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Sunday, November 01, 2020

The Man Who Bought Mustique


Lord Glenconner, a Scot, once owned Mustique, a verdant island in the Caribbean. He lives in St. Lucia with wife Lady Anne Coke (herself an Earl's daughter and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret) and their sole surviving son, Christopher, disabled by an accident. Glenconner visits Mustique, explores old haunts, and prepares an outdoor lunch for the Princess. He gets on with his wife; he's charming, irritable, waspish, a snob. With Margaret, he's unctuous and outrageously ribald. It's up close and personal with this aging, white-robed, old-moneyed European amongst black workers and nouveau riche Americans. A portrait emerges of the rich against the backdrop of third-world paradise while Lord Glenconner shouts, stamps his feet, throws things and demands obedience of anyone who happens to be useful at the time.

Kent Adonai, who features a few times in the film ,was left £22 million by Lord Glenconner when he died in 2010. Lord Glenconner's grandson Cody was thought to be his heir but was only left a single stone phallus from India.