Taki: Robin Birley’s lifesaving nightclub

What was that about London and being tired of life? Or that flickering ecstasy of a long ago memory of being drunk at dawn and watching people going to work? Surely not at my age and in the year 2013, but there you have it. You can go home again, Thomas Wolfe had it all wrong. I felt at home all last week, at Loulou’s, on Gerald Road, and in deep Oxfordshire.

Let’s start with Gerald Road, where the Bismarcks gave a Pugs dinner to celebrate Bob Miller’s 80th birthday, Bob being the Duty Free billionaire who — surprise, surprise — is as nice, down-to-earth and sporty a man as he is rich. We took the annual picture, the three oldies — Bob, George Livanos and myself — seated up front, youngsters such as Edward Hutley, Leopold Bismarck, Princes Pavlos and Nikolaos of Greece, Roger Taylor, Arki Busson, Tim Hoare and Nick Scott standing behind us.