High life
Off to war
Taki
New York When Nigel Dempster rang the Palace hotel in Gstaad and cheekily asked to be put through to Mrs Saddam Hussein's suite, the Palace operator connected him immediately to the front desk. `Aha,' thought the world's numero uno gossip, `I've struck gold.'
But then Mr Ferrari, the manager, came on demanding to know where Nigel had got his information from. The impression Dempster got was that she was there. Like the good bloodhound he is he began to hyperventilate.
Alas, all for nought. The much cuck- olded, bottle-blonde clothes-horse wife of the Iraqi chief has never set foot in Gstaad, but the rumours started because so many fat, bottle-blonde clothes-horses have. Worse, Ferrari told Nigel Dempster that this was an obvious Taki joke in return for the Palace's refusal to give me the three rooms I requested for 21 February (they are full).
Which means my bill will be larger than usual, and all because a lot of fat Arabs spoil their wives and insist they look like blondes. Oh well, it could be worse. I could be in Dhahran. And speaking of Saudi, I write this as I'm about to fly to Athens and I hope eventually down to Ruki, a small border town where Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq meet. The reason I say eventually is because although I have my Saudi visa, I've flatly refused to go and sit with the rest of the hacks in the desert. Putting on a mask could be fun if there was something to sniff inside it, but otherwise it's a horrendous bore. And without booze, it's suicide time.
This is where John O'Sullivan has come to the rescue. As of this writing, and for a limited time only, I am National Review's defence correspondent, while Captain Chuck Pfeifer, of Vietnam fame, is military reporter. The two of us hope to use Chuck's connections and savvy to join up with the 82nd Airborne, an outfit with which Pfeifer jumped twice behind enemy lines in Nam.
In the meantime, however, I have assumed heroic status right here in the Big Bagel because of my impending trip — to Athens, that is. Vicki Woods sure got it right last week when she wrote that Amer- icans are afraid to live as well as die. Mostly they're scared as hell to fly. Vanity Fair has cancelled its party because the Newhouse minions would rather fry than fly, but also because they cannot get insurance coverage. So they looked around and found someone expendable, and that is why Anthony Haden-Guest is on his way over. Well, it doesn't really surprise me. When I think that Sylvester Stallone duck- ed the Vietnam war by working as a gym instructor in a Swiss girls' school, it is understandable Taki should be venerated for flying to the Olive Republic.
One man who beat the censors was my old buddy Arnaud de Borchgrave. He flew to Cairo, got Hosni Mubarak to accredit him to the Egyptian army, dressed himself up as an Egyptian major and went up and down the Kuwait border for ten days. He has just got back to Washington and according to him Saddam will use chemical weapons just before the end and Israel, who will be on the receiving end, will immediately go nuclear.
Needless to say, I hope Arnaud is wrong, but if he isn't there is always Anthony Haden-Guest to take my place down by those beaches. And by wearing a gas mask, Anthony will for once look like the rest of us.
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