High life
High hopes
Taki
ere are my 1987 New Year's resolu- tions for certain people, hoping that those I mention have the good grace to appreciate the time it's taken me to think of others, as well as the fortitude to stick to what I've decided is good for them. Mr Justice Otton. He should either go back to school and learn it all over again or hire someone to tell him all about the rich and the poor. As Auberon Waugh very correctly pointed out in the Sunday Telegraph the other week, in sentencing Rosie Johnston to prison for nine long months he made much of the fact that she was rich, and that it must never be said that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. I had the opportunity to hear Otton say something to the same effect last summer during my libel case. On that occasion, however, his instructions to the Jury were — in my humble opinion favourable to the rich litigant. The trouble with him is, I suppose, that he reads the gossip columns. Rosie Johnston is poor and should have never been sent to prison — locking up a young first offender is a Cruel and unnecessary punishment. Women's prisons are far worse than men's, warders in the former have been known to sexually harass the inmates, something almost unknown in men's prisons. Andreas Papandreou. Not content with having ruined the Greek economy as well as the Western alliance, he has now embarked on a scheme to do away with Delphi. The Greek Prime Minister has sold Delphi to the higest bidder, the USSR, of co urse. A Greco-Russian alumina factory Is to be constructed six miles west of the ancient shrine, and my spies tell me the project is being rushed through on orders from the premier. But I seem to remember that a similar project planned for 1978 had to be cancelled by the then premier, Karamanlis, when Melina Mercouri and Papandreou accused the government of selling out to the Americans. My resolu- tion for Andreas is for him to realise that Delphi is not his private property that it belongs to the civilised world, and, that by selling it to the Soviets he confirms my belief that the Elgin Marbles belong to the British Museum for good. Amy Carter. The daughter of America's greatest president has done it again. Now, with a convicted drug dealer, Abbie Hoff- man, she spends her time trying to stop the CIA from recruiting in the University of Massachusetts. When Amy, Abbie and their cohorts declared that they were ex- ercising their first amendment right to free speech, they were lying through their teeth. They were, in fact, trying to deprive other people — the Agency recruiters from exercising that very right, not to mention the right of other students to hear what the CIA recruiters have to say. What better enemies could the honourable men who serve their country with the CIA have? My wish for the Carter woman is to keep it up.
Yossi Sand. He is a member of the Israeli Knesset, and in an article in the Big Bagel Times of last week he complained about Ronald Reagan's 'corrupting hand- outs' as he called them. By this he meant that Reagan is no friend of Israel, because he is being generous — generous to a fault, that is. My resolution for Sarid is that he realise it is people like him who will drive people like me towards the Arabs one day. Not only has Reagan been by far the greatest friend of Israel, he has also not complained when the Israelis let him take the heat for Irangate while washing their hands a la Pontius Pilate.
Nancy Reagan. I wish her a better choice of friends for 1987. Nancy, after all, was the one who encouraged — however in- nocently — sleaze in the White House. The stretch limo and Valentino gown became de rigueur during her reign. Ditto Jerry Zipkin. (His sad countenance over the President's troubles has even fans of R.R. like myself reaching for the sick bag.) Not to mention such stalwarts of propriety as Oscar de la Renta, Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, and others too jaded to mention in the first issue of the year.
Princess Michael of Kurtz, Cronin, and Bennett. I wish her to think before she speaks, and to put quotes before and after everything she writes in 1987. C'est tout.
For everyone who reads the Spectator and especially for those who buy it every week — a very happy New Year.
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