High life | 13 September 2012

Gstaad

It was far, far worse than the Rodney King El Lay riots of 20 years ago, and it made last year’s London summer fires look like a kindergarten’s Guy Fawkes party. This was our Kristallnacht, and then some. They had hard faces, harder than a hedge fund manager’s when told a good corner table is unavailable. They came early and there were lots of them. Squat and dark, tall and wide, their fists at the ready, their firebombs hanging like war medals off their badly cut coats. They had pickaxes aplenty, but few brains to accompany them. They screamed abuse, their foul-smelling breath escaping like radiation from a nuke, and just as deadly.

Four billionaires were instantly hacked to death, among them Bernie Ecclestone, whose small size made it impossible to find any of his remains. Seven multimillionaires were also lynched. I fought like a tiger but had both arms broken by the mob, and am typing this with my nose.