I read this in an American newspaper (it was written by a woman who used to edit my copy for a New York glossy, but I will withhold her name to save her embarrassment and social atrophy): ‘He’s hosted Kim Kardashian and Kanye West for Thanksgiving, regularly cruises with Justin Bieber on his party yacht…’ The mind boggles. Is it possible to read such crap without throwing up? How would you, dear reader, like to spend Thanksgiving with Kim and Kanye, or go cruising with Justin? (I’d rather fail a syphilis test than have a Kardashian as a guest.) I suppose that the selfish generation, whose motto is he who dies with the most toys wins, could easily spend a holiday with the above-mentioned unmentionables, but the my-cellphone-is-thinner-than-yours principle leaves something to be desired.
The person who has had such august personalities for dinner is a Miami nightclub owner, hardly the cream of American society, but my ex-editor meant to be nice. She was actually impressed by his name-dropping. Imagine if she had asked him to name his ideal guests for an imaginary dinner party. I wonder whom he would have picked? Charlie Sheen? The imaginary dinner party is a bit like Desert Island Discs. I was on it once, and Sue Lawley, the presenter at the time, and I got along just dandy. During a break I asked her about the choices people made, and she told me that those who picked only classical and barely listened to the pieces were mostly footballers or music-hall comedians.
Ditto for imaginary dream dinner parties. I once asked an American automobile tycoon — OK, it was Henry Ford II — whom he would have liked to dine with à deux, and he answered Paul Valéry.
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