We were discussing romanticism, with me arguing that it should be confined to the boudoir, the bedroom, the library or the stage. When it escapes into public affairs, disaster often ensues. This led to us reminiscing about romantics we had known, and one of our number denounced the late John Aspinall, who, he said, would have liked to pass as a romantic but was really a society card-sharp. The animus was understandable. This chap would have been significantly richer if his great-uncle had never found his way to Aspers’s gaming tables. Aspers led on to Jimmy Goldsmith, undoubtedly a romantic and charismatic figure, but a consistent political menace — and thus to Jimmy’s nephew by marriage, Robin Birley.
He is a romantic figure, straight out of Byron’s ‘Don Juan’. When he was still a schoolboy he was nearly killed by a tiger at John Aspinall’s zoo. Aspers believed in recycling the plunder from card-sharping into the preservation of rare animals.
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