Taki: My perfect afternoon? Getting drunk with Spectator readers

To London for a brief visit to meet Spectator readers, as nice a reason as I can think of for getting on an airplane, except for an assignation with Rebecca Hall, my latest obsession among the fairer sex. Our digs in Old Queen Street remind me a bit of my schooldays, not that The Spectator’s building is ivy-covered and red-brick, but more in the sense of a mystical communion with the past. Who knows what goes on in one’s brain, especially when lots of booze and no sleep are the main ingredients left in that tired old sponge.

Many of us were raised with a certain image of dignity, nowadays not easily found in the hotspots I frequent. Starting with good manners. No sooner had the party begun than I realised this was going to be old-fashioned and different. Interpersonal ease, the euphemism for today’s lack of manners, was as absent as rabbis in Saudi Arabia.