Why didn’t I celebrate Oscar Wilde’s birthday?

On Wednesday 19 October at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane in London, a reception was held to celebrate Oscar Wilde’s birthday. Invited by the excellent Gyles Brandreth, I arrived in good time. But as I approached the doors of the reception room, something stopped me.

These are the facts. But what is the explanation?

A few months ago Boris Johnson wrote two newspaper columns, one in favour of a proposition, one against. As an exercise in clearing one’s mind, the approach has much to commend it. So, to clear my own mind, let me try the same plan. There follow two alternative submissions of the diary item that could follow the first two paragraphs above.

Version One

[CONTINUES] [NEW PAR] I struggle to explain. All these years — decades — of pushing hopelessly against an epoch whose face was set against us. I had almost despaired: thought nothing could change. Then everything did. So fast. There was something dreamlike in this now–fashionable scene. Smart people pushed past me. There was air-kissing, there was laughter. Was I dreaming? Had I fallen asleep after yet another dismal evening at yet another 1980s Tory conference: yet again in Blackpool, directing yet again the little gaggle of embarrassed conference-goers to our fringe event that the conference guide refused to list: down the stairs at a cheap hotel where the signs I’d handwritten (‘CGHE’ — we didn’t want the word ‘homosexual’ spelt out) pointed?

And now this. All credit to Gyles, a stalwart who even before it was fashionable supported our cause in Commons votes — but who now brings a dash of establishment glamour. Only last year he got the Duchess of Cornwall along for the same event…

And what’s this? Entering the busy room was a bishop in all his purple, offered a glass of champagne from a handsome waiter’s tray.