Taki: The joys of 2014

Welcome, Mr 2014, if you turn out as good as Mr 2013 was, we’ll get along just fine. Throughout last year, I got happier and happier. In fact, it keeps getting better and better and at times I think there must be something very wrong with me. But I should not tempt fate, nor the Gods, because one’s fortune can change quicker than an Italian government. What it comes down to is that the mystery of joy does not pose a problem for me. I treat it as a constant, rather than as a fleeting experience. Is it a Norma Desmond-like delusion? I don’t think so, because joy is not only a way of life, there is also a trick to it: anticipation.Taki: there are too many joys to list

Can anything top the feeling just before an assignation with, say, Amber Tamblyn, my latest crush? (I have never met her, but now that I’m a Hollywood star…Seduced & Abandoned, just read Deborah Ross.) As the poet said, ‘Never such innocence, never before or since.’ Or the marvellous feeling and uncontrollable joy of overcoming the odds of old age at a sporting event? Taking the 6ft 8in Bo Svenson out at the judo world championships made my day for the rest of 2013. My daughter’s engagement to Andy Cooke brought even more pleasure, and I didn’t even have to sweat for it. A great drunken afternoon at The Spectator for the readers’ tea party, and the bacchanal that ensued throughout that night was as good as it gets, and leading up to Christmas my party in New York at the Waverley Inn, my New Year’s Eve blast in Gstaad, and the dinner for Andy and Lolly three days later rounded off a perfect season.