I have always admired those great souls in the world who re-invent themselves. The ones who triumph personally over circumstance and bend the world to their shape. Those who disregard convention and what is considered decent behaviour and forge an identity completely their own. I am drawn to these people: the Richard Burtons of this world. The Michael Caines. The Vito Corleones. The Ari Onassis. Onassis was half shade, half light. He enjoyed both facets of his character. It is what makes him so fascinating as a man and so attractive to so many women. He welcomed that duality, that Janus faced humanity and was shameless about it. He would say that he was a mere peasant so must be forgiven for his outbursts and vulgar speech. This disarming honesty was also charming and sexy – here was a man so self-confident he could be totally honest about who he was.

For those on the wrong side of his business dealings, it made him scurrilous, untrustworthy, sly. It also made him shrewd, sharp and cunning in search of a deal and profit – two things he was legendarily brilliant at creating. For those on the wrong side of his egocentricity, he was faithless, cheating and selfish. But he could also be thoughtful and caring – a regular guest on his iconic yacht, Christina, was Winston Churchill, then in his incontinent dotage. Ari looked after him and his needs personally and welcomed him aboard whenever the Great Man wanted a voyage.

Onassis stories are legion. He has been depicted in film and attracted controversy and headlines in both serious national newspapers and in the celebrity gossip magazines. He married the heiress to another shipping fortune – and lost that wife to his arch shipping rival, Stavros Niarchos, after she tired of his affairs. He pulled off the marriage coup of the C20th by convincing JFK’s widow, Jackie, then the most eligible woman in the world, to become Jackie O. Perhaps unwisely as her spending habits shocked even this paragon of generosity. And the great love of his life was La Divina herself, the American born Greek soprano, Maria Callas.

But my favourite story about Onassis is not about women. It is not about business. It is about the nature of the man. His approach to those who opposed him. Much of his business life and all of his relationships were characterised by huge drama. The anti-Trust suit brought against the Onassis shipping line by the US Government; the failed deal of the century struck with the Kingdom of Saudi that went sour; the controversy over his rapacious and indiscriminate whaling activities in defiance of the law. His troubled relationships with his children and the seemingly loveless mismatch with Jackie Kennedy – was she just a bauble to signal acceptance by the establishment? I don’t envy him any of these heartaches, even though – a mark of the man – he shrugged them all off stoicly and even revelled in the notoriety some of them brought. And I certainly don’t envy him having to bury his beloved son, Alexander, who died at the controls in a plane crash – a tragedy the tycoon never recovered from and which broke his heart.

No. None of these stories.

I like this story, the story about Onassis buying the Monte Carlo Casino. The casino in Monte Carlo is famous. Not just because James Bond plays there. In its heyday, it was the most glamorous place in the world. The Czarina of all the Russias brought the Imperial Russian Ballet to dance whilst she gambled and an aggrieved patron lobbed a hand grenade on to one of the tables after losing at roulette. There is even a song about the place: The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.

As I walk along the Bois de Boulogne
With an independent air
You can hear the girls declare
“He must be a Millionaire.”
You can hear them sigh and wish to die
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo

Fred Gilbert 1892

Onassis wanted offices in the Mediterranean and he had struck up a friendship with Prince Rainier, the ruler of Monaco (Onassis pretty much paid for Rainier’s wedding to the movie star Grace Kelly and the after party was held on Onassis’s yacht). Naturally, he turned to Monte Carlo as the intended location. The Societe des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Strangers (Sea Bathing Society and Foreigners Club) controlled the casino and about a third of all land in the principality, but they rejected Onassis’s request to rent office space. So Onassis bought them. And moved in.

How brilliant. How magnificently one up. Churlish. Vain. Couldn’t make it up. Revenge against the establishment’s snobbery and antipathy to an outsider. But also, good business and very good new business – Ari used his connection with Ranier to stitch up the deal behind the SBM board’s back. He out established the establishment. He had better allies than they did and totally outmanoeuvred their Machiavellian ruse. It is the stuff of movie plots, of third rate novels, and yet, like so much of Onassis’ larger than life life, it happened. Onassis was, for real, the man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo.

