High life | 7 January 2016

OK sports fans, what do Dame Vivien Duffield and Evelyn Waugh have in common? The answer is absolutely nothing, so why start 2016 with such a dumb question? Waugh was short and round and so is Vivien, but apart from weight and height there are no similarities. So why ask? Easy. I was reading about a dinner party Waugh gave for Clare Luce in November 1949 at the Hyde Park Hotel. He later wrote to Nancy Mitford complaining how much money the dinner had cost him, and how Clare — in my not so humble opinion the greatest woman of the 20th century — had failed to write a thank-you note.

Waugh was a hell of a writer but a pretty piss-poor human being. He was petty, a closeted tortured gay with seven children. And from what I’ve read, he was always down on his fellow man and on life in general. Pretty depressing stuff. Why give a dinner and then complain that it cost too much? I thought of Waugh because Vivien gave a dinner last week for more than a hundred. Surprisingly, she sat me on her right, and insisted I stay on her right even after I gave a speech that was close to the bone. Mind you, unlike la Luce, I wrote a thank-you note.

The Mecca for the new rich and famous, as Gstaad is often called, turns into a horror show when it’s packed to the gills, especially when it snows only indoors. But as I write the white stuff from heaven has been falling non-stop for three days and nights, which should make the commonplace interesting. By this I mean that Gstaad is a ski resort where there are more après-skiers than skiers.