Russian invasion

Gstaad

There’s more happy dust to be found indoors around here than powder on the slopes. Last week I drove to the Diableret glacier and skied my legs off trying to catch up. At 3,000 metres — the maximum height the old prop planes used to reach when crossing the Atlantic — and upwards, the white stuff was perfect. (I mean the snow on the ground.) Although I smoke non-filter Camels and drink the heavy stuff, my lungs felt perfect. My feet hurt like hell, however, and I became convinced while skiing that I had gangrene, or something equally disgusting. After two hours I could bear the pain no longer. I stopped and took off my boots. Eureka! They were not mine, but my son’s old ones, worn when he was 16 and at Le Rosey. No wonder I thought I had gangrene. But I had to put them back on and ski down for another 20 minutes non-stop — 20 minutes which felt like five days in the company of Paris Hilton and her distinguished family. Never mind.

The greens are having a ball with the surrounding greenness, and as the temperature rises daily, so do the predictions that Switzerland will soon be rivalling Palm Beach for beachwear in winter. Mind you, many of the ecologically minded folk, at least here in Gstaad, drive Porsche Cayennes, Range Rovers or the disgusting Hummer. And speaking of the unspeakable, the nouveaux Russkies are capped at 10 per cent  in Kitzbühel, one of the most gemütlich resorts of the alpine persuasion. Bravo, Kitzbühel. I wish the Swiss would do the same, but I won’t hold my breath. I know it sounds racist, but billionaire Russian kleptocrats are not as yet classified as victims, so one can let ’em have it.

Courchevel, the French Riviera, even St Moritz have been Dresdened by the Russians, their obnoxious spending and lack of basic manners amounting to a grotesque deformity.