Gstaad
Good old Helvetia. I’m quitting her for the rainy but pleasant land of England. The cows are beginning to resemble chorus girls and the village an Alpine Colditz. Too much of a good thing said a wise man to a friend of mine who wanted to live on the French Riviera all year round. That was long ago. The South of France is a shithole these days — and a very expensive one at that. The real Riviera now lies far away from the coast, up in the hills: Saint-Paul-de-Vence and its environs. The rest of the Côte d’Azur, where Russian and Arab gangsters have bought all the great houses on the water, now reminds me of Baku where, at the turn of the last century, the Great Game was being played between Russia, Britain and Germany, with Basil Zaharoff triple-crossing all three.
Forget the Riviera. We considered it for two milliseconds, but the people who have moved there lately are far too intellectual for me. So are many of the recent arrivals up here in the Alps. One can spot them in the hotel lobbies and hear them discussing Platonic dialogues and Rousseau’s social contract. That aside, having been cooped up here for so long, I’ve decided that a change of location is what the doctor ordered. First it was Athens, now it’s London. We found a great house, the wife has moved in, and I’m already missing the cows, some of whom look just like Vivien Duffield but are never as rude as she is.
Mind you, we’ll use my chalet at Christmas, in March, and during the summer after Greece, so it’s not like leaving Ireland for America during the potato famine. I simply cannot bear to live here all year round, as I have the past couple of years.
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