The night I danced with Ginger Rogers

When indolence becomes intolerable, remembrances of things past become a lifesaver. Charles Moore’s Spectator Notes also helps. His recent item about his friend Lady Penn reminded me of events long ago that had slipped my mind because at the time
I was under the influence and without sleep. About 20 years ago, the designer Carolina Herrera rang to invite me to a dinner in New York for Prue Penn, who was staying with her and her husband. When I was introduced to Lady Penn, she laughingly told me that we had met before, ten years earlier, ‘when you tried to pick me up at ten in the morning in a petrol station on the M4’. My host looked shocked but Prue went on to say that I had been very funny and charming, dead drunk but all spruced up, had invited her to Badminton House for lunch, and as a kicker had also proposed introducing her to the King of Greece.