Spectator peregrinations

I have news to make the Crusaders turn in their breast-plates. The Arabs, not content with our oil-starved economic plight or with the gold domes and minarets sprouting in Regents Park, are planning to build a Moslem village in the Shires or the Shakespeare country — apologies to the Crusaders who may not know about these gems set in a silver sea.

Haj Abd'al Latif, a member of Britain's white Moslem community (formerly Mr Whiteman — he would not tell me his 'Christian' name) who happens to be an architect trained by the Architectural Association, has a well-advanced scheme to transport Mecca to England's green and pleasant land and send Blake back to the drawing board.

Latif, as I call him, is in partnership with Haj Muhammad Awni, an Iraqi architect now working on the Central Mosque in Regents Park. And during a recent London visit by Sheikh Salih they were promised the support of the Saudi Arabian Government.

The plan is to go back to mud huts — or at Least to local kinds of brick that were used before the Industrial Revolution — probably with a strong Moorish-Spanish influence. They have not decided on the optimum population of the village — but it could be thousands. "Our modern way of life demands it," says this trendy prophet, "but we must not separate ourselves from society."

Crowd scene

I was nearly trampled to death when 1 went to a garden party with the Osmonds in Holland Park.! made the mistake of arriving at the same time as the big black car carrying the Osmonds swept through the gate. Although they didn't threaten to run me down themselves their hundreds of uncontrollably hysterical teenage fans looked very menacing as they broke through police barriers and threw themselves in the roao.

Inside there was a blue and white marquee, the Oxford Concert Brass Band, cherries, cucumber sandwiches, strawberries and cream, champagne, children apparently chosen for a manageable threshold of hysteria and the Osmonds themselves dressed in white suits like cricketers. Only rarely did a screeching fan get over the garden wall pursued by police and disturb the peaceful scene.

I got myself the job of collecting autographs for Taff Parry who was playing the double bass in the brass band. He wanted them for his son Evan. I got all the Osmonds I think, Val Doonican, Ronnie Barker, a Womble, a Beverley Sister and a Liver Bird. Val Doonican said he had never been to Ascot or Wimbledon but he thought this was a good substitute.

Scotland without Scots

My father, who is as good at free-loading as myself, somehow managed to acquire a ticket for the Royal Box and lunch at the EnglandScotland soccer match at Wembley. He said that if I went along-as his chauffeur I too could see the match and enjoy the refreshments. But when I saw the tartan hordes around Kings Cross, a haggis throw from this office, on the Friday afternoon, I decided that the tedious Scots had at last vacated their beautiful country and that the best place to spend the Spring Bank Holiday was Scotland. Accordingly I took a train to Gleneagles and proceeded by motor through the Highlands via Braemar to a place near Peterhead which is as far as you can go in Aberdeenshire without, standing on an oil rig. I spent the weekend collecting gulls' eggs and driving a crop-spraying tractor equipped with Chinese music on stereo-headphones. I am glad to say that I never saw anything as offensive as a kilt, a sporran or a tartan beret.

Chartwell to Bloomsbury

You really needed to be one of the bulldog breed to survive the scrummage of a preview at Edwina Sandys's exhibition at the Crane Gallery. There was no shortage of Churchills — Sarah Churchill, Mary Soames, Edwina's father Lord Duncan-Sandys, her ex-husband Piers Dixon, her two sons who had an extra day's half-term to be there, Chelsea's mayor and its MP, Nick Scott.

Only a hundred yards up Kings Road there was a rather different preview going on — Angelica Garnett's paintings at Marjorie Parr Gallery. She is the daughter of painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant (aged ninety but he was there) and a niece of Quentin Bell the writer. When I asked if she, too, was a writer she said, "I hope you're not confusing me with my aunt, Virginia Woolf."

Beyond the veil

Wben I saw Harold Macmillan unveiling a statue of Lord Portal of Hungerford on the Embankment the other day, I could not help thinking that the old man would have done his wartime colleague a better service if he had not bothered to pull the string. This enormous bronze, by Oscar Nemon, stirred my curiosity quite a bit when the crane hoisted the colossal pedestal and then the statue, covered with a tarpaulin, into place. It was only when Macmillan uncovered the anguished face scanning the sky for German bombers that I saw that it was very ugly indeed, Similarly in Piccadilly, the new horse and rider by Elizabeth Frink opposite the Ritz, much as I like it, was much more interesting when 1 had to struggle with steel wire and polythene sheets to see it. Lord John Cavendish-Bentinck had a moment of glorious disguise a few years ago when they built the underground car park in Cavendish Square. Now Oliver Cromwell is enjoying the same treatment in Parliament Square. To improve this situation I would like to suggest, for a start, the un-unveiling of Nelson by the Queen.

War memories

There were several concentration camp veterans at the launching of the official history of Dachau published by Norfolk Press. In particular Group Captain 'Wings Day and Odette, the legendary resistance leader. A survivor of twO years' solitary confinement who later became the heroine of a bestseller and popular film, she has refused numerous offers to write a book herself. But she told me that the book she'd like to write is a funny one. The most ludicrous spectacle she can ever remember is the SS officers sentencing her to death. But a funny book might offend people, so she might have to wait fifty years. With that kind of fortitude she probably will.

What we don't want

The sun is setting at last on the ludicrous brewing empire of Maxwell Joseph. Only four years after buying Watneys he is now trying to sell Watney House in Victoria. And within the Shadow of that doomed monstrosity in Wilfred Street he has opened a new pub called 'The Colonies'. Here you will find the heads of threatened beasts, some quite appalling cocktails and Indian waiters in tribal outfits. Actually the waiters admitted to me that they were out-of-work actors hired for the opening. They didn't think they'd stick it for long.

Authentic touch

I'm pleased to see that the National Portrait Gallery has not been meddling with my contribution to their latest exhibition. At the press view of Augustus John, Life and Times of, they provided glasses of wine at the entrance but nowhere to leave the glasses at the exit. I left mine on the arm of a chair in a mock-up Augustus John studio and heard people saying that this was the one authentic touch in memory of the late King of Bohemia. I'm sure he appreciated the thought even if nobody else did.

Another Benn joke

The Dean of Chichester has cut out this extract from last week's Radio Times and sent it. to me — "1.45, Colour, News Headlines. 1.50, Colour, Mr Benn, Clown. 2.5, Film Matinee: The Great Lie."

House of cards

I always thought 1 had an insatiable appetite for really ghastly postcards but after seeing -Wish You Were Here — the History of the Photographic Picture Postcard" I had just about enough. I was on the point of leaving the exhibition when I met Sylvia Marie Haynes who said that her vocation in life was to start a postcard museum in Islington. She happened to have a folder with some of the more horrific ones. For peculiar banality I commend, "advice to men in love. Before getting engaged to a girl, examine the references from her previous lovers. Have nothing to do with her if she has lost her character."

Guilt by association

Peregrine Worsthorne of the Sunday Telegraph tells me that he is persona non grata in the archaic Fleet Street wine bar El Vino following some recent remarks by this Peregrine. I have been in there several times since then but the idiots don't know who I am.

Peregrine