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Prince Pavlos, heir to the Greek throne, turned 55 recently and I threw a small dinner for him. Pavlos is a hell of a prince, father, husband and businessman. He’s tall, good-looking, a gent in every way, intelligent, hard-working and has never put a foot wrong. Neither has any member of his immediate family. Compared with them, the rest of European royals seem wanting, but then I’m prejudiced. The Greek royals are Danes, and the oldest reigning clan of Europe. Unlike another royal family whose name escapes me – it is the Platinum Jubilee issue after all – the Hellenic one has had no divorces, no scandals, and if physical looks mattered, the Greek royals would be the ruling family of Europe. At present Pavlos comes to the dojo after work and trains hard. One day soon he will be a black belt, just as his father, King Constantine, was some 60 years ago.
And now for the dinner: two film directors, one a billionaire many times over, two really beautiful young women, and the greatest Greek writer since Homer toasted the prince. The next morning, his actual birthday (I was still well into my cups), I rang Countess Theodora Saint Julien-Wallsee, whose birthday was also that day, but she made no sense whatsoever. In fact, when she came to the telephone she sounded worse than I did, blabbing away a mile a minute, which made me suspicious because booze is a problem in her family. But then it hit me: the countess turned two years old that day, and she is my granddaughter.
Otherwise everything’s hunky-dory.Alexandra and the family – children and grandchildren – are in Prague, visiting an old Schoenburg moated Schloss, the Red House, one hour out of the capital.
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