Spectator peregrinations

With grotesque political ineptitude, Harold Wilson's much-publicised television chat with Peter Jay coincided with Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony in stereo on Radio 3. I turned the Prime Minister up to lobster and switched the sound off. Which proves that if you ignore problems they go away.

Servants to some

El Vino, Fleet Street's most notorious water hole, make a surprising claim in a pamphlet which they are now distributing. They say, -The directors of this old family firm are in a very real sense the servants of all El Vino customers."

Alcoholic amnesia sufferers have been trying to recall when they last saw David Mitchell, Tory MP for Basingstoke, Liveryman of the Vintners Company and boss of El Vino, behind the bar, in black-striped trousers bowing to the needs of his customers. Whenever he does visit the shop it is usually to have whispered business talks with his staff.

Their ludicrously archaic prejudice against women means that El Vino's staff are not allowed to serve all their potential customers anyway. So presumably Mr Mitchell has work to do at Westminster avoiding any embarrassment caused when the Sex Discrimination Bill becomes law.

To be fair to the directors, they only claim to serve their customers by -scouring the vineyards, personally selecting wines each year .... We have no sales reps, no PR men, no clever ad. campaigns." Maybe they need some clever public relations men.

Memory lane

Who but the Argentinians would have a leading landscape painter called Horacio Butler? At the preview of Art in the Argentine at the Wildenstein Gallery in Bond Street I found an extraordinary section of South American society who must be beyond the pale of Mrs Peron — their forebears from Patagonia and grandsons at Eton. Not that Lord Mancroft, Lord Lewisham, Dr Leonard Simpson (of Simpson's, Piccadilly) or Mrs Archie Parker and her son Julian fall in that category. Mrs Parker, the Tatter social writer, said, -Didn't I last see you at Juliana's .discotheque party in the Planthouse off High Street Kensington three years ago? What an extraordinary kind of memory I have." / remember because she reported that I was a lively dancer.

Mohawks

For the first time in my life I have been to the circus — Gerry Cottle's circus at Runnymede. I was the guest of Ken MacManus who with his wife and daughter and son-in-law comprise the Sensational Mohawks, the last remaining Red Indian bare-back riders in this country. I first met them ten years ago when a typical season would take them on long tours of Europe, Russia and Scandinavia. This year it's the summer season in Scarborough and they're working with white doves and dogs as well. Their horse act nearly ended seven years ago when their best animal picked up a tapeworm and died at the beginning of the season. The circus these days is a dangerous profession. Only a few weeks ago their high-wire man fell to the ground and all the lions escaped on to the common. But it was reasuring, after the show, to meet El Hakim, the world famous fakir who doubles as a Red Indian fire-eater. He is British.

Tourist season

First sign of the tourist season: I was stopped by the band of the Grenadier Guards in Buckingham Palace Road returning to barracks. They were followed by an army of camera-slung tourists and a truck marked 'kits and capes' with a khaki-clad guardsman in the back reading the Daily Mirror. I think this lowers the tone.

Second sign of the tourist season: I was stopped by an attractive French girl in broad daylight saying, "Excuse me Sir, your light. It, is open."

Abreast

I am getting increasingly garbled and laboured communications from Matty Marriott and Laura Mackenzie, breast-rattling Oxford women's libbers, who are taking life rather too seriously for my liking with Finals only a few weeks away. They are the founders of a women's dining club and their letters are headed — with the predictability of welltrained minds — the St Anne's Amazons. Their motto is 'Abreast of the Times'. To be abreast of the times, it seems, you have to have a degree — whether you want to do social work or plant trees.

As an eclectic polymath who can ill afford qualifications I tend to think it's better to plant trees in the wrong places than pander to overpaid dons and I am inclined to irritate them by saying that I can see no merit in hard work and no excuse for taking anything seriously. But now I hope they each get a First — and quickly recover from Oxford.

Dramatic

Although I'm an infrequent reader of the sports pages I always find time to read the civilised prose of Peter Ryde, the Times golf correspondent. I particularly commend his introduction last week: "The smooth rhythm of the Piccadilly Medal knockout tournament was rudely interrupted yesterday at Finham Park, outside Coventry, by the nature of Bernard Gallacher's third round victory over ' Robert Jamieson." You can read between the lines that this is a real drama.

Boozing

It's not often that I discover anything new in the drinking world and no new booze is bad news. However, I am happy to say that I have recently been to the launching of two new drinks — a dry Dubonnet and a Palomino medium sherry. Both of these companies were kind enough to offer me a bottle to take home — offers which I accepted even though they presented problems on a bicycle.

Rambling Rose

Kenneth Rose, the sometimes maligned but really rather good esoteric gossip columnist of the Sunday Telegraph, has got a problem. Rose, who has difficulty retaining any staff for more than a few months, has been told that both his assistant and his secretary are leaving. The assistant Xan Smiley has made things worse by suggesting to Rose that a girl-friend should have the job. I recommend it to anyone who wants to see the world from a completely new angle.

Reeling

If the Queen Charlotte's Ball which .1 described last week at Grosvenor House is something of an anachronism, the Caledonian Ball a few days later at the same place is surely prehistoric. Yet a record 1,300 people turned up this year to do Scottish reels led by the Duke of Atholl and his private army, the Atholl Highlanders. Seventy per cent of the men wore kilts, the rest, scarcely less absurd, but certainly less pretentious, .wore waiter-like tails with coloured lapels. If the average Scotsman had an Irish quota of imagination he would organise an immediate revolution on hearing these Anglo-Scottish lairds talking about drams and grouse. It's almost enough to make a Londoner vote Scottish Nationalist. Actually, I wasn't there. I had a private dinner party that evening and I've seen it all before. It's been like.that for the last 125 years and probably always will be.

Who will sit?

John Bratby, RA, has offered to paint a portrait of jazzman Benny Green. But, according to Mrs Green, "He's the one who makes them all look ugly." So Benny is thinking of sending along a substitute sitter. Can I suggest Lord Goodman?

Peregrine