Thursday 16th November 2017

Anthony Mottram and I took the Private Dining Room at the Ivy to mark jointly our 60th Birthdays, a venture never before attempted by me – I mean a private dining room for 60 where you are the host, or one of them.  ‘Are you enjoying it?’ Merle Barr inquired. She was in an incredible burnt orange top, geometric, self-supporting techno fabric. ‘You’re looking worried.’  Well, it’s worrying looking worried Genevieve Suzy was in an incredible 40s evening housecoat, bought especially. She was not the only Greatness present. How the staff poured the drink. I was in a new Topman weekend check suit, with lengthened jacket (a departure from the jackette) but with spider trews. My shirt was lace in a teal shade, also from Topman.  There was much comment. I tried to get a ‘body’ to wear underneath it. But none were to be had. ‘It’s like sitting next to Jayne Mansfield,’ Robert Nevil remarked. He referred to that film star’s revealing decolletage in her day. Eventually she was decapitated in a car accident. Robert Nevil had a book years ago with a photo purporting to show the actual gruesome scene, over which he used to pore for hours. It could have been anything really.

Anthony Mottram and I made speeches: the great thing is we think alike. Without collaboration we had concocted matching speeches – praising and embracing each other’s brilliance and utter hell and nightmare; down with gush and lovely people. I added in a bit about not being Robert Peston, after the Polperro incident and then catalogued our great contribution to life as she is known – Anthony Mottram and I over 46 years. Front syllable lopping, that’s lopping the front syllables off words,  inserting ‘lady’ into sentences unexpectedly and turning into typing refined speaking as practiced widely in the post-War years by those aspiring socially. Afterwards Rufus Pitman and Reggie Cresswell passed up a note which I thought very grand, as if it were a real pre-War dinner with Emerald and Wallis and the King. It said, ‘But we think your greatest achievement is the reconsideration of the genitive pronoun, as in ‘Lady’s Portrait’ and ‘Evesham’s Vale’ ‘Devonshire’s Duke’ etc’. I’d quite forgotten. How could I? Actually it was Val who started that. He heard of someone in India who said, ‘Lady’s Portrait.’ Also, come to think of it, we’ve translated the London tube stations into French, German and Italian without system, plus some just having ‘Ma’ added as in ‘Mapiccma’ or ‘MaBond’ or simply lopped as in ‘Farm’, or pronounced as by a foreign speaker as in ‘Lie-cester Square.’ When you’ve done so much, I suppose it’s hard to remember it all.

Plots and undercurrents of course. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been a proper Poor Little Rich Gay occasion: only that morning certain people had attempted to contrive a massive weather storm to wipe out the whole event. They failed. The week before there had been further hiss and spit over the fence as it were and rivalry and conduct: Poor Little Rich Gays are not given to agonising as to where their loyalties lie but found all the same that it did not suit them to cross the bridge. Then to the actual dinner: Matt Driver had been shopping at Margaret Howell. Laura Malcolm’s level of outrage at a £200 shirt increased rapidly, as staff continued to pour. ‘I’m earning so much money,’ Matt Driver proclaimed. Meanwhile Genevieve Suzy was trying to penetrate the Ivy Club next door. That’s the place to be: as you may remember, I moved heaven and earth to get in there when it first opened, only to recoil with horror at the decor. Angus Willis accompanied Genevieve in her assault: ‘But I’m Dainty Lady TV‘s Chief Executive,’ she hissed. ‘I’m known! I’m known! I must ascend to the terrace.’ On absolute stoney ground did her words fall. Back in the venue staff were busy pouring. Some young ladies were found to be of interest to the older men for possible club drinks elsewhere later on. Merle Barr acquired a stain. A Brexit spat was brewing between Royston King and Fergus Strachan. They thought each other morons. Joshua Baring and Finn Magnus, the hot boy doc, were sharing boyfriend wisdom: I mean, you know how young people talk: a sort of living agony aunt combined with Jackie magazine but as it happened to you. Joshua also covered Elizabethan embroidery. Matt Driver appeared: he seemed to be crawling on the floor. There had been so much pouring by this time. The topic still Margaret Howell: or maybe it was me, worried that Topman wasn’t good enough. ‘What’s wrong with Topman?’ I wailed, gesturing to my own new weekend check Topman suit. ‘It looks cheap,’ Matt Driver said flatly. Poor Little Rich Gays were delirious actually. They were in their element, making a terrific racket.

Picking over the party afterwards with Anthony Mottram, we agreed it had passed in a blur. One whirred round the room, attending to the guests. But Poor Little Rich Gays were fired up, doing a noble impression of never having been to the Ivy before: the panelled room was agreeable and friendly, or became so by the time our guests had finished with it. A friend of Anthony Mottram’s had said me, ‘I must see more of you. You’re quite crazy.’ 76 bottles had been consumed. Suddenly a thought occurred. How extraordinary! ‘Isn’t it strange how quickly we’ve lost sight of the main purpose of the party?’ ‘What was that?’ Anthony Mottram asked. ‘Why – a display of wealth and power. We’ve quite forgotten.’