High life
Queen for a night
Taki
EMykonos ven in classical times, Mykonians were known to be strangers to virtue. Long before Guy de Maupassant coined the phrase 'having a magnificent tolerance of human vices', the island was considered one big brothel. This may have helped the Greek cause, however indirectly. There are those who insist that Xerxes stopped in Mykonos on his way to Salamis, and we all know what happened to him there. His rea-
son for stopping was sex. The Persian troops needed to get the cobwebs out, and Mykonos was the place to do it in. The trouble, of course, is that sex is to warriors what garlic is to vampires. Boxers are pro- hibited from making love before a fight not because of their wind, but because they lose their aggression. The Persians should have known this, but mind you, we would have beaten them with or without the help of Mykonos.
But perhaps I'm being unfair. There are some very good things about the place, sex apart, the trouble being I cannot think of them offhand (just kidding). Architectural- ly it is just about perfect. The island has kept to the pure Cycladic style, all white- washed and blue, with 365 churches and a maze of streets that would defeat Theseus. There is not a single modern building, the only barbarisms being the yachts of the nouveaux riches that encircle the place at weekends.
The trouble is that Mykonos is awfully accessible. There is an airport and non-stop ferry services, plus the aforementioned gin palaces. Last week the place was packed, so I stayed on my boat in Plati Yallo and watched the crowds through my field glass- es. My guests on board included the young actress Charlotte Walker, on her way to Hollywood for a film, one that requires her to be suntanned and healthy-looking. (Typ- ically, Hollywood has not yet figured out 22-year-olds are always healthy-looking.)
We only went out one evening, but that was enough. After a brief stop at Veggera, my favourite bar run by a man called Taki, I was on my way to another club when I passed by Pierro's, the gayest bar of the gayest island in the land. That is where I ran into many of my gay friends, so I decid- ed right then and there to have my annual homo party on board the next day: Even if I say so myself, it was very, very gay, in the old sense of the word. Some of my guests billed and cooed on the deck, while others oohed and aahed about the size of the beds in the staterooms. The crew, however, was not pleased, but I've yet to figure out Whether their displeasure came from being Whistled at or not being whistled at. Both President Karamanlis and Prime Minister Mitsotakis were on the island, but I was lucky on my night of debauch not to run into the latter. Last year I did, and I think I lost a few brownie points as a result (how can a man change so quickly, was the way he put it). And speaking of Karaman- lis, Kenneth Rose got it completely right in the Sunday Telegraph last week. Karamanlis is pursuing his vendetta against King Con- stantine, as are a bunch of socialist creeps trying to steal the little land the state has left the monarch. It's a disgrace, and for once I know how the king feels. The state has grabbed one third of my land in Zante.
Still, if the Greek isles were good enough for Julius Caesar, Pompey and St Paul, they're good enough for Taki, but thank God I'm no longer on the karate team.
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