Howard Hodgson ends lunch in a rage against unearned fame. ‘Marilyn Monroe: drunken actress,’ he says, ‘fat drunken actress. Gets killed. Ohhh! Marilyn!’ He does a mocking voice for that last bit, like someone wailing about her death. ‘John F. Kennedy: one of the worst presidents the United States ever had. Bay of Pigs. Fucked everything up. Robert Kennedy was vastly more talented than John, but John gets killed. Ohhh! National monument!’
‘Diana Spencer: borderline personality disorder, eating disorder. The eating disorders and everything were just part of her borderline personality disorder. She wouldn’t have been able to be your wife,’ Howard’s blue velvet Nehru jacket shimmers as he gestures at me, ‘let alone the Prince of Wales’s wife.
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