I drank Bombay gin and Fever-Tree tonic on the half-empty easyJet flight to Gatwick. I was even offered ice cubes. I was dressed like a peon, so as soon as I arrived in London I went into the nearest Gap superstore and bought jeans, a shirt and a jumper in the sale and threw away the clobber I was wearing. The only items in the sale were either small or extra small so I looked a bit like a frogman, but felt much happier. I had another large one in a pub with overflowing flower baskets, then checked into the hotel, where a decision had been made, said the receptionist, to upgrade me to a ‘club’ class room. The toilet paper in this room was embossed with a pattern of fleur-de-lis, which lent a touch of splendour and improved my overall experience in the bathroom palpably.
I had another large one from the minibar then headed off to the Spectator Life party, stopping on the way for one more at an atmospheric old pub nearby, whose claim to fame is that the Great Train Robbery was planned there. Popping outside for a smoke, I got chatting to an elderly journalist who told me she’d once written a book about how to give up smoking, an experience she found so stressful that she started smoking again. She wrote the last chapter chain-smoking. I’m addicted to How to Give Up Smoking books and had probably read it, I said.
Then I went to the Spectator Life party, where, in the grip of the grape, I shouted at, and was shouted at by, a succession of charming, well-dressed people who seemed also to like a drink. Time accelerates fantastically at Spectator parties.
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