Bohemian 60’s style lives on

As I arrived at the Vignale tennis club last week in my tennis shoes carefully lined with plastic bags after that nice lady decorator had left them out in the thunderstorms on the spurious pretext that they were a bit whiffy, I encountered infamous local sixties icon Anthony Bay, who has featured in this column in the past. There is a particularly lurid story concerning him showing off in a bottle green velvet suit in London’s Carnaby St in about 1968 before falling over in a puddle whilst presumably somewhat chemically challenged. Nowadays he is a much more sober character, running art tours in Provence, mostly for Americans coming to Europe to discover what art is all about.

It is good to know however that Anthony has lost none of his love for rather bohemian clothing, but as many of us know, it’s all about where and when. At the tennis club I found him resplendent in an Indian light weight long coat as my picture below captures. He said he had bought it 25 years ago (but it could have been 125 years ago) and that he was breaking it in for day-to-day wear. Now, I know he has to cut a dash for his clients, and be artistic, but is this going a little too far? It seems to be working for him on one level however, as he was being driven about the tennis club car park in a convertible piloted by a beautiful girl who was at best half his age, who was no doubt one of his nieces. I never did work out why he was in the tennis club car park with a beautiful young lady, as despite the picture of him holding a racket, I witnessed no attempt by him to play tennis.

Anthony Bay. Anyone for tennis?

The best laid plans to go to the golf club in the afternoon and take a dram with the rest of the REGS was dismissed out of hand by that nice lady decorator who had something far more fulfilling in mind. She needed me to cut up pieces of wood for a new floor she is laying. This was an extremely laborious task, which befall me as she was unable to locate her jig saw, unable that is until the last cut; “here it is she  exclaimed”, pleased with herself for remembering at last where she had left it. I think Rod Steward had it wrong, it should have been “the last cut is the deepest”.

Late lunch today with the wingco requires an extra portion of alka seltzer to be stored away ready for the after effects of the cheeky little Provence red that no doubt awaits us. Some people believe I am not serious when I suggest that the wingco, who is an excellent guitarist, would attempt a blues  improvisation   on the basis that Sir ‘enery Cooper “woke up this morning, boxing glove on me ‘and”, but I can assure you, I am being entirely truthful.

My old friend Peter Lynn emails me with his ideas for a couple of new golf expressions;  He suggests that when you top the ball and it goes straight into the water it should be called a Bin Laden, and that when you hook it and the ball is out of sight, this should be called an Abdul Hamza. These are worthy suggestions and I shall be using them on Tuesday when I play golf with Mr Clipboard, and Mr Clipboard father. What would be good epithet for him? Father Clip? Moses the tablet?

Talking of tablets, I must now take mine and go for a lie down. A busy week ahead with friends arriving from the UK, but still enough time to undertake some services for Currencies Direct.

Chris France