This place made its reputation during the Fifties. It was known as the Mecca of old money and good manners, as opposed to other stations d'hiver, where old people with new money were the rage. We had Bill Buckley, Ken Galbraith, David Niven, Sir Roger Moore, Lord Menuhin, Nathan Milstein, Balthus, even Vladimir Nabokov at times. Death, divorce and old age eventually emptied this beautiful Alpine village of its intellectual uniqueness. Then the peasants got smart and began to build. The Barbarians also got smart, and began to buy. End of story. But not quite. Last week Paris Hilton hit town, and I can't think of a worse person who could hit a chic resort.
I know, I know, it is not very gallant to pick on a young woman, even if her unquenchable thirst for cheap publicity makes, say, the Beckhams look like Buddhist monks. She's the prototype of our proletarian values, a rather plain, over-made-up girl who lets a tit or two drop out for the paparazzi when she's not being videotaped by various men doing what the rest of us do in private. The strange thing is, I know her parents, knew her grandfather, and even had a fist-fight with her great-uncle, Nicky Hilton of Elizabeth Taylor fame. (After it was over - a tie - he graciously sent me a bottle of champagne when I was staying at the Beverly Hilton, as it was then called. It was obviously over a woman.)
Copyright 2005 Spectator, The London
