High life
Off the game
Taki
While the British press is busy speculating over the coming elections and the Lib-Lab pact one more British institution has flown the coop. This time it is the high class tart, or HCT. And appropriately the French have rubbed it in with a film, now showing in the West End (Madame Claude), which exalts the virtues of the higher echelons of the world's oldest profession.
According to one connoisseur, backgammon champion of Greece and manabout-Mayfair, John Zographos, the high class tart is one more victim of socialism and the drab, egalitarian society. Piero de Monzi, a shop-owner in London, sees the problem differently. Monzi is of the opinion that HCTs have disappeared because of fashion's uniformity and the upper class obsession in following a downmarket conformity.
Only one of the cognoscenti interviewed mentioned morality. This was Joe Dwek, European backgammon champion, born in Cairo of Lebanese parentage, owner of a British passport and a grand house in Chester Square. Joe, an articulate and extremely resourceful young man, voiced his anger and sadness over the vanishing HCTs. `There was no greater bakshish than a high class tart. Our whole way of life in Egypt centred around ways of showing our appreciation for past favours by discovering new and beautiful women who were corrupt. Even when I came to England ten years ago, I still enjoyed the pleasures of an HCT with my friends. But now, moral standards have collapsed and everyone does it. All the girls are corrupt. Even Quasimodo could get a girl without paying today. It is horrible.'
Whatever the reason, it is an undeniable fact that London is badly in need of high class tarts. Leaving the aesthetics apart the economic principle alone would be enough to warrant a government inquiry. Because in the meantime thousands of randy foreigners are taking their lucrative business elsewhere.
Often they would spot fun-girls willing to go on fun-trips on their yachts; and then hand over a watch or bracelet as a downpayment. Needless to say all this activity generated the transfer of a lot of funds; but not any more.
The system is at fault It favours quantity over quality, mass production over uniqueness and facility over challenge. The writing was on the wall already way back in 1963. Tarts like the ones who brought down the Tory government then could not —in the opinion of another expert — get arrested as they say. They were second class. And it got progressively worse. Another Tory minister got caught with a third class tart. And like all third class tarts she sang.
The way things are now is an affront to a once honourable and discerning profession. Tarts work through hall porters in large hotels around Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner. They charge between £50 and £100 and cater mostly to Arabs. Even taking into account these inflationary times, such sums would once have procured bi-lingual,
sophisticated models, or even little known ingenues waiting for the big break. No longer. One should consider oneself lucky to get even a woman. Some customers have had unpleasant surprises.
The jet-set — which got its name when HCTs were paid to fly around the globe by sugar daddies — has managed once again to skirt this problem. Although HCTs were once its only source of relaxation and enter tainment, they are now all but forgotten.
This was perspicaciously managed by the introduction of cocaine. He who sniffs is not randy. Also, he who sniffs a lot thinks sex is a dirty word. Thus pushers make the bread and mum remains hungry.
Given the above, one must conclude that inflation, socialist principles, lack of morality, the welfare state and the British character have all contributed to the ruin of high class tartdom. As one ex-madame told
me: `Girls today try and make themselves ugly. They latch on to the first peasant they
sleep with. They dropout, have no ambition and no class. The person who coined the phrase "I'm doing my own thing" should be lynched.'
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