My eye snagged on a Guardian headline on the website the other day. Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, it began. In my somewhat befuddled state I instinctively felt that this should have read Charlotte Elizabeth Higgins, for this is what I am called. Further perusal revealed the reason for some of my names being thus taken in vain: the royal flipping baby. I’d had a ghastly premonition that they might go for Charlotte, which meant I knew more than the bookmakers; they had to pay out an estimated £1m following Monday’s announcement.
There was loose talk of Alice or perhaps Victoria. The fact that William and Kate also plumped for Elizabeth is something I regard as simply greedy. Of course, one blames the parents (mine). In order to select my names, they always say they went “backwards through the queens”, which is quite obviously also the methodology that has been pursued here, with the bonus “Diana” – because, of course, the posh require so many extras. Still, I am feeling slightly royal by association, and that’s HRH to you, thanks matey.
Where’s the party at?
Befuddlement can be accounted for by my presence at the opening days of the Venice Biennale, a blinding whirl of non-stop art, canals, bewildering alleyways and the sound of swifts careering over the rooftops (as I write). Also, the occasional celebration. Nicoletta Fiorucci, the Italian benefactor to the Chisenhale in east London, gave a cocktail party in honour of the gallery in her palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal, and I had the curious sensation of chatting away with very much the same bunch of people as if I had in fact been necking a beer on the street in Chisenhale Road, but in a heartstopping location that might ruin one for the Chisenhale Road for ever.
The following evening I was in a gang of people including artist Sarah Lucas, who is representing Great Britain at the biennale this year, bussing it up to her party at the Palazzo Zeno, an entirely beautiful building near the Frari. Lucas was, it must be said, looking fabulous in a luminously lime-green sweater and trainers and carrying on her shoulders, to the bewilderment of fellow passengers on the vaparetto, a small sculpture – a gangly, dangly creature made from stuffed tights and sporting what might be tits or balls; it was somewhere between accessory, teddy bear and familiar.
Alighting from the vaporetto and penetrating into the interior, our party quickly became geographically confused. This was resolved quite simply: Lucas finally sighted some people on a balcony across a canal drinking prosecco, and yelled at them. “Whose party are you at? Are you at my fucking party?” They were.
Why luxury yachts exist
An unavoidable sight at the Venice Biennale these days is the row of gazillionnaire yachts moored along the canal near the Arsenale. They never cease to annoy me: not least in their appropriation of the public pavement, since they sometimes have little red-carpet areas on the terra firma, in one case shaded by a pergola, which I suppose is the equivalent of popping a doormat outside your caravan.
In fact, the whole thing has the air of caravan park about it, for they are parked nose-to-tail and all look very much the same – that is, ugly. Their decks are perfectly visible from both land side and canal side, for every few minutes vaporetti chug past them, making it the equivalent of parking up your caravan in a bus lane. Still, I suppose part of the fun of having one of the damn things is to show off and annoy people like me.
