Loos woman
Taki
New York
David Beckham should use the Agnelli defence: a man can be unfaithful and a very good husband, just as one can be completely faithful but an awful consort. Better yet, he should follow the Taki principle: never take your pants off in the company of scrubbers. Only ladies need apply. I haven't followed the greatest story since The Greatest Story., but one thing is for sure, Becks was never alone in Madrid, but he sure must have been lonely to hang out with the likes of Loos. After all, a faithful footballer is a rare thing, but a discreet footballer's crumpet still more so.
Here's the great Milton on Becks and Posh; 'It is not strange though many who have spent their youth chastely, are in some things not so quick-sighted, while they haste too eagerly to light the nuptial torch; nor is it, therefore, that for a modest error a man should forfeit so great a happiness, and no charitable means to release him ... ' Hear. hear! Becks and Posh married in haste, and — according to the sainted one in Courchevel — she has developed acne, but surely a few pimples should not be the cause of their forfeiting so great a happiness for tabloid publicity. Here's the blind poet yet again: 'Since they who have lived most loosely, by reason of their bold accustoming, prove most successful in their matches ... ' Most Don Juans I've known have enjoyed long and happy marriages by reason of their bold accustoming beforehand. (This Milton dude might have been unable to see, but he sure got around.) Our David and Victoria married too young and were probably very inexperienced. I hope they stick with it, only to prove me right. A screw with a scrubber means less than zero, especially in a sweaty place like Madrid full of sweaty senoritas.
And speaking of perspiration, everyone I meet wants to know whether Athens will be ready for the Olympics come 13 August. The answer is yes. Just! Everything is behind schedule, but so what? We Greeks always do things at the last minute. It makes for more excitement. And who gives a flying fig about a swimming-pool roof? Barcelona never used one, and everything went off perfectly. Athens is not London. As the song almost says, it never rains in southern Athens. There never should have been a roof in the first place. It was commissioned so that the crooked socialists who have just been kicked out of office could get some kickbacks. My friend Gianna Angelopoulos, the lady who is running the whole show, is like General Patton. She has never lost. Lawyer, mother, MP, married to a very rich man, she was responsible for the victorious bid, only to be ignored once Athens won the right to stage the Games. This is very Greek. Once the s— hit the fan, she was brought back and asked to sort things out.
Mind you, the Greeks are taking this much too seriously. 'We will lose face in front of the whole world,' says one minister. I am of the opposite mind. If things are a disaster, it could be the best thing that ever happened to the Olympics. We started them, and then we destroyed them. This is the way it should be. The Games are much too big, much too money-minded, much too television-led. Too many minor sports take up too much space and moolah. Who gives a flying fig about synchronised swimming, or beach volleyball? Then there's the Marathon race. It is the most famous race of all. As every child that didn't attend American or British local schools knows, it was in 490 BC that a hoplite was dispatched by Miltiades to Athens with the news that we Athenians had kicked the shit out of the Persian invaders. (No, it was not Pheidippides; he was a general who had been dispatched to Sparta for help.) The hoplite announced the victory, 'Enikikamen', and dropped dead of exhaustion.
This is the site of the first Marathon run during the first modern Olympics in 1896. It was won by Spiro Louis, a Greek shepherd. Now they tell us that the road needs widening. I don't agree. When Louis won, it was a rough dirt road. Now it's covered with asphalt with some potholes every few yards. So what? When the conscientious hoplite ran the course, he was at times chased by wild animals, now all of them have gone the way of good manners and rich people who allow others to talk.
The greatest Olympics were the Berlin ones in 1936, the Los Angeles of 1932, the Helsinki games of 1952, and the Roman ones of 1960. After Rome, politics and boycotts spoiled everything, until the disaster which was the Atlanta Coca-Cola games of 1996. (NBC moved the cameras from the final jump of a Greek female athlete going for gold in order to show three African American runners playing with their children and drinking Coke in the stands.) No, I'm not worried. Athens will be a big success, even if the Games are a total disaster.
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