Bagel, which in 1904 arrested women for smoking in pub- lic, is about to do so again, but this time for both sexes.) In the meantime, in between climbs I tell the few people left who still listen to the voice of reason that chastity is curable if detected early enough, and other such bon mots.
But like all good things my Gstaad days are coming to an end in another week, and then it will be back to work in the sweaty hellhole that is the Med, on board my boat served only by four sailors. It's a depress- ing enough thought to make me break my health routine and get completely wrecked as soon as I finish this opus.
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