High life
Write or wrong
Taki
My high spirits at being back in England were somewhat dampened when I was faced with the prospect of opening ten pounds of mail, mostly bills and a writ or two. One letter, however, was from the editor of Harper's & Queen, a certain Herr Landels. I say Herr because although his epistle was written in perfect English, grammatically that is, I detected a certain teutonic tilt in his prose. Although one should never reveal private correspondence — unless one is Britt Ekland, or has lived with Billie-Jean King — I will quote just two sentences from Herr Landels's letter in order to show you what I mean: 'I wonder if you would be so kind as to either tell us we cannot print this and you will sue us, or tell us that we may print it and that you will not sue us.' If you adopt a mid-European accent while reading this, you'll see what I mean. Harper's & Queen is printing an article about a forthcoming book by Jeffrey Bernard and myself. It is written by Mr Landels and I must admit it could have been worse. There were only two things in it which I didn't like. One was calling my children illegitimate; they may have been born out of wedlock, but they are very legitimate. They have my name and, worse, I pay for them, which is enough to make anyone legitimate.
The other item I didn't fancy was about how I hate everyone. Although it is partly true — I do hate all socialists, communists, the rich, most politicians, all civil servants, most lawyers, most Greeks, Italians, French, New Yorkers, all Californians, all leaders of African countries except the extreme southern one, most Indians, and, needless to say, all trade unionists — there are a few people that I genuinely like. For example, John Aspinall, Dick West, my three karate teachers, and Tom Wolfe. There are some others but I can't think of them off hand. I write about things that rub me up the wrong way because negative writing is easier to produce than, say, the kind of articles one finds in Vogue magazine. Whenever I read it I feel as if I have just spent four days in Hollywood. Some magazines at least make one feel dirty. Vogue and Harper's and Tatter make one feel that nothing has happened at all. About 20 years ago I read something in American Vogue about Charlotte Ford. It said that she spoke many languages, was interested in French culture, spent her days in deep reflection on the human condition, and was a first-rate skier and athlete. Well, when I met Charlotte in Paris that summer, she had been there about six months. I had first met her in Gstaad the previous winter, and although her French was non-existent, her skiing was worse. In order to see how far she had progressed after six months in the City of Light, I greeted her with, 'Bonjour Charlotte, comment ca va?' Charlotte is a nice girl, but that day she was a bit puzzled. 'Daddy's in Detroit', she stammered, and then rebuked me for not saying hello.
I will never write about people as Vogue does, because it might give the working classes the wrong idea. They might try and become like the beautiful people, and that would be a catastrophe. Imagine the Mirror and the Sun writing about Sid or Alf and how they spend their driving around in their open Mercedes with handkerchiefs tied around their heads. Or they might even want to join the Clermont Club, and meet Clement Freud.
Which reminds me of a free trip I once made across the Atlantic, when Freud decided to find out who was calling the Daily Mail and giving away news of life on board to Nigel Dempster. He pompously came up to me and told me that he had checked with the bridge and that it was from my cabin that a call had been made to London every day. What a fool, or better yet, what fools the people from Ely who elected him. I was calling London because as usual I was in love at the time. I was also telexing Dempster every day, but that escaped the drooping eye of the dog food salesman.
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