High life
A time of gifts
Taki
0 nce upon a time, before professional open tennis, the Queen's Club London Championships, as they were then called, were a quiet affair. They took place the week before Wimbledon, and everyone gave it the old college try, just. Every seed at Wimbledon took part, and the list of winners is as impressive as that of the Old England Club up the road. I only compet- ed in the men's singles once, as most of the time I was down in Roehampton taking part in the qualifying round.
Back in those halcyon days, one of the pleasures of my life was watching the American arrivals when they first encoun- tered the comforts of Queen's. There were two showers which dribbled some tepid water. The locker-room attendant reluc- tantly gave out one damp towel per player per day, and if it wasn't returned, it was curtains — no pun intended. In 1958, hav- ing taken a terrific drubbing from the great Roy Emerson — or was it Mal Anderson? — I was advised by Kurt Neilson, a Dane and twice singles finalist at Wimbledon, that I should try to venture to the net when on grass. Many of us clay court specialists would come to England, stay at the back of the court and try to hit winners against net rushers — with a wooden racket, to boot. It was the Charge of the Light Brigade all over again, although I preferred to call it Thermopylae.
Last week I was back at Queen's as guest of The Spectator's publisher. The lunch was in honour of those great men and women who advertise in the Speccie, an extremely brave bunch, as the best and most elegant weekly in the world does not carry nude pictures of under-age boys and girls, nor sequences of women making love to ani- mals, not even confessions of streptococ- cus-ridden ex-Hollywood bimbos, a prerequisite nowadays for most advertisers.
Just as the lunch began, I informed Dan Colson, the Richard Nixon to Conrad Black's Ike, that Fergie and Thomas Muster would join us, if only for a minute (his was the second match on centre court). I don't think anyone believed me, especial- ly our man Dan, but still I pretended that the second most famous couple of the week — following Polly Toynbee and the world's bravest man — were about to descend on us. I asked some of our guests if they had an idea of what gifts Thomas was shower- ing Fergie with, except for the obvious, of course, and vice versa. It is quite a list.
Fergie got off to a furious start by giving him the new Z3 BMW, an open roadster that would make King Fand drool with envy. Muster, always the gent, offered a Hermes bike, by far the most beautiful two- wheeler around. (The wags insist the real purpose was to improve her thighs while she cycles back and forth to various parties. Smart Muster.) She also gave him two pairs of incredible Gucci loafers with an Austri- an motif, while he gave her the whole kit and caboodle of Clinique products. The two of them then toasted each other with Veuve Clicquot, wrapped themselves into cuddly Ralph Lauren Polo dressing gowns, and Muster went out and got to the semi- finals of the Stella Artois hitting from the back court. Now that's what I call creative advertising.
Next week, if Muster can still stand up, it's going to be tougher on him. A baseliner can hit the cover off the ball for three sets, but five is a different story altogether. Mind you, I'm rooting for him. First and foremost, because he's Austrian. Second, because he overcame a terrible accident to reach number one in the world. Third, because he reminds me of the Austrian `ordinance' to the German officers who occupied our house during the war. (My God, did that poor man suffer, especially from my mother). Fourth and last, and according to Nietzsche, 'A virtuous man is a being of an inferior species for the very reason that he is not a person, and that his merit consists on conforming to a type of man that is fixed once and for all.' Muster is not fixed, and left a beautiful Austrian girl (according to her, that is) to go after Fergie. He could have done worse. It could have been Polly Toynbee.
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