Despite its increasing resemblance to ‘Heat’ magazine, I was reassured on Tuesday morning that my beloved Guardian has not lost the courage of its convictions. Running an ill disguised-spoiler of next month’s Tatler cover (ha ha, vile toffs, we know who Daisy Lowe is, too!), Hadley Freeman pondered “that almost parodic monthly recorder of Britain’s
Commerce has always deferred conversationally to art. It’s assumed that painters and writers are fascinating talkers, but from the Mermaid to the Colony room, I think they’ve only ever had one subject: money and their lack of it, or the outrageously unfair amounts of it bestowed on (naturally) less talented peers. The legendary wit of
Mention to most people that you have recently quit Italy for London and you become an instant object of sympathy. ‘Oh, poor you,’ they coo, ‘don’t you mind?’ Cue effusions about that darling trattoria in Lucca, those hidden della Francescas in Arezzo and enthusiastic reiterations of the word ‘bella’ as last seen in Gregory’s Girl.