Diary – 17 April 2004

It was our last day in Courchevel, and everyone was having a snowball fight by the lifts at 1850, when my friend Charlotte said in urgent tones, ‘You know you’ve been looking for Posh Spice?’ Too damn right I had. Le tout Courchevel had been hunting the maritally troubled superstar, who was rumoured to be somewhere on the slopes patching things up with ‘the most famous Englishman since Nelson’ (Rees-Mogg). One wife of a stupendously rich Goldman Sachs banker had pursued her so fast down Pralong, a blue run, that she had beaned herself with her own ski and needed four stitches. ‘Well, don’t look now,’ said Charlotte, ‘but she’s standing about six feet away over my left shoulder.’ I goggled and, by Jesus, there she was.

With the exception of Bill Clinton, all the celebrities I have met have turned out to be smaller than expected, but Victoria Beckham is minute. She was standing in a circle of gofers and parents and children, and sort of glaring at the world. Her eyes were invisible behind enormous Dior shades, but her lips were thrust out in her trademark snarl, like some rainforest chief. She was wearing a furry waistcoat and odd, low-slung baggy trousers, but the most interesting thing was her bottom. It was either the top of her bottom or the bottom of her back. It was plainly visible, and appeared to be tattooed with some inscription or device. I scrambled after her up the stairs to the ski lift, in an undignified attempt to read the message. What was it? ‘Open other end’? ‘If you can read this, you are too close’? It turned out to be four stars, signifying, apparently, the birth of her two children. One of these, Brooklyn or possibly Bronx, said loudly, ‘I want to go home.