Taki

Gstaad For some strange reason there have been no #MeToo complaints around these parts. Some locals have grumbled about yours truly, and an interview I gave about this village to a Swiss daily, but although Harvey used to hang out here during Christmases past, no one’s come forward to claim rape. Is there something wrong with our womenfolk? No, most of them are semi-ladies who have made it big and landed some pretty big fish, so no use of crying wolf, sorry, rape. Even the mother of my children has expressed surprise. ‘I was pretty once, and men liked me, yet no one has ever jumped on me, except some silly Englishman with terrible breath who tried to kiss me while you were out on the dance floor.’ Well, all I can say is when in trouble, look for the money.

Gstaad I caught a whiff of it as it rolled in from the east, the smell of hypocrisy being different from others that penetrate our olfactory nerves in everyday life. It was coming from Davos and it had a Graeco-Roman flavour to it. The prime ministers of those once upon a time great countries, Greece and Italy, asked for a Marshall Plan for Africa to solve the root cause of the migrant crisis that threatens the old continent’s existence. Just think of it, dear readers. Tsipras and Gentiloni, the former a liar, the latter unelected, both leading two basket-case countries, asking for a vast programme of wealth transfer so that Europe and the rest of the world can enjoy visits by African oligarchs, colonels, generals and their whores enjoying their new-found wealth.

Before his untimely death last year, David Tang had attended a Pug’s club luncheon with the proviso that no one ask him how he felt. So all 20 of us asked him in unison, ‘How do you feel?’ He burst out laughing. Sir David — he threw a riotous party at the Dorchester to celebrate his knighthood at which I got a bit tipsy and asked a good friend of his the reason for the honour. ‘For inserting his face the deepest in Prince Charles’s bottom’ was the rude answer — was a storyteller nonpareil. It was he who first told me about Fan Bingbing. Fan Bingbing is a Chinese actress and apparently very beautiful. When I asked David if he had Fan Bingbinged her, he feigned anger and told me to have more respect for a great Chinese thespian.

I spent the better part of two sunny days indoors writing about authenticity for a Greek magazine, a strange subject in view of how inauthentic politics are in that Brussels-run south-eastern outpost dotted with islands. Mind you, what is taking place in the West makes Greek politics seem ideal by comparison. The witch hunt is on and it’s as phoney as the one that burnt those poor women in Salem long ago. Thank God for the French actress who injected some badly needed truths into Hollywood’s bullshit. Catherine Deneuve signed an open letter published in Le Monde attacking the wave of ‘puritanism’ sparked by the allegations against Harvey and co.

Gstaad  What I miss most up here in the Alps are the literary lunches conducted on the fly with writers like Bill Buckley, Alistair Horne, Natacha Stewart, occasionally Dmitri Nabokov and, yes, movie star and memoirist par excellence David Niven. This was back in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, during the winter months and in between ski runs. Bill would ring early in the morning and suggest a run somewhere, then he’d pick an inn in the vicinity where we’d meet David and Natacha, two non-skiers, and that was that. Buckley always referred to me as Führer — once on the slopes, of course — as I would go down first, followed by him and Alistair Horne, the two not always steady on their skis, and at times more out of than in control.

Gstaad When the snow finally stopped, the sublime, silent stars above made for dramatic viewing. Against silhouetted Alpine peaks, starry nights, untainted by light pollution, seem made in Hollywood. I arrived here one week before Christmas determined to get in shape following the debauch of New York. The snow was coming down, the town was empty, the slopes were perfect and both my children were with us. Then disaster: Wafic and Rosemary Saïd’s Christmas present arrived, and my thoughts went out to Bruce Anderson. The present was a super, super-duper magnum of Haut-Brion 1996, which I refused to share with guests and downed only with the family. Actually, I did share it with some very close buddies, who now ring me regularly asking for an introduction to Rosemary and Wafic.

