Monday 18th December 2023

There is joy at Christmas. What is its source? Supremely invitations. To be on the list, ideally several lists at once. Out every night. The run-up to Christmas. Such a busy time. Buffets. Drinks. Canapes.

Already I’ve sung ‘Oh Come all ye faithful’ twice. I’d hoped never to sing it again. The Lord Jesus isn’t even born yet. The Advent hymns are superior. But mulled wine I have avoided. Every where you look people are having fun. On the underground train, they banter in gangs – about how they went to Egypt and got clamped to the lavvie or the travails of Argos. Young men and women evidently not well acquainted but delirious as they run up to Christmas. Knocking about together, possibly recipients of ‘beers’. Presumably congress in on the cards, if not obligatory. Meanwhile, how they banter and roar because of the fun they are having.

I’ve taken the Community Garden Christmas songalong, the annual Ed Jasper (the bed-linen expert) and Roland Mainflower’s ballet outing followed by champagne reception, Winter Wonderland of course but Royston King and I found ourselves too old for almost all of the rides.

Laura Malcolm lunched last week with Arianna Nuclopoulos; just three ladies lunching, dainty with only three bottles consumed between us. Laura said her run-up to Christmas was staying in with the Netflix. I tend to agree: as dear, precious Larkin said, ‘I could spend my evenings canted over some bitch/Who’s read nothing but Which?‘ Cruel. Maybe the synapses begin to wear thin: I must sit down. I must be able to hear. I don’t like being asked what I do. I say I’m a relic of another age.

Significant events elsewhere: Robert Nevill has gone to India with the Maharajah, where they belong of course. At Shimla, a monkey made off with RN’s glasses. I was worried he’d be put in an ashram with a view to confinement to the pyre (what is the use of a blind older man, especially a white one?) but fortunately he was spared that fate. As for that monkey – what could it possibly want with a pair of glasses?

I dined privately with Patrick Lockyer, who is still youthful despite endless strain and worry in the Courts. When I fished his Christmas card out of my bag, horror… a yoghurt outrage within. I’d forgotten to take a cartoon out and the pressure of a bottle of NYE Timber had caused it to explode. Recalling the ‘explosion of a temperance beverage during the upset of the Gower Street omnibus – how I’ve missed it all these years’. Luckily Patrick Lockyer’s card was unscathed but Joshua Baring’s (he lives nearby PL and I planned to hand deliver) had been penetrated by yoghurt ooze. I couldn’t let him have it lest it went bad and the smell wrecked his Christmas. He could have ended up having to re-do his entire house. BUT after a few days, the card dried out and was odourless. So I decided to give it to him but with another one that had never known yoghurt in any way. As I pointed out, the whole exercise was madly expensive. But at least no cards were wasted.

I look the Messiah at San Paulo di Londra. My friend Miss Vivian, who sings in the choir and supplies the tickets which are worth their weight in gold, is now 86. ‘The doctor says I’ve got two types of cancer,’ she said cheerfully. She’s got pills and won’t have it discussed. ‘This could be my last Messiah.’ What will we do without her? Royston King came too. The fourth person was new: a gut-specialist, neighbour of Miss Vivian’s, writing a book. Royston was horrid about my singing and said I’m too mannered for TV. Which is odd because I’m on it the entire time. The public will just have to put up with me as I am – as they do.

At dinner at Laura Malcolm’s (not to be confused with the ladies’ lunch last week, which was held in my home)…. Frankie Doreen went off her head and said Eton should be condemned as a failing school because of having produced Borish Johnson, who was Prime Minister and also David Cameron, who was also Prime Minister. Seems a bit harsh. Joshua Baring and the Ducal Nephew were at Eton. So was the Prince of Wales. They’re all perfectly charming. Borish was surely an aberration in Eton terms. His masters didn’t care for him. Eton teaches a life of service and courtesy, never to look down on others. Eton never encouraged a barking devious show-off with few friends.

I went to a party in an antique shop as I always do. There I met someone who is going for Christmas to the glorious stately where Royston and I dined two nights in a row in the summer – because she’s a cousin. I said, ‘I hope it will be warm.’