High life
Simply superior
Taki
h dear! I'm afraid I'm going to be forced to censure Nicholas Soames MP, a friend of very long standing. As head of the membership committee of White's Club, it is my duty to protect the rights of mem- bers, even when he is Osana Bin Laden, according to the White House the world's most dangerous as well as most wanted man. Some of you may remember that I wrote about Harry Laden — as we call the old towelhead around the club — last sum- mer, just after the Draft Dodger had unleashed 75 cruise missiles trying to kill Harry. Clinton managed to kill some inno- cent Sudanese instead, and blow up an aspirin factory. Now Nicholas Soames has demanded Harry's expulsion from White's on the soi disant evidence given to him by the Draft Dodger himself. Well, I've got news for Nicholas. Over my dead body. First of all, Soames should know that the last time Clinton told the truth Napoleon Bonaparte was still alive. The Draft Dodger has had it in for Harry ever since the Orthodox Jews turned against him (Clinton) for having phone sex and a wank immediately after attending church on Sunday. By painting Harry as a meanie who goes around blowing people up, the Draft Dodger hopes to lure the curly-haired ones back into the fold. Sec- ond, how can Soames condemn a fellow club member on the word of a man whose only club is Stringfellows?
Captain Pillcington-Macdonald-Buchanan, our chairman, has assured me that no action will be taken until Harry has had his day in court. The trouble, of course, is that the minute Harry sets foot in England — especially an England that arrests and extradites honourable friends with diplo- matic immunity — the Draft Dodger's lackeys, Blair, Cook, Straw and the Queen of the Fairies, Titania Mandelson, will be on him like a shot. Especially Titania. Harry is a good-looking towelhead, and, after all these years in the Afghan desert, he has probably picked up a few tricks that will please Mandy.
Never mind. Just because the govern- ment has acted disgracefully and dishonest- ly in the case of General Pinochet, it doesn't mean that we, the committee of White's, will follow suit. In fact, we'd rather close the place down than chuck him out as if he were an old tart. What puzzles me is Nicholas Soames. Is he naive or just plain stupid? I know he picked up some very bad habits while in government with people like Judas Heseltine, but White's is far more important — at least to me — than Parlia- ment.
Harry, wherever you are, don't worry. Unlike the grotesque catamites that are hounding General Pinochet, we, your fel- low club members, will not turn our backs on you. I even have a mind to ask for. Soames's suspension from White's on the basis of disloyalty. As I previously wrote, Harry Laden was a heroic skier while at Rosey, and a gentleman off-piste also. He was the first Saudi to make the ski team, and the only Saudi to hold a driver's licence of an automobile. He won the greater-Mesopotamian camel race of 1979, and the Sudan international tennis doubles with me the following year. He joined White's in 1982 — proposed by Peregrine Moncreiffe and seconded by the Duke of Beaufort — and has been a very congenial fellow to drink with at the bar. He is, need- less to say, the most generous member by far, and that includes members of all other clubs in St James's.
Soames, on the other hand, is not very quick on the trigger when it comes to pick- ing up the bill. Some think he would have not lasted long had he lived in the wild west. Soames is also a clumsy athlete. He can shoot and fish, but he can't ride, play tennis or ski anything like Harry Laden. And, as far as camel riding is concerned, forget it.
Finally, we at White's are made of sterner stuff. We are not lawyers and hacks like those Untennenshen at the Garrick. We are not drunks like those at the Turf, nor intel- lectually pretentious like those fools at the Atheneum. We are simply superior. We stand by our brother members until they are proved guilty of blowing up American embassies. Our motto, written by Jeremy Iolanthe, in White's in 1721, is 'High rank involves no shame; we boast in equal claim. With those of humble name, to be rejected.'
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