Ari had homes in Paris, New York, Montevideo and Antibes. But his home was a converted Canadian Navy anti-submarine frigate which had protected North Atlantic convoys in the war and also been at the D-Day landings: the Christina O. She was converted by Onassis to be a combined pleasure palace and office and she represented his character more completely than any of his other hideaways. With 17 cabins she could handle parties for over 150 people and had some breathtaking innovations: a Roman mosaic tiled swimming pool which had a floor to conceal the pool when the space was needed for entertaining and a bar where the stools were covered in whale foreskin. Onassis delighted in telling his female guests that they were now sitting on the largest cock in the world.

It was this coarse vulgarity that both attracted people to him and repelled them. The man himself just laughed, whatever the reaction.

Onassis did life superbly well. He witnessed everything he knew go up in flames as a boy and arrived from Anatolia in Turkey to Athens in Greece as a refugee. He learnt to speak seven languages fluently. He was diminutive in size but his presence and influence were immense. He partied and joked and flirted and fucked, collected art and artefacts, spoilt his children and consorts, amassed wealth akin to Roman Emperors. He counted the good and the great as personal friends and had everything at his fingertips and whim. But he also worked like a demon, in the wee small hours, labouring through the night until dawn after all his guests had partied out and gone to bed. He was inexhaustible. He was alive with life. He was all that a man is – both the terrible rage and ruthlessness as well as the fun and light heartedness. His command of details was ferocious and even if he was bettered, he would usually turn setback to his profit – if not financially then karmically.

I like largesse. I like flamboyance – when done stylishly and without having to be the centre of attention personally. These were Onassis’ qualities. A barrel chested force of nature. Brilliant. Unstoppable. International. Fast. Impatient. Wily. Terrific company. An enjoyer. Entirely self-made. Scion of Greece. A Greek. A man. Aristotle Socrates Onassis. Hero.

Sam and Josh were transfixed and found it fascinating. Each vitrine was crammed with spectacle and there was so much detail of horror. The Damian Hurst shark in formaldehyde also attracted their attention, as did the other Chapman brothers exhibit of life sized sculptures of seemingly innocent children who had phalluses for noses and vaginas for mouths. The Chapman brothers, for me, are geniuses, if uncomfortable. They enjoy tempting you in and then smashing you in the face for your sin.

The other exceptional art memory from the Saatchi was Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s “Old people’s home” (2008) which took up the entire basement gallery. Comprising 13 hyperrealist sculptures of elderly world leaders such as Yasser Arafat of the PLO, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus and Leonid Brezhnev of the USSR, the figures moved around the room in electric wheelchairs. The wheelchairs had sensors so they would bumb harmlessly into one another in their random journey around the floorspace and then deflect on to a new course. It was a brilliant depiction of the seemingly powerful rendered utterly harmless, even pathetic and vulnerable. Menacing historical figures reduced to impotence. The display was transfixing as well as funny.

The Saatchi is hit and miss but it is always worth a visit. Whenever I am in the vicinity I always go in. If you get lucky, you hit gold like the two exhibits above. And art such as this, that delivers a gut punch, makes a point on a visceral level as well as intellectual. It is both arresting and memorable. And whilst it is always a joyous feast for the eyes and heart to visit the National or the Tate galleries and to stare at the Turners, at Van Gogh, at Blake and Velasquez, it is the work that effects you in the guts which makes a lasting impression and actually makes you think. Don McCullin’s extraordinary photography in the industrial North of England and in Biafra at the Tate Britain. The simple lino cut of a grieving mother and father embracing in a way where it is possible to see it is two individuals but who are so entwined in their loss that they seem to merge into one, hope draining picture of utter despair. The sun in the great turbine hall at Tate Modern.

The most pungently impactful was Mark Wallinger’s dramatic recreation of Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest State Britain, displayed at Tate Britain in 2007. State Britain consisted of a meticulous reconstruction of over 600 weather-beaten banners, photographs, peace flags and messages from well-wishers that had been amassed by Haw over five years. Haw began his protest against the economic sanctions in Iraq in June 2001, and remained opposite the Palace of Westminster until 23 May 2006 following the passing by Parliament of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which prohibited unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square. The majority of Haw’s protest was removed. Taken literally, the edge of this exclusion zone bisected the Tate Britain art gallery. Wallinger marked a line on the floor of the gallery positioning State Britain half inside and half outside the border. As a piece of protest art, pointing out the awful irony of legitimate protest being outlawed in the very square in London which is sacred to democracy and by the very institution which is supposed to enshrine the individual’s right to free speech in this country, this piece is incredibly articulate. Conceptually and politically brilliant, artistically it is very difficult viewing – many of the photographs displayed by Haw depict the atrocious and sickening effects of war munitions on babies, small children and civilians caught up in war. This is war, guts and all, and it is truly vile. There is no sanitisation, nor should there be. This is not PR puff or flattering portraiture. This type of work exposes the menace of politicians, of war and of neglecting our responsibility to think and to speak out. And isn’t that the real point of art? To provoke our reason and emotions enough to prompt our action?

