High life
Where charity begins
Taki
Mykonos waswas not surprised to read that John Latsis has given £2 million to the Conserva- tive Party to help smooth its cash crisis. Here's a man who bought the old Aspinall's Curzon mansion and offered it to the Saudi government (it was accepted), who regularly gives large amounts of money to various royals and who earlier this year made Bridgewater House (his London headquarters) available to the G7 `I propose a motion from the floor that we forthwith review our viewing policy.' summit leaders in exchange for having his picture taken while he stood between Pres- ident Bush and the Queen.
In view of the fact that the Tory Party is far more important than money-grubbing royals and oil-rich towelheads, in my not so humble opinion the oily Greek has done a very good thing. After all, he's been accused of many things, but being dumb is not one of them. Mind you, it could all be a false alarm, although his past record makes me believe the story.
He pulled his first stunt on his elemen- tary school teacher. Having been told that he was not about to pass his final exams, he approached the school principal with a large turkey and told him that this was all the Latsis family possessed in the world and they were giving it to the principal in order to show him how important it was for young John to go on to a higher school. The principal told the teacher to pass him despite the fact that Latsis never attended classes. A turkey back then was worth much more than, say, a cow is today. Once the results were published the principal was visited by a tearful Latsis who admitted having given the turkey away without his father's permission. He said he feared for his life if the old man discovered the theft. The result of the story was that Latsis not only passed his exams, he also got to keep the turkey.
Latsis has dined out on this one in the past, but was more reluctant to discuss the reasons his sister married the village policeman some 50 years ago. The mau- vaises langues have it that the fuzz caught the future tycoon messing about with a caique. Latsis offered the cop his sister, and they lived happily ever after. True or false, it has all been published in the Greek press and it's fodder for side- walk café gossip, which believes that Latsis always comes out on top, but it is a long way from, say, Athens in 461 BC. That is when the ancient city was run by Pericles, the champion of a universally accepted moral law, the promoter and sustainer of sophrosyne, moderation. Moderate Latsis is not. Nor is he all that moral in his philan- thropy. Giving to the rich in order to become even richer in return is not what charity should be all about. When Latsis bought the Niarchos yacht for the then unheard-of price of 35 million greenbacks and gave it to King Fand, it was not because the fat one was in need of a boat. In Arabic it's called baksheesh.
Still, he's a generous man whose contri- bution to the Conservative Party I thor- oughly approve of. By now he's so rich he probably wants nothing in return, except perhaps an honorary knighthood, like Getty's. And speaking of honorary knight- hoods, I wonder what my chances might have been had I not landed in Pentonville. After all, I've been wining and dining the needy at Annabel's for more than a quarter of a century, and that's a lot longer than Latsis has been dining the needy royals.
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