Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 9 April 2015

Unexpected consequences of a Spectator Life party

Thinkstock Photos 
issue 11 April 2015

Spectator Life’s third birthday party was a glamorous affair. It had paps, pop stars and Pippa. One went in and waiting at the top of the stairs were Spectator Life’s editor and deputy editor, super-dazzlers both, offering their cheeks to be kissed. We drank Bellinis.

There is a new economic theory which claims that people often act more irrationally than economists in particular imagine. One of its key terms is ‘discounting the future’, which is another way of saying that in certain circumstances people often behave as if there were no tomorrow. The Spectator Life birthday party was a bit like that. Speaking for myself, I discounted the future so comprehensively that it was a case of Everything Must Go. I woke the next morning five minutes before checkout time at the St Ermin’s hotel, however, feeling pretty good all things considered.

I jumped out of bed and dressed with all haste, scooped up my personal debris from the dressing table, ran my toothbrush over my few remaining molars, checked out at the desk downstairs and returned the doorman’s cheery greeting as I stepped out on to the Broadway.

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