High life
Dropping out
Taki Going into The Collection — Luke John- son's newest acquisition, and the hottest restaurant around — we were attacked by the paparazzi. `Jemima, Jemima,' they screeched, 'let's have one of you and Taki.' Needless to say, the poor girl almost faint- ed. 'I can see it now,' she told me, 'Pak- istani papers featuring notorious womaniser and Mrs Imran Khan staring into each other's eyes ...'
Oh well, that cost us Jemima for the night. Next to disappear was Caroline, because her steady, Zack Goldsmith, arrived. Papa Hemingway used boxing terms when comparing himself to other writers. 'I beat Andre Gide on a decision, but wouldn't enter the ring against Tol- stoy.' Where the fair sex is concerned, I'll match my record with anyone, but I will not enter the ring against Goldsmith. The kid is too good looking and might make me look bad in the process of knocking me out. Experience and thousands of rounds no longer matter.
By the time we got to Tramp, Somerset and I had been joined by Charlie Glass, which cost us Serena. Jessica had dropped out earlier at The Collection. As had Zoe, who met someone who resembled Rory Bremner, her regular boyfriend. We were now down to two, and my buddy Johnny Gold — the Tramp supremo — was seri- ously worried. So off we went to Browns, a Holborn hot-spot owned by a very nice Greek, Jake, with a very un-Greek Chris- tian name. Browns is known for a plethora of pulchritude at all times. Just before we went inside we lost Kate, but quickly replenished our stock by joining up with Tara and Tamara — yes, la Palmer- Tomkinson and la Beckwith — which made us look good for a while. Then disaster.
I was convinced that Bettina was still with us, but apparently she had been the first to leave hours before. Thinking it was she, I sat next to a woman and began my usual pro-Wehrmacht spiel. (Bettina's father used to be the German ambassador here.) It is about a Panzer group that took the brunt of the D-Day landing and was reduced from 3,000 men and 300 officers to a few tanks and a couple of hundred men in toto — and, as Alan Clark wrote, still dangerous and counter-attacking.
That is when an enormous English gen- tleman — three of them, in fact, the kind I wrote about in Marseilles last week — took umbrage. I cannot repeat the conversation because there was no translator around, but I did hear something that resembled what black men in America use as a verb, adjective and noun. The girl I was speaking to turned out not to be von Hase, but a real slag who thought Germany was near Clapham. For some incredible reason no punches were exchanged. There was not even a head-butt. Just a lot of abuse of the Wehrmacht, c 'est tout.
Mind you, no one defends the Wehrma- cht nowadays. Two days later I found myself next to Arnold von Bohlen, a noble German who pretty much runs the Cresta in St Moritz. Arnold's son was president of Pop at Eton, which convinced his father that the English are no longer beastly to the Germans. I told him one Kraut in 180- odd years as head of Pop is not good enough. The occasion was Claus von Bfilow's yearly lunch at his St James's club. When I asked permission from my host, and our very own benevolent proprietor sit- ting next to him, if Arnold and I.would be permitted to sing 'Deutschland Uber Alles', von Bohlen was appalled. (Permis- sion was refused.) But Anthony Beevor was there, the man who has written the greatest book in the history of the world, Stalingrad. Although the book has a sad ending — for me, that is — it's still the most terrific read. But I will not be bringing it up next time I go to a night-club.
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