High life
Dempster, your time's up
Taki
The British press at the moment is in the midst of one its recurrent snits about the debasing influence of gossip. I used to defend it, gossip that is, until recently. To be constantly reminded of something one did ten years ago is a bore and an irritant, but as they say, if one can't stand the heat one should not be in the same room as the Aga. Still, no one likes to be attacked, especially by a friend. Which is what hap- pened to me last week. Nigel Dempster and I have been friends since 1973, and for the last three summers he has stayed with me and my family in Gstaad. He has generally been nice about me in his column, and tried hard to get me a more lenient sentence when I was sent to the Big House ten years ago for possessing cocaine. He has also occasionally written about my pursuit of young women, some- thing that hurts the mother of my children far more than it does me, who is merely flattered.
I have always been nice about him, to his face, in my columns and behind his back. Last week he paid me back by lumping me as a bounder with the likes of James Hewitt and Ron Ferguson, his excuse being that I live with Alexandra Schoenburg but humili- ate her by constantly roistering with women and bragging about it in The Spectator's pages. As far as I'm concerned, it is as great an insult as possible, an almost crimi- nal libel as a result of which I hope never to speak to Dempster again.
The irony is that he got it wrong. What I do with my ex-wife is our business, and the last person to know it is Dempster. We have two young children that are our raison d'etre, and whenever possible we live together because of them. Alexandra likes to live in New York with them, I hate the Big Bagel more than I hate my sins. Alexandra chooses not to see other men, and not because I wouldn't like it, which I wouldn't. She is just that way. Her children are all that matter to her. On the other hand, I am Greek and choose to go out with women. It's my right and Alexandra knows it full well. But I have not kissed and told, nor kissed and sold, and by lumping me with those two, Dempster has managed to kill a friendship for no apparent reason.
A couple of weeks before he came to stay this summer, Dempster published an item about an ex-girlfriend of mine who is getting married in California to an actor. He used the kind of language that keeps gossip writers out of libel courts, words such as 'close supporter' and so on to indi- cate I'd been supporting the girl. I did not take umbrage. Older rich men should sup- port younger and poorer girls, at least where I come from. Alexandra read it and was hurt. It is one thing to live a certain way, and another to see it in print written by someone coming to stay. She wanted him uninvited, but I refused. It is not the Greek way.
Then the bum turns around and lumps me with people who have sold out, two men, especially Hewitt, who betrayed friendships and trusts, and all for the root of all envy. I simply cannot believe that one can think so little of me. Another gossip writer, Peter McKay, has also viciously attacked me, but I don't care about him at all. He is an envious pleb, c'est tout. But Nigel I considered a friend, and genuinely liked and cared for him.
What rankles is that I could retaliate because he has opened up with me the way I was always open with him. I know things about his private life that I will not write because, unlike him, I'm not in the business of breaking up marriages and relationships. But people who live in the glassiest of glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But yet again Dempster is cheating. He throws them because he knows I won't throw them back.
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