High life
Floating voter
Taki
Here we go again., It's time to start thinking where to spend next Tuesday eve, election time in the good old USA. And just as people recall where they were when they heard the news that the Pope had been shot, so do I remember clearly the events of my life surrounding certain Important elections. For example, the Harold Wilson victory in 1964 found me in Naples, staying at an Agnelli house Wondering what I was doing there out of season. (Waiting for Godot, I suppose.) I tried desperately to hear the news but the °illy programme I could get was the broadcast of a football• 'match. Finally Gianni rang, told me to be patient, and as a bonus informed me that Wilson had triumphed. (Some bonus.; I thought.) In 1960 it was more fun. I was holed up at the Sherry Netherland Hotel in new York with two hookers and my friend Yanni Zographos. Throughout the night Zographos — an eternal optimist — kept reassuring me Nixon would win. When Kennedy squeaked through with a little help from his friends in Illinois, Zographos Went into a panic. In fact he was convinced the Red Army would be marching down Fifth Avenue by Thursday. He quickly packed his bags and was off to Switzerland. The two hookers, however, were not wor- ried. 'He's kinda cute,'they kept repeating. , My problems during the next American e!ection made herpes seem like a 24-hour ,v_illis. My first wife had found out that I hadn't been celibate while married to her, and was demanding a . . . divorce. My father had warned me that if a woman divorces a man the man's family is dis- graced for ever. I wasn't only in a panic about that, I was also a bit miffed at being chucked. My friend Aspinall put me at ,ease. 'Women don't count,' he announced, hasn't in order to procreate, and she nasn't done it.' While the last returns of the Nixon victory came in, my depression lifted as if by magic. How' was Ito know that women who procreate give one more problems than the ones who don't? Two years later I was at Annabel's, with the 7th Earl of Lucan. Lucky was very ,flaive about women. That night he had left 'us wife behind in order to watch the results with the boys. The problem was, the boys brought girls and ,someone rang and told his wife that he was straying.
Trouble ensued, but Lucky got a bum rap for that one. He never strayed and thought the girl trying to wrap her arm around him that night was just being friendly. Both Lucan and Heath — the winner of that particular election night — ended up bad- ly, one killing an innocent woman, the other wishing to, but choosing instead to kill the image of a good loser for good.
The only time I got hurt was in 1958, in Paris, when a soi disant referendum of de Gaulle's ended up with some flits hitting rioting elements over the head. The fact that I was carrying five tennis rackets and was standing in front of Fouquet's made me one of those elements, and when I defaulted in the French Championships next day no one believed that I was truly just another innocent bystander.
The reason I haven't mentioned elections in the birthplace of elective democracy is obvious. They are very unpleasant affairs. Although I have covered a couple of referendums and an election, I remember very little except the screaming and shout- ing and abuse that went on. Here's a tip for any of you who might ever get caught in Greece during an election. If the souvlaki and shoe shine stands suddenly disappear, it's time for you to go home. Trouble always follows.
But I think the most memorable election eve I remember took place in Khartoum, the Gordon night club to be exact. Presi- dent Abboud of the Sudan (well, 'Presi- dent' is stretching it a bit, he had after all grabbed power it l'Africaine, one early morning) had called regional elections and they *ere compulsory. I had stayed up all night celebrating that I didn't have to work in my father's factory the next day. Sud- denly the army burst in and arrested all the hookers and me for not voting. But we convinced them to let us do it right there, and Abboud got one Greek vote and five French ones for his army's vigilance.
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