High life
Dinner dates
Taki
The Metropolitan was built by J.P. Mor- gan after a friend of his was blackballed by the Knickerbocker club, two blocks north. Until this week, I always thought it was the other way round, but having seen the grandeur of the place two nights running, there is no way old J.P. would have built the less glamorous Knickerbocker.
The first party was given by my friends Lisa and Keith Jewell for Nicholas Gage's book on Greece. Lisa is the sister of the nicest and most generous Greek ever, Alecko Papamarkou, who died last May from a heart attack. New York is not the same without Alecko's party-giving, but his sister did almost as well. I sat next to Anna Murdoch, now separated from the Don Giovanni of the deal, as the late Sir James Goldsmith called Rupert baby. Although she made a brave effort, Anna Murdoch must be going through hell. It is very diffi- cult after 32 years of marriage and three children to suddenly find yourself out in the cold. Well, not really the cold, but you know what I mean. It always amazes me when men get rid of their wives late in life. It's very nice to have young girlfriends, something I always try to have, but one sticks to one's old lady.
Needless to say, the champagne and the excellent wine went to my head. Literally. I was the last to leave and dragged myself to Elaine's where I mixed it up with the proles until dawn. Later that day it was dinner jackets and tiaras, yet again at the Metropolitan, this time at the request of Conrad Black, The Spectator's benevolent and sainted proprietor. (I say this because Conrad is a very humble man. He has from day one discouraged ► le from kissing his feet, something that o r previous benevo- lent proprietor, Algy Cluff, encouraged.) It was the annual Hollinger dinner, with Lady Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Gianni Agnelli, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Lords Hanson, Rothschild, Carrington and Wei- denfeld, William Buckley, George Will, Bob Tyrrell, you name them they were there. I arrived with Prince Pavlos of Greece and his wife, and the mother of my children. The place was packed but soon I found a niche in the bar and began to seri- ously unwind. The mother of my children warned me not to drink on an empty stom- ach, 'especially as you made such a fool of yourself last night'. For a while I wondered how she knew, as she had not been with me the night before, but then I stopped worry- ing and began to 'have fun. With Christopher Buckley, my best man on a day that shall live on in infamy, 5 March 1981, the day I was brought to a judge's cham- bers and with a gun pointed at my temple I said I do.
Christo is a triumph of wit and charm over dullness and pretension. There is no one I love chatting to more than him, but soon we were separated for dinner and trouble. Trouble in the form of the very good red wine that I downed with the float- ing effortlessness of a Fred Astaire. After the speeches by Tom Wolfe and William Buckley, well oiled and fortified, I collared Lady Thatcher and had a chat about Gen- eral Pinochet. The wonderful Lady T and I agree that his treatment is a most disgrace- ful act by a British government. I kissed the lady's hand and bid her adieu, and then remembered that I had a plan to save the general that I wanted to discuss with her.
The plan is as follows: as Mark Steyn wrote in his brilliant piece in the Sunday Telegraph, the Queen was head of state when, in return for the murder of 30 Euro- peans, the Brits murdered 10,000 Kikuyu villagers back in 1953. As the Queen is still head of state, she cannot be arrested. But a friendly Greek magistrate has put out a warrant for the arrest of the Queen Moth- er, who is no longer head of state. The Queen Mother, after all, is as responsible for thousands of murders committed by the British of Greek Cypriots, Kikuyus, Indi- ans, Africans, even Eskimos, as General Pinochet is for ordering the disappearance of a few commie Spaniards.
Just as well I didn't find Lady T. I don't think she would have approved. Yet again, I was the last to leave, going back to my house where a party was in full blast. It was my son's 18th birthday and his behaviour was as disgraceful as his father's.
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