High life
Happy dust
Taki
Zurich
Well, well. How things change. My Swiss banker, who I have yet to meet, told me over the telephone that he is aghast. I can imagine what the top boys back in Detroit are saying. How they must be fall- ing all over themselves with glee. It used to be that old Henry Ford the Second, or the deuce, as people who like to pretend they know rich people well liked to call him, was the Detroit bad boy. He was known to drink a bit, and fool around even more. He even divorced his long suffering wife for an Italian floozy. Although I don't approve of people drinking and fooling around, there is something I feel I must say in defence of old Henry, however. I can swear on a stack of Bibles that he never sold a gram of the happy dust. For a man who makes cars, this is a rare achievement indeed. So next time you read about old Hank's peccadillos, do be charitable. His wife is not as beautiful as Cristina, his cars are not as sleek, his suits are not nearly as nipped at the waist, and his hair is thinning out, not to mention the fact that he doesn't hang around with the beautiful people of Hollywood, but by God he's not a coke pusher. In 1982, and taking into account the way Ford cars have been selling, this is almost impossible to believe.
Although 1 was in Zurich for the Euro- pean Karate Championships, and didn't want to think of anything else but staying alive, it was impossible not to read the headlines about Mr De Lorean. No use kicking a man when he's down either, but facts are facts. I knew De Lorean when he was head of Pontiac. We had dinner a cou- ple of times during the late sixties. He was a charmer all-right, but back then he hadn't gone Hollywood yet. The last time I saw him — like everyone else it seems — I was on Concorde and he sat near by. Esquire had just done a profile of him and we chat- ted about his cars and my writing. He didn't seem very impressed by the latter, and I didn't tell him what I thought of his cars. What I remember distinctly was the change that had come over him. Literally. I guess what really happened was what some- one said about drugs. They turn some idiots into millionaires, and some millionaires into idiots. Despite the bad publicity, I think capitalism will manage to survive, but I would hate to think what some people of the left would be saying
about the Tory party if De Lorean had been financed by it. What he did is worse than a crime as far as I'm concerned, but it's no worse ethically than the fact that people whose head is received by the Pope and the Greek government actually finance their terrorism by smuggling drugs into Europe and America. I say let's lock up De Lorean and throw the key away, but let's do the same to those Palestinians who profit from dope. After all, De Lorean did not go into the streets himself and sell the laughing powder. He planned to profit from the sale. As does the leadership of the PLO.
But enough about happy dust and- unscrupulous millionaires. In Zurich, one of the cleanest and most beautiful cities in the world, one does not need cocaine. What one does definitely need is money. Banhof Strasse makes Bond Street look like a Dinas Powis side street. I flew out last Friday, and spent the two hours in the air cursing poor old Onassis. His crime, as far as I was con- cerned, was Olympic Airways. Why did he have to go and start the worst airline in the world? Wasn't he happy to stick to ships? Was it necessary to make Greeks suffer even when away from the nosiest and most polluted city on earth? Well, to be fair, he didn't figure that his airline would be na- tionalised. And we all know what state run airlines are like. I had the whole karate team fill out those letters of complaints, and as we were disembarking we actually saw two of the stewards reading them. When we remonstrated they lied and said that the envelopes had not been closed pro- perly. So we asked for some more, acting through pure muscle, and forced them to give us more which we mailed from Zurich. Not that it will make any difference, but it was nice to bother those Greek bullies who work for the government.
Karate-wise everything went well. Two of my boys passed a couple of rounds and lost very honourably. Two Englishmen ended up as finalists, and Bob Poynton, the loser, gave us all a lesson in sportmanship. I fought quite well, but was disqualified for excessive contact. For once, however, I thought I got a bad deal. I threw a textbook 'This is the very closet I came out of.' right just as my Hungarian opponent at- tacked with his leg. As he came in I caught him flush in the jaw. I didn't know how many teeth he had but he has one less now Typically, he didn't mind. We had a drink together that night and talked about Hungary and the old Empire. He seemed content to live and work in Budapest. The last thing he asked me about my life was if everyone with money in America was selling cocaine? It was hard to argue with him.
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