It’s that time of year again. Yippee! And get your wallets out. Scrooges are no longer tolerated at Christmas, although once upon a time people were so fed up with the annual Christmas shakedown that in 1419 London biggies ruled that Christmas solicitations were banned. Servants, apprentices, tradesmen and churchmen had all become professional supplicants, and were not best pleased by the ukase. But as someone once said, it is better to give than to receive, so there. We now give to doormen, barbers, hairdressers, garage attendants, lift operators, building supers, postmen and rich tiny children with hands outstretched. You name it, they expect it. And let us not forget professional beggars outside expensive stores. One of them once threw the dollar I had given him back in my face.

As the song almost says, what a difference a year makes: 2017 is not over yet, but it’s been a lousy one so far. Losing two very close friends was a real bummer, for starters. Then the Brexit negotiations and the Trump presidency revealed that I had declared victory too soon. This time last year I was singing about what a great year it had been, what a great mood I was in, and so on. The British people had decided that they no longer wished to be led by and take orders from a peanut vendor from Luxembourg called Jean-Claude Asshole. Yippee! One year on, the asshole, in cahoots with British left-wing rabble, seems to have confused the issue enough that the hapless Theresa is upping the ante for Britain to become independent again. Not so yippee!

There’s fear and loathing in this town and in El Lay it’s even worse. Torquemada and Savonarola are in charge, and if this is not a new version of the Spanish inquisition I don’t know what is. The enemy is ‘toxic masculinity’, as exhibited by the latest to lose his job for ever, Charlie Rose. He’s not a bad guy but a bleeding-heart liberal who acted like Benito in front of fair maidens. Or so they claim. In the meantime, he’s toast. I have only one question: what ever happened to due process? What also bothers me is that the latest purge is the only subject of conversation nowadays.

The faux Leonardo that sold for 400 million greenbacks — plus a 50 million fee for Christie’s — was a subject dissected again and again by the glitterati at two rather splendid dinners given in the Bagel by George Livanos and Mick Flick. My fellow guests were not the types to be outraged or shocked at the obscenity of the amount of moolah involved, but it beat talking about the weather or why the media hate Trump as much as they do. For any of you who might have missed it, the Leonardo — originally thought to have been painted by Leo’s pupil Giovanni Boltraffio — was partly painted over, then scrubbed. It is now thought to have been by the master, after all. But not everyone (me, for one) is convinced.

What is left to say after the church shooting in the Home of the Depraved? Those killed in Texas included a toddler, several children and eight members of one family at prayer. It is almost too hard to fathom. I’ve been here for six weeks and three mass-murder sprees have taken place, two perpetrated by deranged male shooters, the other by a disciple of Allah from Uzbekistan, who unfortunately survived a cop’s bullet and demanded an Isis flag be raised in his hospital room. Nice. At least that ghastly man Jann Wenner has not plastered the Uzbek scumbag on the cover of Rolling Stone. After the Boston marathon massacre, he put the murderer, a Kyrgyzstani-American of Chechen descent, on the cover and carried a story that presented him as a typical American teenager.

A dinner in honour of Arki Busson hosted by Michael Mailer in his brilliant Brooklyn flat on the banks of the East River and overlooking the Statue of Liberty a quarter of a mile away. His father, Norman, had some pretty brainy people living it up in these premises, and Michael has continued the custom of feeding pretty women, bitchy columnists, talented cinematographers and brainy tycoons like Arki, who is one of the few I know who combine looks and the ability to seduce beautiful women with making lotsa moolah for clients. Needless to say, everyone got very drunk — three beautiful ladies and five horny men, including the actor Griffin Dunne, who is not only talented but also a born gentleman.(His documentary on his aunt Joan Didion is extraordinary.

I have a message for the London mayor, Sadiq Khan: you and your policies stink! While the fuzz are busy scanning the internet for racist or sexist material, crime in the capital is up by six per cent over the past 12 months and the police — handicapped by PC orders from above — have made 20 per cent fewer arrests. Statistics show youth violence and murder soaring in London, with the latter up by 84 per cent on last year. But here’s a story that’s not a statistic. Last week, my little girl Lolly was viciously attacked and robbed near the World’s End pub on the King’s Road after going to dinner with her cousin. She had spotted a hoodie (does Cameron still wish us to hug them?) on her way to dinner, a man of North African or Middle Eastern appearance.

