KEY POINTS:
Flavio Briatore should be a happy man.
New seasons beckon for the Renault Formula One team he runs and for Queens Park Rangers, his latest sporting investment, while Billionaire, the nightclub he launched a decade ago on Sardinia's exclusive Emerald Coast, is doing a brisk trade in Cristal champagne methuselahs at 35,000 euro ($72,888) a pop.
Instead, he appears to be furious.
Italy's VIP class has gone missing this northern summer from Billionaire's oriental-themed bars, where even a seat can cost up to 500 euro.
Politicians, actors and presenters have been scared off by the new mood of austerity gripping a country suffering like the rest of Europe from the economic downturn. And Briatore, 58, has found himself in a colourful war of words with the hard right politician Daniela Santanche, who has called for Billionaire to be shut down even though she owns a 10 per cent share of it.
"With people struggling to get by, Billionaire should be consigned to history," said Santanche.
"I myself have put my Aston Martin in the garage and get around in a Fiat 500."
For Briatore, the new austerity preached by the glamorous Santanche was too much to bear.
"Daniela has been in the sun too long. What she's saying is absurd," he fumed to an Italian magazine from the resort he owns in Kenya where he is enjoying mud treatments with his new bride, a TV showgirl 30 years his junior.
"If luxury is suddenly a problem, let's close Bulgari and Cartier, or even all the discos, restaurants and the whole of the Emerald Coast," he said.
Briatore's boast that former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Kate Moss and old flame Naomi Campbell had all propped up the bar this summer did not wash with Santanche, herself a former habituee of the club which is perched above Porto Cervo, a town built from scratch by the Aga Khan in the 1960s for the well heeled.
For one thing, where was Silvio? Chief among the no-shows is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has previously visited Billionaire and nearby town Porto Rotondo, where he appeared in 2004 with a bandanna on his head and the Blairs on his arm.
"Until last year you had to tie Berlusconi down to stop him going to Billionaire," said Santanche.
After staying locked in his Sardinian villa this month, Berlusconi chose to make his one public foray last week to a shopping arcade, promising startled locals that he was working hard to bring down taxes.
Tax is certainly a hot topic on Sardinia - a new luxury tax introduced in 2006 for visiting superyachts has been hugely controversial.
Berlusconi may have thought twice about hitting the beach after a party led by Briatore was pelted with sand and water earlier this month when they staged an ostentatious landing in dinghies among angry bathers at the crowded public beach at Capriccioli.
Briatore was heading for the inauguration of his new club, a secluded spot close to the public beach where last week wealthy patrons were enjoying waiter service as shoulder-to-shoulder bathers appeared ready to rise up in revolt only metres away.
"The water chucking was useful to show that you can't expect to just turn up on a beach in your boat when others have dragged all their stuff for miles overland to get here," said Matteo Saragoni, 28, a surveyor.
One local said the battle of the beach occurred as more budget daytrippers were venturing into the Emerald Coast.
"I never used to see people setting up plastic tables and pulling out oven-baked pasta picnics here," he said.
"Some come to see the celebrities, and appear starstruck and resentful in equal measure."
After a day on the beach, the day-trippers stream on to Porto Cervo's quay where they photograph tycoons eating dinner on deck. Others queue to photograph the exorbitantly priced menus posted outside restaurants.
"Two coffees, a Bellini and a mineral water cost me 130 euros in a bar," said Santanche.
"I should have called the police."
Briatore rejects accusations the establishment is losing its class.
"Take Ibiza, where the low-cost flights unload tourists for quick trips to discos that hold 5000 people," he said. "Now that's vulgar."
- OBSERVER
