Wednesday 11th December 2013

Last week I gave two dinners – one heaven and one hell. Who would have thought dinner giving so dangerous?

Last Wednesday the menu was Jamie Oliver’s baked beetroot with oregano and garlic, filet of beef with three sauces (Ottolenghi) and Nigella’s quince compôte. I was determined to bring in Nigella for solidarity.

First of all Genevieve Suzy, of the magazine world, rings: husband can’t come. Nanny crisis. Could she bring a Maharajah instead? Then Val arrives: cholic. Sits down at the laid dinner table straight away, clutching stomach. I administer peppermint oil in hot water. Laura Malcolm arrives, sits down with Val at table. The Multis arrive: ‘Why are you sitting here? Why aren’t you in the drawing room for the champagne? It’s not right.’ I rather agree. There’s something common about sitting at the table for 45 minutes before the dinner served. I say, ‘Do go up to the drawing room if you’d like.’ They don’t move. Genevieve arrives with the Maharajah who almost falls over in the hall. It takes 15 minutes to persuade him to take his coat off. He keeps on saying, ‘Thank you so much for having me.’ But on his face look of fury apparently stuck there some years before and now permanent. This normal with those fond of refreshment. The dinner begins. They like the beetroot. I don’t know what Val’s up to but there’s no sign of brilliance. The Maharajah, it emerges, is a dandy. He wearing fur and leather. He’s a specialist in dandies. He as good as hurls himself at the Blond Multi because of his (the BM’s)enthralling window-pane check suit in pea-green and red. The Blond Multi is desperately trying to slam up the barricades. Somehow a furious argument erupts about who is a dandy and who isn’t. Matt Driver is probing the Maharajah. ‘I’m not a dandy.’ The Maharajah is shouting. ‘You’re shouting,’ says Genevieve Suzy. ‘I’d like you to eat up your beetroot.’

There’s a calm patch where we discuss the Tom Daley affair. The Photo Multi makes a thoughtful point when I suggest that the very act of making an announcement is a concession to inequality. ‘What you have to see,’ the PM said, ‘is that, for him, it’s a big deal.’ This rings absolutely true. No young person is going to waltz into Gaydom as if it were nothing, not even today.

Now a new geyser opens up: Genevieve says the Daily Telegraph has the best news desk. Laura and Matt – their left-wing side comes out. They won’t have it. There’s fearsome squawking and chicken noises. Val lurches to his feet: ‘I’ve got to go. Feeling so rough.’ It’s before the pudding. Later he texts, ‘The charming maharajah didn’t help.’

Speaking of whom, this figure, still toying with the beetroot, plunges off in search of his coat. ‘Are you leaving?’ I say. ‘So we can start enjoying ourselves,’ says Matt Driver.

I think they were enjoying themselves though – or enjoyed in retrospect.

One thing: if you do three sauces (as I did with filet of beef as suggested by Ottolenghi) guests will inevitably like one of them more than others.