November. The season of fancy dress and orchestrated sadness, when we contemplate the tragedy of war and the cruel suffering of those not wearing a poppy. Patriotism, in these vulgar times, can seem little more than a competitive cultural sport.
Happily, some ultra-stylish competitive patriotism was on show this week at the annual Mustard Gas Ball, a celebration of the remembrance of death hosted by Daily Mail editor Paul “Full Metal” Dacre as usual. Katie Hopkins dazzled fellow guests with a diamond and crystal poppy necklace and some well-polished jokes about the disabled. Gary Barlow’s “maxi-poppy” wept tears of blood during his a capella medley of first world war trench ballads.
But it was impish, squid-faced Andrew Lloyd Webber who waddled into pole position inside an ironic “heroin syringe” costume designed by Banksy of Mayfair. Truly, the absolute distillation of “theatrical poppyness”. As an encore, Squiddy voted in favour of tax credit cuts in the House of Lords, a heroic attempt to preserve the democracy for which so many brave Britons continue to die.
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My old billionaire media mogul friend Garbo is living proof that money can’t buy happiness. For months, he’s cut a lonely figure, controlling his news and entertainment empire from the back of a limousine. Impeccably dressed in a shirt, tie and jacket but naked from the waist down, sitting on a rough towel and surrounded by mysterious tubing. So good to see him back on his feet, trousers on, with his new “twingo bingo” companion, the lovely “Jer” Hall. Garbo believes firmly that if you dish it out you have to take it. Tabloid speculation about the romance and 96-year-old Garbo’s “personal bona fides” has been as hurtful as it has been graphic, but he’s not rising to it.
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Ukip’s Halloween party felt oddly deflated. Nash Farage came, as he always does, as Melting Nazi from Raiders of the Lost Ark but this year his heart really wasn’t in it. No journalists. Nash just hanging around outside all evening, smoking panatellas and quaffing from his “flagon of common sense” in the forlorn hope of a photo op. “We shall return!” he croaked bitterly into my face. “We’ll get our shape back, like one of those memory foam mattresses, eh?” So many overweight Kippers done up as zombie liberals, it felt rather like a glum convention for fans of the Cure.
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I’ve decided to give Guy Fawkes celebations at the House of Commons a miss this year.
Everyone’s so fashionably squeamish now about the tradition of burning Roman Catholics in effigy, and the harmless, almost sexual pleasure we used to get from it. Oh, for the days when religious persecution was just a bit of fun. A few fireworks chucked around, then baked potatoes and champagne. In these ultra-sensitive times, nobody will risk upsetting “faith communities” or getting too close to explosives, so it’s prosecco and nibbles in moderation and a mimsy display beamed in live from a secure site in the Thames estuary.
It was once a great honour for a Catholic politician to “go on the bonfire”. Ann Widdecombe was a very good sport, I remember, posing next to the overstuffed dummy version of herself. With, alas, inevitable online sidebar results. One year the adorable, roly-poly Keith Vaz gamely squeezed into Jacobean clothes and was “caught” in the cellars with pretend barrels of gunpowder. Bless him, he was genuinely surprised by his rough treatment at the hands of pissed MPs and lobbyists before – luckily – getting swapped for his flammable doppelganger at the very last minute.
This year it should have been Nicola Sturgeon who ticked all three “safe to burn” boxes: atheist, woman and Scottish. Unfortunately, the lumpy, inscrutable Guy brought before the all-party Extinction of Heretics Committee looked more like Angela Merkel, so suddenly it’s “unacceptably sexist”. Blair on the bonfire again, then. Spineless.
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To lunch with an old flame. Dear Tray and I spent an unforgettable summer (73? 74?) together. Backpacking the hippy trail to Kathmandu, working our way through the Perfumed Garden, high as bloody kites. She’s much more guarded now, of course, as home secretary but I do wonder sometimes about the long-term effects of that treacly hash oil we used to smoke all the time.
Tray’s excited about her plans for internet security to keep Britain’s families safe. “The science these days? Incredible! Apparently you can tag suspicious wi-fi molecules with a sort of dye? Follow the trail through the air into the sky, back down through the atmos to Johnny Terrorist’s lair and – bingo!” I warn her that this is almost certainly a set-up. Either the devious chancellor, Skids, or more likely our mutual friend Todge, the mayor of London.
She does that old Sloane Rasta voice of hers: “Nah, heavy vibe, we TRIBE, darling. Waiter! Another carafe!”
Trouble ahead, mark my words.
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An invitation to a conference: 14 Amazing Things About The Death Of Journalism That Will Completely Burst Your Mind Open Like An Exploding Sperm Whale. Not for the first time, I find myself yearning for the 20th century.
As told to Ian Martin
