NEW YORK—A funny thing happened to me on my way out from a party on November 17 in London. I was temporarily confused until I ran into Naomi Campbell in the Royal Hospital Gardens. She was carrying some packages into her car and offered me a ride . “Are you going on to Andrew’s?” she asked sweetly. “Hop in, I’ll take you.” We chatted away, and I reminded her how she once had applied a vice-like grip around my neck when I was about to leave the dance floor and decapitate a poisoned dwarf who had thrown a missile at me. It was a private party in a private house and the poisoned one had issues about his ex-wife and myself. “ My God,” I told Naomi, “lucky for me you don’t enter senior judo tournaments for men.” She smiled sweetly and kept her eyes on the road. Did I put the moves on her? At my age sports cars are not the best venues for great sex, so she lucked out.

Once at Onslow Gardens, and about to join our executive editor in his digs, Naomi came clean. “I’m Phoebe from the Spectator, but not to worry, I’m flattered,” said our very own Phoebe, who happens to be much younger and just as sexy and beautiful as the divine Naomi. Score one for liquor. Once at Andrew’s, we joined Charlotte, Toby, Louisa and Rod, as in Liddle, who during a rather drunken conversation revealed something only drunks admit to. He has never had the urge to play around ever since he married his present wife. He sounded believable and not corny at all. Yet Rod was one of the people who gave us the nickname “Sextator” a while back. “I guess I had never been in love before,” was the way he explained it. Dumbfounded, the only thing that came to mind was he must have caught the uxorious fever from the man sitting next to him, Toby Young.

Never mind. London will still be the death of me. The next evening was spent at Prince Pavlos’s abode for Pia Getty’s birthday, and the night after that at Chantal Hanover’s for a goodbye party that I had to break up because my flight to the Big Bagel was scheduled for 8.30 a.m. Three nights of seeing old friends is all I can take nowadays. I stayed at the Bismarcks as I am between flats, and that’s always a treat, except when England beat Germany in a friendly. Once back at The Bagel, the mother of my children wanted to know why I looked so drawn and suddenly even older than I am. Liquid diet, was the answer. 

This is the good, name-dropping news. (After all, it is supposed to be high life column.) The rest is not so good. A new study has found that Greece is next to last when measuring one-night stands—for women, that is. Portugal wins by bringing up the rear. Numero uno, of course, is Britain, as if they had to spend so much money to find this particular statistic out. Researchers say that the highest scores of one-night stands by British women are linked to the way society is increasingly willing to accept sexual promiscuity among women as well as men. Rubbish, says the greatest sex researcher since Kinsey. It’s linked to one and one thing only: Alcohol. British gals booze, Greek lassies do not. Last time I saw a Greek girl drunk was sometime in the Sixties. Last time I saw an English girl drunk was the last time I was in London. What bothers me is the money spent for research about something as obvious as this. Why not donate it to LEHIDM (Low Education with High Income Don’t Mix), 3 boulevard des Reves Perdus, Monte Carlo, Monaco. This particular charity does wonderful work. It helps find and identify hedge fund managers who have lost their yachts, private jets, mistresses (the first to go, incidentally) Riviera villas, Swiss chalets and private trainers. Once identified, these people are counseled by experts on, say, how to hail a taxi, how to carry cash, and how to wait one’s turn to speak when in the company of other people. Also how to swim off a beach, how to sit on a commercial airplane, and how to shop on one’s own. Even how to drive a car. It is a rigorous three-week course, but the people who run it are simply wonderful and know exactly what they’re doing. Most of them lost their moolah during the 2000 techie crash, so it’s still fresh in their minds. If you have any spare cash left, send it to them. The life you will make more comfortable could be that of the man or woman who you were on the phone with every day not so long ago. 

And now to more serious matters concerning money. Woody Guthrie once said it was easier to put up with dust storms in the Dust Bowl than with the greed in California. Had he been around these parts last week, he would have changed his tune. A 270 pound young black man was trampled to death while a mob of black men and women frantically reached for bargains such as flat TV’s. Americans are so effectively programmed to shop for new gadgets, they will trample a young man to death in order to satisfy their needs. Mind you, PC made sure the color of those who trampled the man to death was never mentioned. Obama or no Obama.