families coming together in a communal living room and kitchen.
It’s testament to the two men’s friendship that this arrangement worked for over ten years before they succeeded in getting planning permission for a second property on their not unsubstantial plot. They now enjoy a villa each, as well as a combined net value of tens of millions of pounds.
I know the above is fact because I’ve been there. Bono, who had appeared on TFI Friday several times, heard Suzi and I were in his ‘Manoir dans Le Midi’ and tracked us down to our hotel, where he extended, via a rather creative fax, a generous invite for us to come over and enjoy a slab of pizza and a glass or two of wine with him and his clan. The fax requested an RSVP and informed us that he would pop by and pick us up if we were interested.
Interested? What do you think?
When the night in question arrived, Suzi and I sat outside on the terrace eagerly awaiting our ‘lift’ whilst desperately trying to act cool and not drink too much, by playing Scrabble of all things. However, by the time our man arrived, we were both a bottle of champagne to the good and as giddy as kites. So much for our strategy.
All the other guests in the bar, meanwhile, did a doubletake the moment Bono walked in. You see, in real life he sort of does and yet at the same time doesn’t quite look like Bono. It can sometimes be difficult to be sure.
I would be lying if I denied the swelling sense of pride I felt as he spotted Suzi and me beaming back at him across the lawn. He strode over purposefully, shades on, arms wide open, the perfect rock-star welcome.
As we hastily and somewhat nervously gathered up our things, the normally surly French waiters began throwing smiles in our direction. Smiles we thus far had been unaware they were capable of producing. Strange, that.
The drive back to Bono’s house was right up there in my top ten celebrity journeys. There in front of the main door was parked his gleaming black BMW convertible, roof down, all set and good to go. A turn of the key, a growl of the exhaust and the screech of rubber and we were off into the balmy Mediterranean air with the lead singer of one of the greatest rock bands in the world as our chauffeur.
Did it get any better than this? Well yes, actually it did.
As we exited the village of Saint-Jean, Bono turned up the car stereo and started singing along at the top of his voice to The Carpenters’ Greatest Hits. This was another one of those moments – of which there have been many because I have been very lucky. The surreal ones are the best and they don’t get much more surreal than our night with Bono.
Once we arrived at the bargain villa on the beach, the food and wine began to flow along with the stories. Lots and lots of stories. Bono loves to tell a tale or two, most of them wonderfully outrageous. Like the time he and his mate Gav ran out of brandy one night so decided to take a small dinghy out to sea in search of the US Navy and more booze.
Beaulieu, next door to Eze and Saint-Jean, is a deep-sea port and as such can accommodate the biggest ships in the world including, on this occasion, a humongous US aircraft carrier.
‘They love U2, the Americans,’ Bono said to Gav as they made for open water, ‘they’re bound to have some brandy on board, sure they’ll be up for giving us a bottle.’
Now, two things here. Firstly, it was the middle of the night and the sea can be a dangerous place at the best of times, and secondly, how on earth were the US Navy supposed to know this was Bono and his mate Gav requesting benevolence and not some murderous terrorists surreptitiously attempting to stick a limpet mine to the side of their warship?
The story goes that once safely located next to the carrier in their minute dinghy, our two thirsty adventurers looked up to register a vessel the size of a small city bearing down upon them.
‘What did you do next?’ asked Suzi, barely able to speak for laughing.
‘I took out an oar from the boat,’ replied Bono, ‘and I started to hit the metal hull as hard as I could – clang, clang, clang.’
‘No way!’ we both exclaimed like a pair of school kids. We were gripped.
‘Way,’ came the reply. ‘And then.’ he continued, ‘after about a minute, Gav now having joined in, we hear the whirring of chains being lowered and see what looked like some kind of mini destroyer descending down towards the water a few hundred feet away.’
‘Shit,’ shouts Gav, ‘that boat’s got a gun attached to it. Start the motor, Bono, they think we’re attacking them. Fuck, they’re going to blow us up!’
Suzi and I at this point were on the floor killing ourselves laughing and Bono, not immune to a fit of the giggles himself, was finding it increasingly difficult to carry on spinning his merry yarn.
When he finally did manage to finish, we all had tears streaming down our cheeks. It transpired that the night watch on board the US naval craft had indeed identified a security breach in the form of Bono and Gav in their dinghy, and launched a gunboat patrol to check what on earth was going on.
Suffice to say they caught up with our two barking-mad buccaneers within seconds, both of whom were on the brink of having a heart attack. Bono said it was still the most frightened he’s ever been and Gav likewise. But did they ever get their brandy?
Well, he said no but I suspect otherwise.
But Bono wasn’t the only well-known surprise Cap Ferrat had in store for us that week. When you go to extraordinary places, extraordinary things tend to happen and we weren’t done yet.
TOP 10 THINGS THAT COME IN A BOTTLE
10 HP Sauce
9 Worcestershire sauce
8 Dandelion and burdock
7 Extra virgin olive oil
6 Vinegar
5 An ice cold beer
4 A pint of fresh, full fat milk
3 Heinz tomato ketchup
2 White wine
1 Red wine
THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY AFTERNOON, the sun was high in the sky, the sensible people were having a siesta whilst the sun worshippers were beachside busy baking themselves. As Suzi was happy to sizzle with the best of them and I was neither tired nor mad enough to expose my milk-white body and already sunburnt face to yet more heat, I decided to mosey on down to the town to enjoy a quiet read and a cold drink in the local patisserie.
After doing exactly that and whilst ambling back up the gentle hill towards the hotel, I noticed in the distance an equally pink-faced gentleman walking towards me. I smiled to myself, more out of a sense of camaraderie than anything else, but as he drew closer I couldn’t help feeling he looked familiar.
‘Blow me,’ I thought to myself as we continued to converge, ‘he looks for all the world like David Frost.’
Several more steps towards each other and…
‘Blow me again, it is David Frost.’ And sure enough it was.
At almost exactly the same time I recognised him, he recognised me. We’d never met before, yet here we were now, red face to red face in an almost deserted French village. Les deux rostbifs rouges, très extraordinaire!
‘My dear boy,’ he announced, ‘you’re always much taller.’
What the heck did that mean? And before ‘Hello’, or ‘How are you?’ Hilarious.
‘David, what a perfectly pink pleasure this is for both of us,’ I replied.
‘Indeed, indeed –