Diary – 10 November 2007

When will the Americans withdraw? I don’t mind how long they stay in Mesopotamia but it’s high time they got out of Grosvenor Square. They’ve been muttering about relocating their embassy, but will it happen? Mayfair, my favourite English village, is ruined by their barricades, tank traps and miles of concrete Toblerone. Grosvenor Square and surrounding streets are becoming impenetrable and it looks as though there are going to be more hideous constructions and obstructions judging by the builders’ sheds and huts that are proliferating in this once tranquil square. Perhaps they should relocate to the old BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane. That is also an area more convenient for terrorists, who would find Mayfair a bit of a schlep. Shepherd’s Bush is also closer to the aerodrome.

I love wandering around Mayfair even though the picturesque streetwalkers of yesteryear no longer lend charm to Shepherd’s Market. All my favourite haunts were in this neighbourhood: barber, bookshop and record store (the lamented Discurio). Then there were the clubs, open between pub hours and closing late. Yesterday I walked past my old bed-sitting room in Park Street behind Grosvenor House where Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, in the Mayfair spirit, entertained her Ouida-like guardsmen. When I lived there, there was still a whiff of Michael Arlen haunting those little rural streets (Green, Hay, Down, Hill, Half Moon) and instead of immersing myself in yet another underprivileged Irish childhood, I’ve ignored the Booker winner and reread The Green Hat, Arlen’s huge bestseller of 1924. Arlen, the Savile Row Armenian trying to write like De Quincey, though often absurdly dated, still has wit and vitality, and if there is too much risible melodrama, it’s no more than may be found in Fitzgerald’s over-esteemed The Great Gatsby. Anyway, why should ‘dated’ be a pejorative? No one says Dickens or Jane Austen are dated.