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Was his comment, referring to the Fastnet experience. Nevertheless, a couple of months later I bought the yacht Hullabaloo from Naomi James, and anchored her on the River Hamble.
After all, I knew the area. George and I went on sailing on the Solent and spent frequent weekends in the picturesque scenery on the sheltered waterway as our appetite for the big ocean had evaporated. These were the highlights of my private life at the time. Otherwise professional life went on as usual. Perhaps with one difference: success brought in its train that I was looking for a more intimate lodging in a better part of London.
George was helpful in my search for a place in keeping and I was sure that he would find something that would elevate my status. And so it was. He found BLAKES HOTEL - No. 33, Rolands Garden in South Kensington – the name closely linked with an era of modern decadence, which was just starting in London. The first upmarket designer hotel in London, built to the blueprints of Anoushka Hempel, an icon of the time. Every room had its own style, was set up in an exotic way inspired by cultures of faraway lands: Russia, India, Turkey, China. An unlimited exaggeration of the decor was their masked characteristic: luxuriant materials, artistically draped, beds with ostentatious canopies, foreign furniture and sculptures, collected with infallible taste by Anoushka on her travels from China to Cambodia and elsewhere in the world. The bathrooms in opulent marble and old, hand worked mountings. "Love nests" came Here prominent folk were put up, sportsmen, actors from all possible countries including Gweneth Paltrow and Kate Moss. A 5-star hotel in a class of its own. My room was No. 4, with an Indian ambience. I loved it. It became sort of a home, which was much appreciated by frequent travelers like myself. Soon I was known at the reception desk, greeted by name and normally got the same room if I booked in time. The hotel had a bar of the most elite type, in which the in-crowd of Kensington mixed in the evenings with the prominent folk, amongst them exclusive call girls.
George Philpott knew some of the girls personally, who on other occasions accepted invitations to spend a weekend in the Arab Emirates - handsome girls for handsome fees - their clients were sufficiently well off and even the flights were booked in First Class; one could easily envy their lifestyle.
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