Gstaad
Birthdays at my age are for the birds, but always a good excuse for a party. Messages of good wishes began early on, with loyal Speccie reader Arnold Taylor ringing from South Africa, and Rosemary and Wafic Saïd texting from the English countryside. (They wished me a happy 39th. I accepted.) My great buddy Michael Mailer, staying with the Kennedys at the family compound in Hyannis Port, had hoped to fly over but the you-know-what prevented it, while Charlie Glass rang from London to announce the end of capitalism as well as yours truly. I asked Charlie to answer me truthfully, because it was my birthday, and he swore he would. ‘Do you have as many children out of wedlock as Boris, or more?’ I said. He hung up on me.
That evening Johnnie and Martine Cotton gifted me a ginkgo tree, one that I suspect will outlive me by rather a long way.
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