PYJAMAS ON THE LIDO

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 75, 21 December 1929, Page 22

PYJAMAS ON THE LIDO

FASHIONABLE TO BE

ASLEEP

I am writing this in a pair of pyjamas under a pink and white canopy of my green, white, and beize bathing cabin. If I did not wear pyjamas I might easily be warned off the beach (states a wellknown writer in a London newspaper). A hot sun blazes down from the breathless pearl blue sky. _ Ten yards away absurd little waves lick feebly at the aching, silver beach. A German baron in a soft grey hat and purple pyjamas is draped on the divan of the cabin On my left. A very attractive American girl in wide green pyjama legs and a white singlet fondles Hans, a small sleepy dachshund puppy, on my right If she had looked at the triplicate notice board a few yards away headed “Law. Loi. Legge,” she would have read that in such an event (1) “The dog will be seized”; (2) “Le Chien sera saisi”; and (3) —I forget the Italian and German for it Bat then all the rules of the Lido are intessdai to be broken. The other day I feSerwsd a queue of people through a <fa®r, although, on it was written “Chuiso, femne, efesed, esrrado, geshlossen.” What is the Lido, anyway? In fact, it ss tz island eight miles long and one Elfe wide, with two huge hotels, two

I medium-sized hotels, an immature nine- | holes golf course, eight tennis courts, a small pier, dozens of water bicycles, a gondola or two, a mile of beach dotted with gaudy bathing cabinets each containing. three compartments, a floating population of Italian princesses, Italian counts. Spanish dukes, American millionaires, Old Etonians, and cocktail shakers. Everyone wears pyjamas all day. It is an orgy of slumber suits! All day you bask. All night you dance in the gayest, most tropical, exotic galas in the world. Reputed Batavian princesses dance before you in the cabaret. Foreign royalties aquaplane by searchlight. American kings of industry give £lOOO dinner parties. Plump Dutchmen run up and down the beach taking, exercises. Recently there was an international speed-boat tournament and an international tennis tournament for prizes from the Crown Prince of Italy and the King of Sweden. Already they have motor launch taxi cabs, instead of gondolas, American jazz bands instead of Italian orchestras, and cocktails instead of Chianti. Nine months in the year the Lido is tin unruffled expanse of yellow sand and blue sea without a sound or sight of man. For three months it is the most gorgeous wash-pot in Europe where dawdle, doze, and even bathe the prettiest women and the plumpest men you can possibly imagine. But hush. Hans, the dachshund puppy, has fallen fashionably asleep. Not that he knows it is fashionable to do so. He has hall a large lunch and much exercise. Hans, in fact, is being natural. I think I will follow his example.