We lived in Penzance between 2006 and 2013. Every summer, I tried to drag my two sons to the annual airshow at RNAS Culdrose, near Helston on the Lizard. It was a hopeless endeavour. They never shared my Baby Boomer generation’s veneration for military aircraft: the Spitfire, Hurricane, the P-51 Mustang, the ME109, the B-17 USAF Flying Fortress, the Lancaster bomber. And that was just WWII. Then there were the French Mirages, the MiG Soviet fighters, the F-15s and the Russian Bear. Every year I tried. On the one year I managed to get them both to come with me, it was fogged out – a frequent problem in that damp part of the Atlantic world. The promised Red Arrows were a no show. Ditto the Spits. This confirmed every prejudice they had against the show.

And then. And then. 2010. 28 July. This would be different. This year they were expecting a visit from the last Vulcan flying in the world. Making its last appearance. A big day. My entire aviation childhood was exemplified in this magnificent aeroplane. I wanted to see her fly for the very last time. And, reluctantly, Josh came with me to see, but mainly to hear her.

All the way there I talked of her sleek lines but mainly of the thunderous engine noise. “I get it, dad. It’s loud.” You could hear Josh’s eyebrows rising with exasperation. “Loud doesn’t do it justice”, I continued, carried away on a fervour of nostalgia mixed with anticipation. We arrived and parked up. There were the usual medley of nondescript ancient aircraft on the ground to gawk at and clamber over and inside. The hours went by. The Royal Moroccan Airforce’s Acrobatic Team did some rather pedestrian manoeuvres up above the crowd against the backdrop of an azure sky. Ho, hum, all rather humdrum.

My ears pricked up way before anyone saw the Vulcan coming in from the South. It had evidently flown in an arc around Culdrose, shifting from its original flight approach path to an approach which would show the plane off to best effect. “She’s here”, I said to Josh. “Where?”. “Look over there”. I pointed to the south. “There’s nothing there, dad.” “Ssh. Listen“, I implored.

Then we saw her *. A great boomerang shape about 3 miles out and just 25 degrees off the deck, belching smoke out of the massive engines. Josh still wasn’t impressed but he picked up on the hushed sense of excitement amongst the crowd. I passed him the binoculars. The tannoy had picked up on the direction of the crowd’s gaze by now and the deep, clipped tones of all airshow announcers everywhere chimed in to announce the imminent arrival of the star of today’s show. There was a run down on the Vulcan’s active service credits and some bunny about the tech spec. Within 30 seconds the announcer was drowned out as the Vulcan passed overhead, her huge underbelly seemingly within arms reach. I looked at Josh. There was a broad smile all the way across his face. The magic was working.

The Vulcan did a few more turns to re-approach and fly past overhead, then, the moment all we fans had been waiting for: she pulled a vertical climb right above the crowd and switched on the afterburners. You could feel the force. It shook you. It shook the ground under our feet. It shook the sky. Speech was pointless. We stole a glance at each other as the plane climbed. Josh grimaced and then smiled to say “That is quite loud, actually” and we both smiled. Every car alarm in the car park was set off by the vibration which made us both laugh.

She climbed and climbed. And climbed. This was one impressive aircraft. She may have a terrifying purpose – to deliver Britain’s nuclear payload if required – but out of a sombre raison d’etre was produced an aircraft capable of withstanding most of what could be thrown at it whilst operating at an extraordinary level of performance. And she sounded like the God of fire she was named after. She didn’t disappoint.

In the car, which, felt very puny after what we had just experienced, Josh had a newfound respect for one of my hyperbolic childhood reminiscences. (Only 49 to go.) He had witnessed the flying of a legend into the history books. And it did not go gentle into that good night. It raged against the dying of the light. Just as a God should.

* The 2010 RNAS Culdrose Airshow appearance by the Vulcan is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTPNR6-FIEk