Kristin Scott Thomas

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As everyone who has ever joined a club knows, Pugs is the world’s most exclusive one, its 19 members varying from German nobility and Greek and Danish royalty to the British upper classes, Indian nobility, and American and Greek aristocracy. Plus Sir Bob Geldof and Roger Taylor, of pop music royalty. Club rules forbid membership to exceed 21, hence a titanic struggle is taking place as I write to fill our last two spots.

Last week in London the annual Pugs lunch took place and I flew over for it from New York despite running a temperature and suffering from the flu. Mind you, it was worth it. Everyone wore the sky blue and white striped necktie of the club, evoking a gentler time when men wore uniforms and marched in step. At one head of the table sat Sir Christopher Lee, our oldest member, who at age 92 has two films and three recordings out this year alone. At the other end were Sir Bob Geldof and club commodore Tim Hoare. I sat between Count Leopold Bismarck and Prince Nikolaos of Greece, who had flown in from the birthplace of electrolysis especially for the meeting. His older brother, Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece, opened the proceedings by suggesting we leave the voting for new members part for last—the prince is a very nice man who does not like blackballing people—but his suggestion was unanimously rejected. Even before the first course, but after numerous bottles of wine had been consumed, we dealt with a plethora of proposals for membership, a most pleasant business.

For starters, Charles Saatchi received 19 blackballs out of nineteen, which means his name can never come up again. Following was Edward St Aubyn, who received 22 blackballs, which according to club rules needed an open explanation. I was the one that had to stand and explain why there were more blackballs than members voting. The reason was that St Aubyn had blackened his father’s name by writing that his old man had buggered him silly, all in order to exorcize his demons and gain fame and fortune, and patricide is a real no-no among Pugs members.

So there was a second vote on St Aubyn and this time he got twenty-five blackballs.

After him Jay Zee, or Jay-Z, the rapper billionaire, also received more blackballs than we are members, so the president himself, Nick Scott, aka Professor Gimlet, explained that while the rapper was being kicked and beaten by his sister-in-law for no particular reason except for cheating on her sister, the rapper did not react in a typical rapper manner by punching her in the mouth and calling her a bitch. Not acting like a rapper when one has made a billion as a rapper deserves a blackball and a half, hence the result.

After that particularly nice interlude, lunch was served and then once again we had to vote, this time for the Pugs’ dream date. But before nominations were heard, Prince Heinrich von Fürstenberg warned members that Arpad Busson’s dalliance with one of the Kardashian women could bring the club’s impeccable name and ranking into disrepute. Busson strenuously denied any contact, but the more he denied it, the less he was believed by his fellow Pugs. The dream girl we finally agreed on for 2014 was Kristin Scott Thomas, although in the secret ballot there was one vote for a Kardashian, the handwriting being rather familiar to me as that of Arpad Busson, with the same misspellings. (Mine vot ees fer …) But it could have been a jokester among us trying to blacken a poor Swiss boy’s chances with Kristin.