High life | 23 July 2011

Taki lives the High life

On board S/Y Bushido, off Corfu

From my porthole I can see Roger Taylor — drummer of Queen — talking to his three blonde and beautiful daughters. The eldest, Rory, has just become a doctor, the other two are still kids, and there are also two very talented boys, not on board Tiger Lily, his boat. One of his sons is an extremely talented drummer, which I guess goes with the territory, as they say. Rock stars do not for typical loving families make, but Roger’s seems to be an exception.

Speaking of rockers, I could not have been more pleased about that turd Charlie Gilmour getting 16 months. I know, I know, he’s young and he was upset about his real old man, but this is lawyer bs. I would have given him 24 months, and an extra six for having cut his hair and for playing the victim. He’s nothing of the sort. He knew damn well what the Cenotaph is all about, and in any other civilised country he would have got more. Back in 1959, a drunken American student tried to light his cigarette from the eternal flame underneath the Arc de Triomphe, and got a year in a tough jail and a fine that broke his parents. That was then, this is now, and Charlie, as they call him, has had too many hacks asking for mercy, which means the fix is in.

And speaking of the fix, I predict Murdoch will get off and be allowed to purchase Sky, and everything will be hunky-dory once it blows over. Back in 1994, Sue Douglas and John Witherow hired me to write Atticus for the Sunday Times. Witherow proposed 80. ‘I get 80 from the Speccie,’ I told them.