You are here:   Europe > The Man Who Flew Too High  Hearing the
story, you are tempted to believe it had something to do with
his car: a Volkswagen Phaeton. Classicists will recall that
Phaeton was the son of Helios who asked his father if he might
drive the sun's chariot across the heavens. Phaeton lost control
of the horses and came so close to setting the world on fire
that Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt.  Within days of
his death, the secret life of the high-flying Austrian
politician Jörg Haider began to unravel. For Haider, who was
married with two daughters, it had been a day of parties. His
last official engagement was at the Cabaret nightclub in Velden
on Lake Wörthersee. He was in a bad mood and later it emerged
that he had had a fight with his lover and right-hand man in the
BZÖ (Alliance for the Future of Austria), Stefan Petzner.
Witnesses reported that Haider left Velden sober at 10.30pm,
driving the Phaeton himself. He arrived at the Stadtkrämer, a
homosexual bar in Klagenfurt, the ca