In praise of patrons – particularly mine

God, I enjoyed my book launch party last week. (Though not as much as some people, eh, Toby?) So much so that I’m not sure I can ever forgive myself. I keep thinking not of the fun I had but of all those friends I wish could have been there but weren’t. My fault, totally, in most cases: I’m horrendously disorganised when it comes to party invitations — and it’s entirely possible that you’re one of the people I love most in the world but forgot to invite because, hey, I’m just a bit useless that way.

Anyway, this party. As you’ll probably be aware — and if not let me spell it out — the launch was for this incredibly readable, well-researched, funny but also ‘serious and significant’ (says Matt Ridley in The Spectator — and who I am to disagree with so distinguished an expert in so important a publication?) book I recently published. It’s called Watermelons: How Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future.

I think the main reason the party went so well was that, invitations apart, I had nothing to do with the organisation. Instead, the party was thrown for me in the grand style by my friends Azia and Marwan Chatila. Azia owns a gorgeous spa hotel in Paphos, Cyprus, called the Azia Resort & Spa; Marwan is a very high-end jeweller. Suffice to say that both are a bit better off than I am, which is why instead of the usual, self-funded cheap-wine’n’lager jobs in one of the further-flung London postcodes, my party this year was in a sumptuous private address in Knightsbridge with chilled, proper champagne flowing all evening and iced vodka shots (as you’ll recall, Toby. Or possibly not) at the end. Nicky Haslam came: nuff said.