High life
Persecuted
Taki
T called my American lawyer the other day I ask what had become of the six-mink:l- dollar libel suit the husband of Model turn' ed minor starlet, Marisa Berenson, had 111" 'bated against me earlier this year. MY lawyer, Eddie Hayes, is an ex-assistant district attorney of the state of New Y°114 who finally decided to earn a better living defending the poor, the underprivileged' Taki. When he realised I was ringing from Greece to inquire about the libel suit he laughed out loud. 'The call will cost You more than the case,' said the counsellor,: 'not even if his father was the judge COl& ,this bum get six cents.' Although relieved, I am hardly haPPy' The incident that roused Mr Marisa Berea' son to litigation has elicited reservations even among those who hold a low OP' nion of the greatest Greek writer since Aristophanes. All I did was write an essay decrying the American habit of spilling alas' beans about their private lives and, ala'; their private parts, the minute they meet stranger. Back to reticence was my message' and, as an example of people who were 1,11' discreet, 1 mentioned Ms Berenson's by. (He had, after all, told all about his private life to the mother of my children two minutes after first having set eyes on her
r.
Well, it is a sign of our times, or perhaP a sign of our progressively sensitive natures that a truly innocuous remark about his al cessive candour caused La Berenson's mat enough 'mental pain and anguish' for hi to demand six million smackers from th nouveau-poor littke Greek boy. Just imagia how much he would have asked for if 1 ha libelled him! (Probably as much as his bes friend Sebastian Taylor dreams about mak . ing with his dry holes down in Texas 011,1 day.) And the husband of the starlet isn11 the only one who wants the last of .F0 devalued drachmas. Last week I wrote In Greek newspaper that the only business Greeks really excel in is cutting hair. And wasn't kidding. I have a Greek barber . New York, in London, and of course 1 Greece. They are the only three Greeks wh have never, ever, let me down. Further more, I don't know of a single bad Greek barber. Tonsorial Praxiteles I called them.
• So, what do you think was the response of the readers? They called me anti-Greek and demanded that the editor assign me to Cover Turkey for the next thirty years.
But I digress. What I am really trying to say is that I believe in libel laws more than I believe in Mrs Thatcher, but I certainly do not believe that the hyperbolic custom of someone who loaths the modern world as I d.o should be restrained because of the anguish and pain' I might cause to a few social climbers and a lot of Greeks. In fact 1 was pre-empted by Peregrine Worsthorne last. Sunday, because although I am not quite LIP to his level 1 was planning to write something similar. (Pray, no offence meant, Perry.) The 'know-all smirk' on a left- inger's ugly face, while dispensing totally false information on Central America, is there because the pinko weirdo knows nobody is going to sue him for telling lies. (See the Sunday Telegraph of lastweek.) But the moment the intrepid high life cor- respondent of the Spectator dares to write a truth about the jet-set in general, and social Parasites, rich white trash, zombie-like rock musicians, the Greek government, most Arabs, all real estate developers, and everyone in Hollywood in particular, every shYster lawyer starts rubbing his sweaty lit- tle hands and drooling at the mouth.
If the Berenson woman's man wants six million, what do you think the political op- t)‘one.nt of Disraeli deserved, of whom old that said: 'He has committed every crime
b„at does not require courage.' Or Swin- urn e from Carlyle when the latter wrote: I have no wish to know anyone sitting in a sealer and adding to it.' Neither gentleman, incidentally, brought suit. There is definite- a difference between libelling a businessman ‘,
ng by calling him dishonest, or by writi , that someone took a bribe, and the
Ingar abuse that the poor little Greek boy neaps occasionally on the greedy and the uPwardlY. mobile.
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