Gstaad
Penned in by the surrounding Alps, huddled around the Saanen valley and scrambling up the mountains for extra space, Gstaad bursts at the seams during the New Year celebrations. For the first time in its 100-year history, the Palace hotel sold tickets to its premises, and they sold out three days before the night of the 31st. I tried to enter the Palace at 8.30 a.m. on New Year’s Day, accompanied by my son and a couple of floozies but was refused admission because of my drunken state and also because elderly clients were coming down for breakfast. It was just as well. I can’t remember anything past 3 a.m. and there was bound to be trouble with people leaving the nightclub as we were trying to get in.
The mother of my children tells me that back in my chalet the party was still going strong when she came down around ten a.m. I was sitting comatose around the fireplace with ten strangers and giving a speech of sorts. She threw everyone out and sent me pronto to bed. I write this while suffering with a hangover which can only be described as Polonium 120-like. Actually, Gstaad is a mess during the high season. I won’t go as far as to say that it has gone multicultural, but in a way it has. Multicultural to me means people without manners but with lotsa new money, a lethal combination which makes for unattractive viewing.
Back in the good old days, there were people of many nationalities congregating in Gstaad, but all had manners or at least tried to put up a good show when in public. I remember a French gangster, Michel Auchard, alas no longer with us, who did time every so often and whom we called ‘Vieux France’ because of his exaggerated old world courtesies and the affected manner in which he spoke.
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