High life
Still in business
Taki
Nigel Pollitzer is known as 'the Rat' by those of us who know the difference between Bertie and Bunter Wooster, and Which of the two will one day inherit Badminton. I believe he acquired his nick- name not only because he looks like Mickey Mouse, but also for his rodent-like genius for hasty migration minutes before the fuzz arrives to break up the party. I first met him in Gstaad during the Sixties, in the company of the pocket Pole paedophile • Roman Polanski. Nigel reached the zenith of his fame when he was named manager of The Business Connec- tion, the now defunct pop group that almost put the Rolling Stones out to pasture five years ago. But his true crowning glory came when Fergie invited the Rat's best friend, Paddy McNally, and him to her nuptials with Prince Andrew. In fact he became one of the royal couple's 'close confidants', as they say, and he's never looked back since. Last week Nigel got married, but for some strange reason Fergie and her man did not show up. Perhaps it had something to do with Pollitzer allegedly announcing that he would invite Fergie and Andy, tut I'll be damned if I have Charles and Diana'. Perhaps not.
All I know is that it was a fun party, so much the more so because there was no grovelling in front of royalty. Mind you, I remember little of the evening because just as I landed hours before the blast, a friend from the BBC read me an item that upset me enough to start drinking with a vengeance tout de suite. The item announced my imminent dismissal from The Spectator, but like most news one gets nowadays from scandal sheets, it turned out to be false.
By the time Nigel Dempster had check- ed with the sainted editor and reassured me that it was a false alarm, I could not tell the difference between Paddy McNally and Paddy Leigh Fermor. I had also been upset while dining at Tracy and Harry Worces- ter's before the dance by a man whose IQ is surely lower than-the inflation rate, who blamed the Balkan problems throughout the ages on the temperature. But not to worry. It all ended happily, especially after I saw the divine Miss Constantine, and heard Bill Lovelady playing very-unlike- him Zulu music.
And then it was time to baptise my new flat. Now I may be in danger of sounding like my Low life colleague when he de- scribes his new digs, but at least in my case I swear on the Talmud there are no palm trees, no humming birds and definitely no revolting parrots. On the contrary, the place is quite posh and in terribly good taste, a contradiction in terms in most cases. The trick lay in hiring Emily Todhunter as decorator, and she in turn employed Panton Morris as builders. They kept costs down to an absolute minimum and the quality at maximum. If you don't believe me, look for yourself. They are responsible for the neo-Classical rotunda bookroom at the exhibition at Chelsea Old Town Hall. (If this sounds like a plug, it is, and they deserve it.) While my nocturnal friends were in- specting what Panton Morris had built, I celebrated my not being dismissed as High life correspondent. There was a slight hitch when an old friend arrived in the company of an Anatolian peasant who made a jealous scene, but then as always, things turned for the better. Especially when Miss Lucy Manners arrived, if only for a brief look-see. The last time I had seen Lucy up close was in Spetsai, on a caique, and she was wearing a bathing suit. She has the kind of figure that makes men Awol from the Foreign Legion, but in my case it was nothing of the kind: I simply had a heart attack minutes after having seen her, and spent the next ten days in hospital. This was back in 1987. Thank God, this time the old ticker held out. I merely passed out.
'Give me a copy of that book, you cow!'
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