High life

This is a good time to write about a nation’s resilience in the face of calamity. I am referring to the stoic discipline with which the Japanese bore hardship and the death of 15,000 people in March 2011 following a nine-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever known to have hit Japan. I can remember the TV coverage as if it were yesterday. Very young and very old Japanese formed a long orderly line for disaster supplies. There was no looting whatsoever as there had been in Los Angeles or in Mexico City, no weeping on camera so that the world would send more funds, just plucky resolve (gaman in Japanese) and ganbaru (to endure with pride). As anyone who is familiar with Japan knows, tenacity is highly celebrated both as an individual and a collective trait.

 Gstaad The very end of 2014 laid an egg, and an expensive one at that. I missed David Tang’s bash in London because I thought it too much to fly over for a cocktail party, but my restraint cost me quite a lot. It would have been worth rowing across to see Tony Blair schmoozing my old proprietor Lord Black. Two more wrong choices followed: I skipped Jemima Goldsmith’s party as well as her brother Ben’s wedding for a shindig of my own —one that turned out to be a bust. None of my gels turned up, but a lot of strangers did, and, to add insult to hurt feelings, a waiter told me at 3.30 a.m. that it was time to wrap it up. The party invitation read from 10.30 until dawn. He must have been on a different time zone and I told him so.

Welcome to 2015, the year that speaking and writing freely had to stop. Anything that might cause trauma to anyone of any race except the white one will be expunged, and the perpetrators of politically incorrect speech or written word will be airbrushed for ever. The word trauma derives from the Greek and means wound. The literary canon will be the first to bite the dust as it’s one big trauma, especially for feminists. The Great Gatsby, for example, is bonfire material because of a variety of scenes ‘that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence’. And let’s not forget The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as racist a book as ever there was — worse than Gone with the Wind.

Here is my Christmas gift to Spectator readers, one that applies mostly to unmarried males, but is also available to married ones who might wish to test if that old magic still works. (Female readers of the best magazine in the whole wide world might also pick up a few hints.) This is, of course, not to be confused with the amateurish, vulgar and embarrassing inventory of the American Julien Blanc on how to pick up women. His guidance is meant for tattooed beer drinkers trying to pull drunken slags in cheap bars. Mine is for gentlemen endeavouring to make an impression on ladies and well brought-up young women. Here we go: Needless to say, the way to success with the fairer sex cannot be taught. One either has it or one doesn’t. Politeness comes first — that and humour.

Except for sickness in one’s family or the loss of a life, is there anything sadder than to see a bookstore shut its doors? I used to live on a street that had three bookstores within 50 yards of each other. All three are now boutiques selling expensive bric-à-brac, or whatever the junk that tarts wear is called. Browsing in a bookstore has to be every bibliophile’s wet dream, a perfect way to stand upright, in a correct posture, and lose weight while reading blurbs. Excelsior! It is every frustrated or unsuccessful writer’s dream to own and operate a bookstore, but nowadays it’s like selling sunlamps to Australians: there are no takers. And how could there be?

The leaves are falling non-stop, like names dropped in Hollywood, and it has suddenly turned colder than the look I got from a very pretty girl at a downtown restaurant. I was dining with the writer Gay Talese and had gone outside for a cigarette. Two men and a lady came out looking for a cab. The scene was straight out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story: ‘I love you, I’ll take you home,’ said one of the young men. ‘I love you more, let me take you home,’ said the other. Both were well dressed and spoke proper English. There was nothing else to do but to butt in, and I did. ‘I love you the most, and I’ve got a car and driver waiting,’ I said to her. That’s when I got the cold stare, although to their credit the two preppies laughed.

To the grand Herrera house on the upper east side of Manhattan for lunch in honour of Lord and Lady Linley. David Linley is over here to receive an award for his designs, which even a rube like myself where furniture is concerned finds wonderful. Princess Margaret’s son is talented, but he’s also a very nice man. His parents must have done something right, because he’s lived a scandal-free life (as has his sister) — something other British royals cannot claim. He also earns his own living, as rare among royals as a neoconservative marine. Our hostess Carolina Herrera is the best fashion designer in America, by far. She and her husband were very close to Princess Margaret, and David and Serena stay with them whenever they’re in the Big Bagel.

To Newport, Rhode Island, the smallest state in the Union but one of the most beautiful. Driving north-east from the Bagel, there’s Long Island Sound on one’s right, and beautifully foliaged farms and towns on the left. The colours are spectacular: golden browns, brick reds and lemon greens. New England is the most beautiful region of America, except for parts of Virginia, where they build warships rather than sailing boats. The reason for the trip was to find the new Bushido — as difficult a task as living one’s life under the Bushido code, and then some. Just before crossing into Rhode Island I stopped at Mystic, Connecticut, where 26 years ago a charming motion picture called Mystic Pizza was shot, starring an unknown Julia Roberts.

Autumn in New York: they even wrote a song about it that was a great hit 60 years ago. Last weekend the sky was awash in blue, Manhattan at its best, with Central Park gleaming in green and only the crowds marring the views. New York has changed dramatically these last 50 years, but what city has not? The place has got richer, but not better as far as the quality of life is concerned. That ghastly Bloomberg midget sold the place to the highest bidders, so developers are singing his praises, not unlike bootleggers paying homage to Al Capone. Manhattan was always chic in the Upper East and West Sides, but bohemian and gritty and artistic downtown. No longer.

