Fort Belvedere, Surrey

The music was the best ever, a full orchestra belting out Cole and George and every 30s hit, and then on came Julio Iglesias to sing more romantic stuff that had us all swooning. I got home at daybreak and came out of bed to write this column. Two days previously, the very handsome and gentlemanly banker Rupert Hambro, who failed to tell us it was his birthday except we had read it in that morning’s Telegraph, gave a wonderful lunch in honor of Conrad Black in the private room of Wiltons, which I believe he owns. The great Paul Johnson, Barry Humphries, the ex-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Lord Powell, Lord Black, Dan Colson, you get the picture. Welcoming Conrad back was a gracious gesture by Rupert, and all the guests appreciated it. Paul Johnson had published his 50th book, one that I’m reading as I write, on Mozart. “Mendelssohn is next,” he told me. My first proprietor when I joined the Speccie 37 years ago, Henry Keswick, misheard and sort of loudly expressed surprise that the great writer would be writing on Mandelson. Loud guffaws all around. And it got better.

Barry Humphries, in excellent form after a grueling tour while retiring Dame Edna, overheard Sir Simon Jenkins asking Paul why he, Simon, although a lifelong conservative, found himself being more and more left-wing as he got older. The sage answered right away. “Because you’re a cunt.” End of lunch.

PS. In last week’s column I committed a boo-boo. I wrote about Olga Georges-Picot and said that she must be an old lady by now. Olga, suffering from deep depression, committed suicide in Paris in 1997.