Postscript . . •
Well, it isn't every monarch that writes a book : come to that, and mentioning no names, it isn't every monarch that could. And I'd always under- stood that caviar came high on the list of Persian native delicacies, to say nothing of loaves of bread, jugs of wine, and bulbuls in the banyan, or vice versa.
Alas, no caviar. There were two women guests in close tactical contiguity to the buffet: one said that it was because the Persians had sold their caviar concessions in the Caspian to the Russians—didn't I know? A passing diplomatist said shl the Ambassador was hard by; and a passing newspaper man said sit! not to let the lady from Hutchinson's know that we'd read the book already as a serial in the News of the World.
Whether it was a publisher's party, inci- dentally, or whether it was the embassy's, I wish someone would put a stop to this business of cloakroom attendants claiming ransom for hats and coats in embassies and private houses, as though they were concessionaires at a night club.
There were no free copies of the book signed by the royal—nay, imperial--hand, which some of the more gushing of the guests had been openly sighing for. One ot whom, by the way, having been told that I was a journalist, said 'Ooh, how exciting!' because she wrote too. Who for? 1 asked, and was told well, anyone that wanted; and what about?--well, anything. Not that shed been very successful, really.
'You did have something once in the Reader's Digest, dear,' said her friend 'Well, it wasn't exactly the Reader's Digest: it was more a sort of Canadian paper, really.'
'Well, dear,' said loyalty, 'that article you read out to our Writers' Circle was a scream!'
And I turned to meet a distinguished fellow- journalist from the Daily Telegraph who said, 'I couldn't use it in my paper, dear boy, but I trust you'll quote Horace in yours.' And to this flattering expression of faith that the thirty-eighth ode of the first book is never off the lips of readers of the Spectator, I can only add that there wasn't any persicos apparatus to detest—no gar- lands twined with linden bark, no roses. Only some films of the Shah and his small son, and I suppose you can call them persicos. What the Woman's Mirror calls our royal bantling, by the 'way, is-1 quote—a chubby bundle of chuckles.
I don't suppose anybody takes William Hickey seriously, and certainly not when they see him still, after a year, throwing his feeble darts of malice at Penelope Gilliatt, for the historic caning she gave him in the Queen. But just to keep the record straight, 1 would like to point out that William Hickey's piece in Monday's Daily Express laboriously implying that she had given up the expression of her Left-wing beliefs in favour of toadying to the Royal Family, is even more inaccurate than usual; Mrs. Gilliatt spent Saturday afternoon sitting uncomfortably on the pavements of Whitehall with Lord Russell's ban- the-bomb demonstration.
At the recent dinner of the Wine and Food Society, at the Belfry in West Halkin Street, there was a wine in the list that doesn't often come my way: I wish it did. After the white burgundy and the claret, there was served with the pudding—a confection of peaches and cream—a wine listed as 'Schlumberger's Pinot Gris Selection 1958.' Alsatian wines are fairly rare at dinners of this sort, and at this stage of a dinner, and this is one of the rarest even among Alsatian wines. The Schlumberger estate is down in the south, between Colmar and Mulhouse, and a wine is made here from the pivot gris grape (sometimes called Tokay d'Alsace), which is late-gathered so that it is in Edward Hyams's words, 'a full, smooth, opulent, yet sufficiently acid wine of out- standing fruity-fragrance.' At the dinner it was certainly fruity and fragrant enough to stand up to the sweetness and scent of the peaches, yet 'sufficiently acid' not to seem cloying. In my enthusiasm, I telephoned the importers about it: they tell me that it is sold in the West Enci by Robert Jackson of Piccadilly, and in the City by Caldbeck and Phipson of Mark Lane, in both shops at about a guinea a bottle.
CYRIL. RAY
Previous page