I have always believed that the mission of most movies made after the Fred & Ginger era has been to reduce, insofar as it is possible, the manners and morals of the community. Long before the camera was invented, the Ancient Greeks used to throw playwrights in jail for corrupting society, old Aristophanes always one step ahead of the sheriff, a practice that has not been followed by our generation because there are not enough jail cells to accommodate all the ruffians responsible.

An intelligent letter from a reader, Stanislas Yassukovich CBE, warms my heart. It’s nice to know there are others as appalled as I am by today’s so-called elite’s ghastly manners. Good manners, a rarity these days, are not a superficial activity. They serve a moral purpose, that of an inner unselfishness, a readiness to put others first. They are the opposite of brute force, concealing man’s natural belligerence. After the Titanic went down, it was revealed that first-class passengers had died in disproportionate numbers because they had queued in an orderly manner for a lifeboat. Forget the movie, that was Hollywood bullshit; Astor and Guggenheim, the two richest on board, chose not even to try to save themselves.

The time-honoured saying that England’s great battles have been won on the playing fields of Eton is a lot of hooey. Blücher was the real winner against Napoleon at Waterloo, and the only thing he said to Wellington after the battle was ‘Quelle affaire!’ (Hardly an Old Etonian expression.) England’s great battles have been won by some Old Etonians, to be sure, but the heavy lifting has been done by England’s allies, such as the Yanks in the first world war and the Russians in the second. If that ogre Woodrow Wilson had not sold his soul to the bankers and kept America out of the war, I am convinced we’d be in far better shape today. The bankers had loaned lotsa moolah to the Anglo-French but Germany was winning the war and the money men were up shit creek.

This is about life up high. Two weeks ago The Spectator had that rapscallion and mischief-maker Peter McKay writing about how great it is to pilot a plane. (He’s taking lessons and has flown solo.) I’ve always been told that riding a motorcycle and piloting a plane are about the same, and McKay is a motorcyclist. His build, looks and accent are far more suited to riding on two wheels than to piloting a plane (that role is more one for a Cary Grant type). But I am being snobby and writing like McKay — cattily. Reading about flying brought back pleasant memories, but also a tragic one. When my little girl was 19 and at UCLA (that’s a university in Los Angeles, for any of you unfamiliar with places of higher learning), she informed her mother and me that she wanted to become a pilot.

Athens This grimy semi-Levantine ancient city has its beauty spots, with childhood memories indelibly attached. There is a turn-of-the-century apartment building across the street from my house where in 1942 or ’43 I watched a daughter and wife scream in horror from their balcony as three nondescript assassins executed a man as he bent over to get into his chauffeur-driven car. His name was Kalyvas and he was a minister in the Vichy-like Greek government of the time. He was bald and from my vantage point I saw the three red spots as the bullets entered his skull. His wife and daughter wore black from that day onwards. The daughter was a teenager — and a pretty blonde one at that. I was six and have never forgotten them or their screams of anguish.

Next time you read about an auctioneer’s gavel coming down on a $150 million painting bought by some flunkey representing the ruling family of Qatar, don’t ooh or aah, but think of those monsters in Iraq and Syria who have their children pose on video while holding up the severed heads of innocents. And no, it’s not a stretch — without Qatar’s gold Islamic State would not exist, not even in the movies. Let me put it another way: had Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover given White House dinners for Al Capone, the outcry would have been heard all the way down to Patagonia.

Ibiza This island is the Spanish equivalent of  the Greek sex rock of Mykonos, except its waters are murkier, its nightclubs and restaurants far more expensive. But its hookers are first-class and not to be compared to anything selling itself in Greece. Why that is so, I don’t know, but Greece gets the dregs where the world’s oldest profession is concerned, whereas Ibiza and Spain reign supreme. No, I did not indulge, but I invited a few girls to come on board for a drink very late at night and once they were done with their libations they offered sex. Now sex is a hard subject to deal with in print. I haven’t ever gone into detail about it — it’s simply not my way — and I plan to keep it that way.

Back in the very early Sixties there was an uninhabited islet off the west coast of Greece by the name of Skorpios. It was wild, with neglected olive groves, and its asking price was around $60,000. Step forward Aristotle Socrates Onassis, who snapped it up and for good measure put some pocket change up for the even tinier island of Sparti next door. One can swim to Skorpios from the large Ionian island of Lefkas in less than an hour — wearing flippers, that is. Onassis was a much misunderstood character. He had great charm, spoke many languages and was very streetwise, but his looks were against him. His propensity to wear dark-blue double-breasted suits, white shirts and dark, wraparound sunglasses added to the Mafioso aura.

Can somebody tell me when America last got it right? Uncle Sam’s track record in selecting leaders in faraway places reminds me very much of my own where libel is concerned: plaintiffs 5; Taki 0. Let’s see, the good Uncle overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran back in the early 1950s in order for the Shah to become his man in Persia. The Shah went gallivanting in St Moritz, threw very expensive parties in Persepolis and spent money like a Saudi camel driver-turned-prince on American weapons. But once the Shah became a pariah, the Home of the Brave chickened out. The Shah became Shah who? Only Henry Kissinger admitted knowing him and even managed to get him a bed in a cancer hospital. What about the Diem family before that?

 Gstaad In this freewheeling Swiss village of the 1950s, the unconventional was the norm and monumental drinking commonplace, but the manners of the players were always impeccable. Yes, there were ladies of lower-class parentage and with a dubious past, but they covered it up with a grand manner and an affected aristocratic confidence they had learned through experience. That’s how things were back then. The slags that pass as celebrities today would not have lasted a minute. Some might think it snobby, but it was nothing of the kind. One just had to act in a certain manner and that is all. Everyone knew where everyone else came from, so it wasn’t even a pretence.