Slings and Arrows «

Slings and Arrows

Thursday 27th October 2016

I went to Kensington Palace to look at some newly acquired personal linen of Queen Victoria. I was shown into a private cupboard stacked to the ceiling with boxes marked, ‘Princess Margaret’s Coronation coronet’ and ‘Princess Diana’s pink Bruce Oldfield evening dress.’ Queen Victoria’s night-gown was enormous. Apparently her undergarments were given to servants as a reward for long service – which is why so many of them are still knocking about. The tea afterwards was dainty and I ate all of mine, unlike some of the other representatives. But I fell out with the PR afterwards who emailed by the hour wanting to know when we were going ‘live’ with coverage of the wretched DVD of the silly TV series about Queen Victoria. ‘If I were you,’ I said to the teenager, ‘I wouldn’t get on the wrong side of the Anna Wintour de nos jours.’ I was only trying to help.

A helicopter was coming in to land as I was leaving the Palace (me in a Prince William look with nautical slant and summer scarf uplift – Zara white jeans with biker detail and Zara blue nylon jackette). I rushed to the fence as did many others: Prince Andrew! Such a let down. Tremendous amount of very rubbishy luggage – hold-alls and suit bags and a plastic cold-box – heaved from the heli and put into the Bentley.

Once again at Hastings rabid all-white-male-with-wenches advance Bonfire Night I was thwarted. You may remember some years ago Genevieve Suzy, the Anna Wintour de nos jours, fell in a ditch and we never saw a thing. Well, this time, Angus Willis flung open the Tudor House and offered a vat of chowder. All sorts piled in and asked for seconds. The Tudor House was as always a glory. No electric light. One is transported back to Tudor Times in this, one of the most important new interiors in Britain since the War. Work that one out! Well, it transpired that Fergus and Angus had got themselves in a muddle re: accommodation. Long and short, there was no room for me, but Genevieve Suzy would take me in. But she’d got a huge party staying and it didn’t seem right. Besides I was feeling unwell suddenly so my car went back to London with me in it. I’d stopped earlier and bought a 1855 Worcester tea-set for £125 (we’ve still got that broken Dainty Lady TV teapot lid to contend with) and a Laura Ashley lamp-stand from the 1980s. So the day wasn’t wasted. And who could forget being in the Tudor House wreathed in smoke as in Tudor Times while the pointedly non-ethnic beer-swilling possession went by, quite literally a ball of fire with all the nasty torches, a ball of sullen resentment of some kind, a sour dug-in harking back to the past.

Joshua Baring’s birthday dinner was held at Vico: he lavished everything on the guests: Joshua himself has got Rothschild links, of course. As if that wasn’t enough, the Ducal Grandson was present, linking the party to England’s greatest ever man, plus a distillery heiress attended, her spirit sold at every counter in the land, and Patrick Lockyer, whose jam fortune is legendary. Two of the guests were so toxic they had to be kept separate and nobody was allowed to touch them. They’d been confined to quarters with a vile nori-virus for several days. They weren’t better, just suffering from cabin fever and having to get out at any cost. The Ducal Grandson said he couldn’t stand being a house-guest, especially after one host didn’t get up until 11, so nobody could go downstairs because only he could switch off the burglar alarm. There were quite a lot of other things and persons he can’t stand but I don’t quite recall them. He’s incredibly great and somehow thrilling, not just because of his connection to England’s greatest ever man. Patrick Lockyer on the other hand is so detailed and relentlessly condemned as fat by Joshua. They are bosom-buddies. In fact, Patrick’s hair, held in by prostate cancer medication, is more magnificent than ever – a high, chiselled miracle of coiffure. He confided that he is in the gym most days. The physique is in fact tremendous. He’s behind all the biggest scandals, issuing injunctions. All the best injunctions are issued by him. The more Joshua persecutes him – the other accusation is that he will be meeting a youth off the Bournemouth train at Waterloo: ‘No point in going to the loos,’ Joshua yelled, ‘there’ll be nobody from Bournemouth there..’ – the more he injuncts. He’s very against Owen Jones, also, with whom he was at Uni.