T he daughter and I spent the last few days before
the American election in Arizona. On our first morning in Tucson we went running. She, nearly eight months pregnant, annoyingly still able to beat me into the ground. Considering we were in his home state we didn’t spot a single McCain poster. But plenty for Obama.
By the next day, when we checked into the Canyon Ranch Spa, where nearly everyone except us had arrived in their own jet, there was no such confusion. We were surrounded by Republicans, several of whom had arrived billionaires but, as Wall Street continued to drop alarmingly during our stay, possibly left down to their last $900 million.
To a man these Masters of the Universe were appalled at the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate. On the other hand, on Spa hikes in the Santa Catalina mountains, often for hours along a single track, it was a fair bet that any woman nearby with glitter on the side of her sunglasses could only see goodness in Mrs Palin and couldn’t care less if she preferred shopping at Neiman Marcus to studying the US Constitution. ‘She’s a mom,’ they would say enthusiastically. I now loathe the description and groaned on hearing Michelle Obama insist that her most important role at the White House would be that of ‘a mom’.
But politics has always been about creating preposterous images. Covering the 1984 election, I recall watching the then Mrs Thatcher sweep majestically into the Ideal Home Exhibition at the Birmingham NEC, stop at a stall, wrap a pinnie around her waist and with an electric whisk in her hand, announce implausibly: ‘I am here mostly as a housewife.’ My young friend Nicholas Brown graduated from Yale in 2004 and when his father Sam, a former director of Carter’s Peace Corps and US ambassador, asked him what he was going to do to make the world a better place, Nicholas said that in his free time he was working for this guy in Chicago, Barack Obama, who was running for the Senate. ‘He’s the man,’ he assured his father. Sam admits that on hearing the name he laughed and told Nicholas to get real. Bully for Nicholas. Even to an experienced eye it’s not always easy to spot a future high achiever. Memorably, Geoffrey Robertson, who was at Oxford at the same time as Bill Clinton, says the Arkansas student made little impact, and that the Rhodes Scholar of that year who looked the most likely future president of the United States was Paul Gambaccini.
To Norfolk for one of my favourite annual gigs, judging a heat of the Thomas Cranmer Awards at Castle Rising. That most dashing of Tory peers, Greville Howard, hosts the event at which pupils from surrounding schools have to read a passage from the Book of Common Prayer. As a lukewarm cradle Catholic, I’m the least qualified person to preside, except that I’m passionate about the usefulness to youngsters of learning to speak in public. The entries were impressive; the winners exceptional. To each I ask: ‘Are you going into the performing arts?’ Alas no. One says he wants to be a lawyer, the other an engineer. Meanwhile Greville’s New Year ambition is to invite Governor Palin to shoot.
The traffic from Pinewood Studios to the Mall was so bad on Tuesday last week that I missed Brian Sewell opening the Discerning Eye exhibition. By the time I arrived people were standing six-deep with their backs to the pictures, quaffing champagne and having those pointless conversations about exactly how near they live to each other in Hampshire. Anyway, I spotted just one picture I wanted to buy and was delighted to find Brian had awarded the Michael Reynolds Prize to another oil by the same artist.
The late Michael Reynolds — his portrait of Bernard Haitink is in the National Portrait Gallery — was described lovingly by Brian as cantankerous, aggressive and often foulmouthed. Well I’m rather partial to a monster. Also, Michael founded the Discerning Eye, a charity that gives artists from all over the country a chance to exhibit at a major show of British art.
The exhibition is sponsored by ING. I noted its CEO was wearing a tie, but most of the young ING turks in the room were not. I mention this because the past and the new chairmen of Discerning Eye later gave a dinner at the Turf Club and wisely between them brought along a dozen ties. It still wasn’t enough. Dress codes have become very confusing. ‘Is that your own tie?’ I asked the greyhaired professor of dermatology I was sitting next to. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘The government won’t let us wear them any more.’ I’ve been a devoted Spectator reader longer than I’m prepared to admit. Suffice to say that as a junior newspaper executive I persuaded Jeff Bernard to bring the then editor Alexander Chancellor to lunch at the Ritz; wonderful for me, doubtless embarrassing for Alexander. But he wrote beautifully. I knew he wouldn’t disappoint. Similarly, the daughter who’s lived in Manhattan for the past 17 years and knows hardly any British journalists, adores the work of A.A. Gill and Rod Liddle. So at the magnificent Spectator party in Mayfair in the summer, she was thrilled to bump into Adrian at the entrance. We then went in pursuit of Rod. Emma wants to meet Rod Liddle, I kept saying to other guests. To a man they would pull an ugly face and ask why. Finally we spotted that mop of unruly hair and pushed forward to say hello. As Emma observed later, ‘Interesting, isn’t it, that he was completely surrounded by beautiful young women?’
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