DIARY
An unlikely threesome were having dinner together last Thursday at the Gran Paradiso restaurant in Vauxhall: Leon Brittan, Norman Lamont and Cecil Parkin- son. Clearly, on the eve of his resignation, Brittan was signing up as a member of the Monitors Under a Cloud Mutual Society; boys who, for one reason or another, have been made examples of, but are still in the running for head boy providing they sit tight and laugh keenly at appropriate moments. One thing that the events of the last two weeks is not going to produce is increased criticism from the back benches. Unlike the ousted Wets of Mrs Thatcher's early pogroms, the latest crop of casualties have too much to lose. Michael Heseltine's surprise support of Mrs Thatcher in Mon- day's debate was an unpleasant indication of what is to come: 1986 promises to be the year of sucking up.
There was an interesting clash of differ- ent worlds last week at the Savoy. Ralph Halpern, chairman of the Burton clothing group, invited a hundred of his stockbrok- ers and merchant bankers to watch a fashion show of summer clothes, as a treat for helping him win the Debenhams takeover battle. The show was of Hal- pern's Principles range, aimed at the upper-middle-middle to lower-upper- middle sector of the public, which means, in effect, slightly downmarket of Michael Heseltine but slightly too sharp for Leon Brittan. The Savoy ballroom was packed with fashion editors and store buyers, who were seated on opposite sides of the room from the City contingent. As the show be- gan, and perky models in tee-shirts and bikinis pranced up and down the catwalk, the two factions reacted differently; the fashion world took notes, the City took liberties. Leering at the girls was com- pounded by lascivious descriptions of what they wouldn't mind doing to them, and what do you think of that one, Percy, not bad. I'm sure that the models didn't mind the attention in the slightest, but what they probably did mind was the smell which rose from the men's suits in noxious clouds. It had been raining earlier in the afternoon, and damp pinstripe smells vile when it hasn't been dry-cleaned for several months. The hundred or so men worked for Casenoves, Morgan Grenfell, Capel Cure Myers, Scrimgeour Vickers and Kleinwort Benson, and I bet not more than a dozen of their suits had seen a cleaner's since the autumn. Strangely enough, one doesn't notice how grubby City men are on their own territory, since the pubs and res- taurants they take you to for lunch are equally slatternly, and one rarely sees them in suits after work. At the dinner parties I go to, it is the boys in more casual, creative jobs, like advertising and television, who NICHOLAS COLERIDGE arrive in suits and ties; the City boys, to general relief, roll up in jeans and pull- overs and those leather jerkins that crea- tive people are meant to wear, but general- ly don't.
Three times in the last ten days I have been invited by different Sunday colour supplements to write a definitive decline and fall of the Marquis of Blandford. Apart from the fact that I do not wish to write such an article, I am mildly horrified to discover that they all assume I know the unfortunate fellow. I have never met Jamie Blandford, my sole connection with him being that for several years we lived in the same street, and that occasionally on Sun- day mornings I sneaked across the road in my dressing gown and pilfered his news- papers from the doorstep. It would be dou- bly disagreeable of me, under the circumst- ances, if I now proceeded to make money from those very colour supplements I once enjoyed reading at his expense. The three requests for an article do, however, emphasise the great shortage of young (under-thirties) feature writers around. Last week in his press column Paul John- son said that the future of British journal- ism belonged to talented young people who would write and process and own some part of the equity of the exciting new newspapers. It is certainly an enticing no- tion, except that there aren't any young people entering journalism, talented or otherwise. The editor of a national news- paper was despairing recently of finding a new young columnist. All he wanted, he said, was a lively writer to produce one article a week, under a huge byline and for a reasonable salary. His various attempts had all come to nothing. Writers came to see him, agreed a few trial ideas but never bothered to do them, especially when the ideas necessitated research. They particu- larly recoiled at doing interviews and pro- files, preferring to file 'think pieces' about youth culture full of italicised words. How then are the new newspapers going to fill their pages? My guess is that ten years from now the British press will have gone the same way as the Americans, and will be filled with syndicated columns, the same writer appearing in two or more nationals. There will be such a choice of titles that editors won't mind running the same col- umns as their less direct rivals. This will be good news for journalists and readers alike, because a single analysis of Jamie Blandford will do for everybody.
Ihave a long-term plan to buy a country cottage or a cheap castle in Perthshire, sometime in the next 15 years. Conse- quently I never miss the Country Life property advertisements, even though I wouldn't buy one right now even if the perfect house came along. Lately, how- ever, I am frustrated by the dwindling number of properties where the asking price is given in the advertisement. There seems little point in knowing that a 14th- century moated keep is up for sale on the Isle of Eigg, if you've no idea whether it's £25,000 or £1.25 million. The expression `price upon application' is annoying when you're not sure whether you're in the right league, and once you've rung up, and discovered you're not, it's difficult to know what to tell the girl at the estate agent's, without losing face or receiving an envy- inducing brochure of particulars. In last week's issue of Country Life, for instance, there is a wonderful Georgian house in South Warwickshire for sale on the instruc- tions of Mrs J. B. Priestley, but Knight, Frank & Rutley are keeping the price to themselves, and I'm certainly not risking humiliation by ringing them up. Perhaps we should just be grateful that other professions aren't as secretive. Supermar- kets might only reveal the cost of tinned lychees when you reach the till, or res- taurants provide menus without prices. Presumably estate agents prefer not to declare their hand in order to secure the highest price they think you can afford; if you turn up in a Porsche they add another £15,000 to the asking price. The only other profession that operates in the same way is fashion retail. A friend who works in a Bond Street boutique tells me that they purposely have no price tags on the dresses. English customers pay one price; Arabs and South Americans, the bulk of their trade, are given a higher one.
Caught in a thunderstorm in Piccadilly, and already late for lunch, I dived into Swaine Adeney Brigg for an umbrella. The assistant produced a large selection, from which I picked a brittle Malacca one with an ivory handle. The price, I was informed, was £640, so I preferred to get wet. The cost of good umbrellas is now such that it is becoming difficult to leave them anywhere, even at reputable restaurants. Wilton's allow only cheap brollies to dry out in the brass racks; Swaine Adeney Brigg ones must be laboriously checked into the cloak- room.
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