Thursday 17th February 2011

Banter with Norma Lamont in the front foyer at Covent Garden. Paparazzi were behind a barrier. ‘Lamont!’ one shouted ‘Get in shot’. ‘I’m feeling tired,’ Norma cried. ‘Too late,’ the Pap went, flashing. ‘What’s going on?’ Norma turned to me, not as an ordinary member of the public, of course, but as the clear equal of a clapped-out former Chancellor of the Exchequer. ‘Perhaps they think you’re Anna Nicole,’ I said. A gruff figure loomed: ‘Hello, Norma. Great article on AV in the…’

Val arrived, luscious with anecdote: ‘The outrage in the off-licence! The flat let to a madam. A life crowded with incident.’

Awash with handsomeness, finery and grooming, oh ! it was a première. European ladies had winged hair, English ladies were in what I call cocktail dresses and huge spikes. Lord Linley looked a little tiny and ridic seated in the Crush Bar with huge pier glass and gilt swirls behind.

‘So near the throne!’ I said. ‘And yet so far,’ Val said.

The opera: we did and we didn’t. A little slight. Something wrong with it. Couldn’t quite put finger on. Not boring though. (is that a review?)  But hardly bearing compare to any full work by our own dear performance artist, Harry Rollo, who gives tomorrow at a massive venue, as it happens.