I hate to say this, but the quality of life in the Bagel has crashed in a Harvey Weinstein-like way. The city has always had a sort of rollercoaster feel, its ups and downs driven by Wall Street and budget cuts, but its present state is the worst I’ve experienced by far. When I first came to New York, it was the true centre of the world. It was after the war and Europe was in ruins. What glamour there was in the world resided in the city. People dressed to the nines, women wore hats and gloves, and manners were far more important than money.

I may have spoken too soon last week when I defended my old friend Harvey Weinstein. It now looks very bad for him, with even Hillary Clinton joining the Greek chorus condemning him. It is not just boorish behaviour towards the fairer sex that he now stands accused of; it is also rape, something that he and his lawyers strenuously deny. Mind you, I’ve always thought that someone was innocent until proven guilty — but that does not appear to be the case in these hyper-feminist times. And the idea that Bill and Hillary were unaware of Harvey’s shenanigans — not to mention the sleazy bunch that is Hollywood — brings to mind Captain Renault’s reaction to the gambling taking place in Rick’s Café.

I smell a rat when it comes to Harvey Weinstein. Let’s take it from the start. The telephone rang very early in the morning and a woman’s voice told me that Harvey Weinstein wanted to speak to me. I was put on hold. I waited. And waited, and then waited some more. The reason I didn’t hang up was that I wanted to tell Harvey that if Queen Elizabeth had made me wait as long as he had I would have hung up. ‘But for you, Sir Harvey, I’ll wait an eternity.’ Well, Harvey is a Commander of the British Empire but I upgraded him a notch because, as strange as it may sound, he and I are buddies.

The death of the richest woman on this planet, as the tabloids dubbed Liliane Bettencourt, brought back some vivid memories, mainly of the gigolos I’ve known and their disgraceful pursuit of the fairer sex. Although my great friend Porfirio Rubirosa acted the gigolo at times — he married three of the world’s richest women, and two of the most beautiful for love — he was also a man’s man, a pistolero, an ambassador, a racing driver, boxer and polo player, and a great seducer of beautiful women. He died on 6 July 1965 at the wheel of his Ferrari. After Rubi, the whole business took a nosedive. Thierry Roussel, French, effete and greedy as hell, took tens and tens of millions from Christina Onassis, and then dumped her for his regular mistress.

I think this week marks my 40th anniversary as a Spectator columnist, but I’m not 100 per cent certain. All I know is that I was 39 or 40 years old when the column began, and that I’ve just had my 81st birthday. Keeping a record is not my strong point, and it’s also a double-edged sword. I once planned to publish my diary, but then I stopped keeping one. I’d found passages in it that were dishonest, written in the heat of the moment, most likely under the influence, and the result was a bum-clenching embarrassment. Now I don’t use any social media, certainly not Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, being a firm believer that Zuckerberg and Bezos should be locked up for life (Zuckerberg for not doing enough to tackle terrorist content).

As everyone who stands up when a lady enters the room knows, the once sacrosanct rules of civility throughout the West have all but disappeared. The deterioration in manners has been accelerated by the coming of the devil’s device, the dehumanising iPhone, as well as by phoney ‘art’ and artists such as Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. I don’t know why, but Warhol is a bugbear of mine. He always treated me politely, featured me favourably in his magazine Interview, and referred to me in a good light in his diaries. Perhaps me being violent back then — he headlined a cover story with a reference to me being a terrorist among the rich — made him think twice before he stuck the knife in.

I’m in Venice for the film festival that just ended and, as an American humorist once wired his paper: ‘Streets full of water, stop. Send funds, stop.’ What is there to say about Venice that hasn’t already been said or written by better men or women — Thomas Mann and Jan Morris to mention just two? Yes, Venice evokes higher thoughts, but not this time. I was thinking of Byron as I chugged past the Palazzo Mocenigo where he lived, when I spotted a gondola with five Chinese women on board, all fiercely concentrating on their mobiles. ‘Stop that and look at the buildings, girls,’ I yelled at them. They completely ignored me and continued texting, or whatever they do nowadays, even on a gondola in the midst of Venetian splendour.