Paradise for the few

I would never want to live there, but I really don’t see how anyone could not like, or at least envy St Barth. the place is truly a paradise….provided of course you have obscene amounts of money. the island is incredibly small- some eight hilly square miles are inhabited by only about 8,000 people. from every corner, the view is tremendous. the water is a perfect shade of blue. you can swim out until your feet can no longer touch the sea floor- but you can still look down and see them perfectly. the sand is incredibly soft, so that you can walk comfortably on it barefoot for ages, with out feeling and pricks of jabs from rocks or irregularities. the beaches are massive and everywhere, but they do not feel overcrowded. the cafés and restaurants are all well designed and well supplied. they are filled with beautiful people, and they are priced accordingly. in many, a relatively small lunch can easily set you back €200 if you include alcohol. The one restaurant that is famous for not raising its prices is Le Select, just in the centre of Gustavia, but people tell me it has nonetheless achieved inflation by shrinking the portions, but then it can get away with what it wishes, not only does it have the exclusive privilege of being located in St Barth, it is also supposedly the bar where Jimmy Buffett donated the "cheeseburger in paradise" name in exchange for a lifetime of free beer. Looking at the scenery from the restaurant's terrace, it is easy to envision Buffett's world, not only in that song, but throughout his collected works:

Nibblin' on sponge cake,


watchin' the sun bake;


All of those tourists covered with oil.


Strummin' my six string on my front porch swing.


Smell those shrimp--


They're beginnin' to boil.

many of the regions islands are too edgy to absorb such utopian lyrics, but they can fit in St Barth just as easily as those of part-time celebrity resident Johnny Halliday, whose favourite local dining haunts are also well known. but St Barth is also a strange mix. On the one hand, it is cosmopolitan, filled with luxury European shops ranging from Gucci to Chanel. waiting for my father and my uncle by a parking lot, i wander into a random shop, where i discover a bikini would cost me…..€300. the island is filled with celebrities, we pass the houses of Johnny and Laeticia, Eric Clapton and Roman Abramovich, as well as restaurants where the cost to make a RESERVATION is around €4,800 PER PERSON. yet at the same time, there are serious elements of the provincial French mentality captured so perfectly by Marcel Pagnol's classic novels La Gloire de mon père/ Le Château de ma mere: that of provincial France. The island was first settled by French colonists in the 17^th century, but until the 1970s, the population of the island was only around 2,500. Until the 20^th century, the islands were relatively poor and remote, dependant on salt and limited agriculture for survival. With the influx of the wealthy, the population has now ballooned to 8,000, but those pre 1970s families represent a world somewhat removed from the celebrity scene. I go to the house of a woman who represents the 10^th generation of her family in St Barth. Hers is a small world that until her/my generation consisted of arranged marriages (largely for property purposes) and byzantine laws of who spoke to whom and went where. But she doesn’t live in isolation from her new neighbours- on a walk we pass and are greeted by an older woman dressed in white, I ask if it is another local, but it turns out to be a friend of Jacques Chirac. Over the hill is Johnny’s house, and yet in the little villages by the sea, old French colonial ladies fan themselves on porches. I wonder how long it will stay like this?