High life
What a ball
Taki HNew York ere's one that will take your mind off such unpleasant subjects as opportune pregnancies, low-life Egyptians making outrageous allegations against anyone and everyone, even poor old Jeffrey Archer: what do Woody Allen, Prince and Princess Pavlos of Greece, Pia Getty, Lord Charles Churchill, James Niven, Carolina Herrera and yours truly have in common? Oh yes, and Anna Wintour. Not much, in fact noth- ing at all is the incorrect answer.
Let me take it from the top. George and Carol McFadden own the largest and by far the most beautiful house in the Big Bagel. It used to be a home for failed virgins, or something to that effect, if you know what I mean. Then Carol McFadden fixed it up and turned it into a house which an 18th- century duke would envy. So far so good. What Carol forgot was socialism and the fact that good servants nowadays are as rare as rich lords who tell the truth. Run- ning the house properly became a Sisyphean task, as platoons of newly trained staff members would occasionally defect to Hollywood where they were greeted and treated as royalty.
After a while the McFaddens got fed up and sold the house to Woody Allen for 20 million big ones. But before they turned it over, they threw by far the best New York party I've been to in 25 years, probably the only Big Bagel ball in a quarter of a centu- ry that people did not have to pay to attend. I will not go into details about the party because it was a private one; suffice it to say it resembled those blasts we see in golden oldie films. Beautiful flowing stair- cases festooned with flowers, pretty young things and elegant old swells dancing on parquet floors, 25-ft. ceilings and 100-ft drawing-rooms, and the best dance band this side of Hong Kong before the Japanese invasion.
So, now you know what I have in com- mon with Woody Allen. Not that he was invited. The trouble with Woody is that he will turn the house into a school dorm, full of cheap plastic furniture, lotsa video machines and other high-tech contraptions, probably paint its ochre walls black, and most likely use a couple of Puerto-Rican• ladies occasionally to come in and throw out the pizza boxes. Woody might make very funny films at times — Radio Days is my favourite — but he knows as much about living well as I do about that egre- gious poofter Peter Tatchell. Mind you, Anna Wintour wasn't there either — it wasn't that kind of party — but the woman whose husband has run off with Anna was, and my charm, alas, failed me yet again. Slightly under the weather, I mistook her for a very young girl and chatted her up. She gave me the brush-off quicker than you can say Shelby Bryan. Oh well, perhaps ahother time, when Woody throws one of his Chinese take-out parties.
Needless to say, a wonderful setting and a great band makes the poor little Greek boy dance non-stop. My victim this time was Princess Pavlos of Greece, who is among the few young women who knows how to. By this I mean she knows proper dancing, not that Zulu shaking and rolling. Oh, how we danced, rumbas, sambas, 'that voodoo that you do. . . ', waltzes and a tor- 'Space: the final frontier.' rid tango which most likely made Valentino turn in his grave.
And speaking of young women, I used to know Andrina Colquhoun when she was stepping out with Lucky Lucan. Anyway, I feel very sorty for Lord Archer. His pro- gramme was the best for London, and he would have been a great mayor, but he committed the greatest of sins. He trusted an Englishman. Ted Francis sold out his friend, so what else is new in the age of Murdoch and News of the World?
This is why I should have run for mayor. First, I would not have been accused of sleeping with Monica Coghlan because my gels are known to be of a superior class. Second, I would never have needed to ask a scumbag Judas like Francis to lie about dinner because I would have openly dined with Andrina at, say, Harry's Bar, for everyone to see. Oh dear! What a truly ghastly place England has suddenly turned into. Last but not least, who the hell hand- ed a peerage to Margaret Jay, and for what? Was it because she screwed Carl Bernstein while his wife was pregnant?
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