Since I’m considering giving a small Christmas drinks party, I’ve been reading all the festive entertainment features. There are recipes for canapés (does anyone actually make their own complicated snacks?), floral arrangements, garden illuminations and individual cocktails. These suggestions are exhausting enough to put one right off the whole idea. All the experts interviewed on their entertaining skills share an insouciance about hosting which unfortunately bears no resemblance to how I feel in the run-up. They don’t appear to fret about numbers, are able to whip up simple delicious food for a cast of thousands and always hear the doorbell ring. They never seem to stress about whether it’s necessary to have a coat rail and whether it is all too much of a crush. Or perhaps they just have staff so they can lie in the bath for an hour before with cooling cucumber slices on their eyes.
When the props from The Crown television series were auctioned at Bonhams earlier this year, I put in a bid for the Balmoral drinks tray. My bid didn’t succeed, but if it had I would have been able to use the cocktail twizzler and glass to mix the Queen Mother’s favourite tipple, gin and Dubonnet, from the recipe in Tom Parker Bowles’s new book, Cooking and the Crown. It includes, curiously, ‘good ice’, which (according to Tom) should be hewn from frozen lakes. I trotted around the neighbourhood off-licences for a bottle of Dubonnet but there was none to be found. I came across Vermouth, Martini, Aperol, Punt e Mes, Cinzano and many, unknown to me, alcoholic offerings from eastern Europe, but not a glimpse of Dubonnet, once the staple of every drinks tray. Undeterred, I ordered Uber to bring the Dubonnet from a distant supermarket so I could drink it that night. The result is delicious, although not for the fainthearted. Which is only what you would expect from the late Queen Mother, who enjoyed her drinks. Even so, in future I might stick to my regular, slightly less alcoholic sharpener – a vodka gimlet. One part vodka, one part Rose’s lime juice, and any old ice will do.
One way to ameliorate the financial hit of Christmas shopping is to make a tally of all the things you would like to buy for yourself but have resisted – such as in my case a pair of velvet platform shoes. £160 in the bag, just like that. Resisting a manicure – another £27 saved. That makes it easy to convince yourself you are X amount in credit, which helps soften the blow for all that Christmas spending.
The beat of the fashion tom-toms has been ramping up in recent days over the question of who will be given the creative directorship of Chanel. Karl Lagerfeld’s successor Virginie Viard was ousted in June and Chanel is the biggest gig in town. Matthieu Blazy, who is currently at the Italian house of Bottega Veneta, is rumoured to be frontrunner but I would be surprised if this came to pass, since so much of this job is to be a front man, heading up publicity and generating spectacles around the world. Blazy does a nice turn in bags, but he doesn’t strike me as having that big vision. Personally, I would like the role to go to a woman. Coco Chanel’s skill was that she really considered how women lived their lives and designed accordingly – making trousers, cardigans, suntans and costume jewellery fashionable. We all know how rarely men seem to have any acquaintance with what we like to wear. The only problem is that there are so few women designers available with the experience and clout to run the house. For years, men have been handed all the big jobs. The best suggestion I’ve heard is to put Marc Jacobs in the role – no, not a woman, but with Sofia Coppola by his side. They would be the dreamiest team ever. But perhaps that’s just a fantasy and will have to remain the stuff of dreams.
What better place to promote your family than the privilege of a Spectator notebook – the Johnsons aren’t the only nepo family in town. My brother Jason’s exhibition Immerse recently opened at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in Fitzrovia. It’s a magical collection of sculpture, photography, drawing, painting and illusion, inspired by how it feels to be totally immersed in the watery world he swims in, under the surface every day for an hour. Artist Marc Quinn has already snapped up two pieces, so hurry while stocks last. A much better Christmas present than another laptop.
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