High life | 21 February 2019

Gstaad

  It’s party time here. From the richest billionaires down to those impoverished souls with only a few million to their name, the joint is jumpin’. Last week one tycoon converted his mega chalet into a nightclub and the music boomed away all night. Everyone who attended turned into Beethoven after one hour, which improved the situation in a way. People talk such rubbish nowadays that it was a relief to point at one’s ears and shake one’s head. I did not last long. I’ve been deaf ever since. My son came home at 5 a.m. Next week we’ve got an Italian countess’s blast from the past. I hope we’ll be doing the shimmy and the black bottom and the charleston, but I doubt it. She is a childhood friend and a widow and she’s taken over the Palace ballroom. The mother of my children will attempt her first outing since the crash. I’m looking forward to it as I’ve been lying low doing a winter karate camp that has left me exhilarated and bruised. My sensei Richard Amos put me through the ringer. Karate, gym with weights, cross-country skiing, and a downhill or two when the sun was out — that’s what it’s all about. Otherwise, it’s Dubai with snow, glitz, ghastly people and a few friends. Well, it could be worse, I suppose; it could be Bahrain. Books, of course, come in handy. And newspapers. Apparently socialism is on its way, hence the partying as the Titanic

begins to tilt. Let’s face it: there were millions of educated people who fell for communism even after they became aware of the gulag and show trials. So why shouldn’t they fall for the lesser evil of socialism? As Orwell once observed: ‘There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.’