High life
Happy Argies
Taki
Buenos Aires Living at a Sheraton Hotel in a peaceful city a thousand miles away from the ac- tion, bears as much resemblance to being a war correspondent as, say, Dallas, the soap opera, does to a Shakespeare play. It is nevertheless safe, less boring, and of course more comfortable. What it does do, how- ever, is give one a sense of not having ac- complished much; of being a spectator, not a player. Despite the friends I have, and have made, down here, I am really looking forward to going back to what I hear from the grapevine is Merry Old England once again. In fact I am already wondering whether the bar at Annabel's will be crowd- ed next week, or if my favourite table at Aspinall's will be available. What I am not looking forward to at all is the gloating I hear is going on from non-combatants. I truly believe that a law should be passed forbidding any gloating unless total war is declared. For the moment only the ones who took part should be allowed to gloat.
Last night a friend gave a Goodbye din- ner for me and told me how envious he was that I was coming back to England. The Argentines are bitter about the Americans in general, and Mrs Thatcher in particular. No one I've spoken to is particularly angry with the British people. Although I've always been a big Thatcher fan, I must ad- mit I agree with those who wish she'd back off a bit. I shall not preach about magnanimity and all that, except to say that in her victory she does remind me a bit of those nouveaux riches I hate so much. Greed is a middle-class affliction, and ex- treme greed a nouveau riche one. Mrs T should be careful. She might push it too far. Along with her upper-class accent she should have learned about giving a sucker a break. Those who don't, more often than not live to regret it.
Ironically, my Argentine friends cannot understand why England doesn't work when her army seems to function as well as it does. When I explained to them that pro- fessional armies are paid to follow orders, not to strike or go slow, they fail to under- stand why ordinary people cannot be made to do the same. The big difference is that down here it is the government that doesn't function properly, while the people do. In England it seems to be the other way round. So, I say draft Scargill and Benn and Liv- ingstone, and if they strike, do what the ar- my does to strikers. But I shall have plenty of opportunity to get angry about the British disease once I return. For the moment I want to talk about my three weeks in Argentina.
The airport at Buenos Aires is my favourite airport. There is no muzak, nothing to buy, no coffee stands. It is draf- ty, rather small, and the announcements of outgoing flights short and very rare. It reminds me a bit of Shannon Airport in the Fifties. It has always been my experience to run into people I don't want to see, at air- ports. And there is nothing I detest more than that ding-dong sound that precedes an announcement of some outgoing or incom- ing flight. Buenos Aires has very few people waiting around, and -absolutely no sounds except for the ones from plane exhausts.
The quality of life in Buenos Aires is on a par with a rich man's in London during the Thirties. There are a lot of servants, eager servants I might add, and things get done in a hurry. The Argentines are extremely polite and, despite their present painful cir- cumstances, quite outgoing and happy. The restaurants are among the best I've been to, and the nightclubs the same. My favourite dining place is Clark's. It used to be a shirt' maker's shop, full of mirrors and dark panelling, but it went broke and was turned into a restaurant. Where they once used to sew, they now cook. The rest has remained untouched. It is the best food in BA.
If one is of a melancholy nature, Buenos Aires, with its haunting tango sounds and old buildings, is a no-no. There are no drugs, young people are respectful towards their elders, and punk rockers are as welcome or as tolerated as English football fan.s are in Spain. And speaking of rowdies, I mustn't forget the American contingent of hacks down here. Never have I seen a more ghastly crew. If the electronic hacks ever had an intelligent thought, it must have died of loneliness almost immediately. They were crude and insensitive, and one thing I won't miss is the sight of fat American TV people sweating and hustling around the Sheraton. Their latest crisis is General Nicolaides's name. They simply cannot pronounce it. And why should they? They still can't say the Champs Elysees right. By the time they do learn to pronounce it, I suspect Argentina's latest strongman won't be around.
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