High life

Bad taste in ‘ladies’

Thursday, 24th May 2007

Otherwise, I am sad to be leaving the Big Bagel. Last week I went to the wedding of Minnie Mortimer to Oscar-winning screenwriter Stephen Gaghan. The Mortimers are a very old and distinguished American family whom I will not call American royalty because ignorant hacks say that about the Kennedys. Needless to say, the Mortimers resemble the Kennedys in the same way that the Habsburgs bear likeness to the Corleones, of Godfather fame. Minnie is a delightful girl whom my son had a crush on when both were six. It runs in the family. I’ve had a crush on the bride’s cousin, Amanda Burden, now the Bagel’s Planning Commissioner, a most powerful post, all my life. Again, no cigar. After the ceremony, at a great lunch which lasted for hours on end with a band and dancing, I sat next to my old friend Michael Thomas, a polymath who is the only man I know who resigned from White’s ‘because they let in too many vulgar Americans’. And he didn’t do it for effect, either. He can be grumpy and cynical but for all the right reasons. Sitting next to him was like sitting between Chesterton and Shaw. Humorous and eloquent, he was a delight to listen to, and for once I didn’t get a word in edgewise.

Next week it’s Washington for a speech about the future of the American Right. There is no future — the neocons took care of that — and then on to London and some serious partying. I have my opening line all ready for my speech: ‘What is the difference between neoconservatives and women? You can sometimes find women on the battlefield.’