28 FEBRUARY 1964, Page 29

I'm rather glad on the whole that I never got

to those parties where the really juicy and scandalous outrages were staged. I have a feeling that I should have woken up next morning worried about the spots on my tie, the tear in my jacket lining, the bruise on my thigh, the singe across my hair, the scar on my conscience and the taste in my mouth. And then I should have been exposed to the final humiliation of finding some cheerful and unmarked bounder in El Vino at lunchtime telling a highly coloured version of The Night I Won the Abomination Award (or Albee) without even mentioning me.

Fortunately, despite the morning-after stories, most parties do not tumesce into indecent ex- posures of body or mind. The great attraction of