High life
Table talk
Taki
T. o Harry and Tracy Worcester's down in Badminton for two evenings of rather spirited discussions concerning Ancient Greece v. England, politics and, of course, In the presence of Imran Khan, cricket. Oh yes, I almost forgot, Fergie's name, too, came up. I'll start with her first.
Last week I was seated at the same table as Serena Stanhope, Linley's bride-to-be, and although we didn't exactly become bosom buddies she could not have been Prettier and less stand-offish. That cunning linguist and pricker of pomposity Nicky 1-laslam introduced us, and he was extremely funny throughout. Nicky is an old friend and a gent and he knows exactly Where to stop. Fergie does not. It is not that Fergie is a bad person. Far from it. She is simply a coarse, at-times self-obsessed chalet girl thrust into the limelight because of the randiness of a foolish sailor. Serena Stanhope gave me
the impression that she has forgotten more about proper behaviour in public than the veteran Fergie will ever know. In fact, Fer- gie does not know the difference between public and private, no more than the idiots who have named her UN ambassador know the difference between celebrity and noto- riety. Now once again all trips and plane rides will be free, all expenses paid by the freeloaders who run the UN, and Fergie will attempt to rehabilitate herself at the expense of you know who. It is the most inappropriate appointment since Caligula named his horse First Consul.
In arguments about Ancient Greece, I always revert to the standard, if somewhat tired remark that while we were building the Parthenon and writing tragedies, the English were eating roots and scratching their furry parts. A young whippersnapper by the name of Willy Stirling, grand- nephew of the great David Stirling and son of Archie, had the cheek to ask me what we've done since. To me, a fair man, it was an unfair question. It was like asking why Sugar Ray Robinson and Rocky Marciano are no longer champions. We've had our day, and I am happy to sit on our laurels and watch the Brits try unsuccessfully to attain our heights. So there.
A more interesting point was raised when I discovered that Flora Fraser, grand- daughter of my buddy Lord Longford, has her six-year-old daughter Stella review chil- dren's books for the Evening Standard. Flora is an accomplished historian like her mother, Antonia Pinter, but she believes in what I guess one can only call emotional checking. Stella reads, then tells her moth- er her reactions, then Flora reads and presto, she writes her review. The argu- ment was about how much Stella should be paid . I insisted on half for the worthy Stel- la. Flora answered in words I cannot repeat here. I leave it up to you, gentle reader.
On Friday evening I may have overdone things a bit, passing out fully clothed. But the side was let down by Willy Stirling who lost the delicious dinner the Worcesters had served while in the middle of an anti- Greek peroration. On Saturday night, with Imran present, we took it easier. Also on board was my old friend Mark Shand, Camilla Parker-Bowles's brother, so royal chit-chat was out. We reminisced instead.
About 15 years ago, I had the idea of making a Tarzan film starring Mark. He is well-built and has these blond locks that would drive girls into the cinema. Or so I thought. Mark and I were to finance the film. Then he lost his boat (uninsured) in some tropical storm off Bali, and I con- tributed involuntarily to Aspinall's gorillas. We tried to save money by building a cheap set with a few trees, but while Shand was flying on a rope from one tree to another, he hit the wall of the apartment building in whose courtyard we had built a low-grade Africa. It was a short film career, to say the least, but then he got on an elephant and wrote a bestseller.
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