I’ve got end-of-season blues. I know I say this every year, but this has been a particularly fun winter, with friends throwing goodbye parties, dinners and lunches since the beginning of March. My liver has done a Gaddafi and taken a brutal revenge on my body, and the right ankle is doing a Saif as I write; if I stand on it or, worse, try to walk, it feels like it’s going to feel when the ghastly Gaddafis get through with those opposing them.
I’ve had this lower leg problem for a year. About a month ago, I couldn’t stand it any longer and had an X-ray taken. The cartilage has done a Bin Laden and disappeared. Hence the pain as bone touches bone. And there was more news from the doctor. I’ve got crystals — not the good kind, but those that form because of congenital gout — and they are embedded where the cartilage once was. It was a very easy diagnosis to make. ‘If you want less pain stop eating rich foods and stop drinking anything except water,’ said the good Dr Mueller. That, of course, was unacceptable as my personality improves with drink, and at my advantaged age personality is all I’ve got left.
This is the bad news. The good is that I can take pain, as I’ve been suffering all my adult life at the hands of women who have used me in the most unethical manner imaginable, so I’ve learned not to cry uncle too soon. Up to a point, of course. When I do karate the pain is bad early on, then it goes away for a while, and comes back, like a horrible Gaddafi, with a vengeance after training is over. Judo is the opposite. I feel it only when walking home after a practice session. Basically, I think it’s all in my head. Skiing means no pain until the hard boot is off. Cross-country skiing means pain all the time. Hard drinking is like skiing. No pain whatsoever, until the morning after.
Last week my friend John Sutin gave a great dinner party for Sean Connery and his wife and served the best wine ever. The next morning, desperate to get to the loo, I had to crawl on all fours as the ankle had erupted like Vesuvius. Sir Sean and Lady Connery, incidentally, not only turned out to be charming and gracious, they also revealed themselves to be long-time Spectator readers. ‘Never go anywhere without it,’ said the great man.
He also told me a story about filming Dr No. It was at the start, in Jamaica, and Noël Coward, who had a house on the island, approached him and asked him to dinner. Once at the famous house, Connery noticed that there were only two placements for dinner. The two sat down and Sir Noël asked him, ‘Are you by any chance queer?’ ‘No, I’m not,’ said James Bond. ‘But you were in the navy,’ exclaimed a surprised Coward. ‘Well, I’m not, and never have been.’ ‘Well, it has served me very well,’ said the great Sir Noël. End of story, and they remained friends to the end.
Thank God, the Connerys have taken a place here — the town needs them, as the nouveaux are slowly turning this place into an alpine Miami Beach. The old guard is trying its best to hold out the barbarians, but we’ve got as much chance of winning as the protesters do in Libya. The barbarians have weapons of mass destruction, namely money, greed and horrible manners.
A ghastly German woman by the name of Engelhorn has bought out most of the beautiful old village houses and turned them into expensive boutiques for the old and pulled to the extreme. Local butchers, cheese-makers and artisans have been priced out. Jewellers have replaced them. It is enough to make a sensitive soul like myself break down and cry. ‘The only ones missing,’ I told my oldest friend, Aleko Goulandris, ‘are the grotesque Bono and Jeffrey Epstein.’ He had heard of neither of them, as no gentleman should.
Speaking of Bono, this unspeakable vulgarian and publicity hound has caused anger among the few good people left in South Africa by suggesting support for an anti-white song that includes the line ‘shoot the Boer’. He drew comparisons between the song and Irish republican drivel, and called it a legitimate part of political activism. I suppose shooting white farmers is looked upon as legitimate by scum like Bono, but the only answer I have for this disgusting exhibitionist and opportunist is to write a ditty called ‘Shoot Bono’. When I do finish it I shall present it to you.
So there we have it. One more winter gone down memory lane, tens if not hundreds of hours on the slopes soon to be replaced by the grind of the dojo and the gym. The judo world championships have been moved from Cairo to Frankfurt — I wonder why — and I have two months to prepare. I’m in excellent shape despite the injuries and I guarantee all loyal readers of the Speccie that I shall return with a medal. If the son of the brutal dictator of one of Africa’s poorest countries, Teodorin Obiang of Equatorial Guinea — his father’s subjects have no clean water and subsist on worms, yet the place is flush with cash because of oil and gas deposits — can contemplate ordering a gin palace worth close to $500 million, surely the poor little Greek boy can dream of winning gold in Germany. Next stop the Big Bagel.
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