High life
Be prepared
Taki
SSt Tropez ean (Puff Daddy) Combs, or P. Diddy, as he now calls himself, is described by the press as a rap impresario. He is the black thug who a couple of years ago pulled out a 45 and sprayed a nightclub a la Capone in the movies, and then fled the scene surrounded by his henchmen. Although the fuzz intercepted him, the bodyguards took the rap in a highly publicised trial that confirmed the fact that in the land of opportunity no celebrity goes punished.
Ditto in the land of cheese. Last Sunday night in the Byblos Hotel in St Tropez, the black thug was holding court surrounded for a change by four white heavies, all of them PhDs in the art of four against one. Enter my 21-year-old son, John Taki. Although I say so myself, JT, as his friends call him, is a very sweet-natured boy, who happens also to be extremely good looking. JT recently spent two months at Giverny, in Claude Monet's house, where the cura tor, Mrs van der Kemp, had invited him to stay and paint. He is moving to Paris in September in order to pursue his art.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, JT is also mad about pussy, and last Sunday he was pursuing it in the Byblos. That's when he happened to brush against the black thug, apologising immediately. The thug slapped him from behind. JT may be a sensitive boy, but he is no coward. He charged Puff Daddy but was restrained by the white minders. The scumbag coward slapped him again. JT called him a chicken, and told the minders they weren't about to win any bravery medals either. That is when the puffed-up bully left the premises.
While all this was taking place, I was sitting around the hotel's swimming-pool drinking with the Somerset boys and discussing the human condition. On my way to the 100, a young friend of JT came up to me and said, 'Sir, your son is in a fight with Puff Daddy below.' Although rather unsteady on my feet, I rushed below but, thank God, the scum had already gone. I know how cowardly these creeps are, and I have seen them in action. One on one they're nothing, but I will be turning 66 next week, and the odds were not exactly in my favour.
This is the trouble with today's rich. Not only are they fat, ugly and terribly common, they're also always surrounded by bodyguards. So they throw their weight around a la Sinatra, posing as tough guys instead of the pussies they really are. The only truly tough guy in Hollywood recently was Ryan O'Neal who boxed regularly with Norman Mailer and his son Michael Mailer, as well as Jose Torres, ex-lightweight champion of the world. Ryan used to try to hurt Torres until the day Jose clocked him in the liver, turning him into jelly as well as into a doormat for a while.
My son is not a tough guy, but he bravely did the right thing, however silly it may have been. Too many people are intimidated by bully-boy celebrities throwing their weight around. Puff Shithole, or whatever his name is, will end up in the deepest circle of Dante's hell, that vast lake of ice reserved for those crimes of the heart.
Otherwise everything is hunky-dory. The truly rich and vulgar have dropped anchor in St Trop, the McCanns, the Pigozzis, the Steiners and so on. I sailed back from Corsica in a record 12 hours, throughout a beautiful night, arriving just in time for a great lunch at Rolf Sachs's seaside mansion in honour of the visiting Brit contingent, Lords Worcester, Somerset and Hesketh. That evening the local Sebastian Taylor entertained the few worthies with an Arabthemed feast in his Shangri-La high above hoi polloi. I am now heading up to Gstaad, where the new Palazzo Pinochet is almost finished. I've neglected my karate these last three weeks, but will catch up in no time. After all, there's always a possible second round with Shit Daddy, and, like a good daddy, I've got to be ready.
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