High life
Sea change
Taki
John Latsis, the Greek billionaire whose speciality is making expensive gifts to royals, is the man to save the royal yacht Britannia for the Queen. He once bought the Atlantis from Stavro Niarchos and presented it to the fat man who will be doing the watching while the Anglo- Americans will be doing the fighting some- time in January of next year. Whether Fand did anything for Latsis in return I do not know, but if he did, it would have been a hell of a lot. They say that bearing gifts is a way of life in Saudi, and no one is better at it than the Greeks. Now Latsis has a chance to become an intimate of the Windsors. All he has to do is buy the Britannia and present it right back to the lady who pays no taxes. This way eight frigates will be saved as well as eight submarines, and, most important of all, Prince Philip will be able to retain his tan
throughout the winter months.
Just think. The 36-year-old vessel only costs £9.2 million per year to run, a mere bagatelle for Latsis, who after having donated the ship, will also pick up the expenses for it. This should get him invited for the weekend, not just for lunch.
Mind you, all this is speculation on my part. Perhaps those other nouveaux, the Vardinoyannis, will buy it, -who knows? They've bought everything else that's available, and some things which were not — for sale, that is. Personally, the gift I am about to make is slightly less opulent than the Britannia, and only has a crew of five, but it is intended for a far, far better person. I'd rather like to offer the Bushido to Mrs Thatcher, but knowing her — not personally, that is — she will not accept it. After all, people as great as she are not at all greedy. Which reminds me: how sad it is to see the Windsors destroyed by ambition and the love of money.
Needless to say, I still cannot get over the matricide. My, how ghastly and en- vious people like that Warnock woman must be preening, how much champagne has been drunk chez les Pinters. I even saw the midget Salman Rushdie emerge from his hole and attack Mrs Thatcher on BBC television, where else, in the company of an awful-sounding presenter by the name of Michael Ignominious. It serves her right for spending public money to protect his hide. It is now high time he pays for his own goons, as he can well afford it.
But it's not the Warnocks and Pinters who are at fault here. After all, they've always been envious and against her. And rightly so. If I were as common as La Warnock, I too would call Mrs Thatcher common. It's the Elspeth Howes and Michael Heseltines and the simply dreadful Edwina Currie who have had me reaching for John Junor's sick bag all week. On the night of her great triumph in the House of Commons, I went to dinner at Harry's Bar with my friend Robin Birley and a televi- sion presenter — a woman — whom I shall not name because she is not a pinko, thus her job will be threatened. After four bottles of good claret the gloom began to lift. Then it was Annabel's, and, oh well, you know the rest. I stayed in bed for a couple of days, and by Sunday I was in shape to go to Oliver Gilmour's concert.
That is where I met Lady Henderson, of Geeek birth and an extremely disting- uished person. We chatted about a terrible book which libels her and some other honourable Greeks. It is written by the wife of a know-nothing blow-dry type, one Peter Jennings of ABC television. What this woman, Kati Martin, has to say is false, her premise all wrong, the book a disgusting libel. It has not been published here, but when and if it is, I for one will be suing for the first time in my life.
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