DIARY OF A NOTTING HILL NOBODY
By Tamzin Lightwater
MONDAY Another day, another chance to demonstrate our values. We are launching our spring forum in Manchester with an initiative: ‘focusing on the transformational impact of trusting people’. DD was meant to be in charge but Dave stepped in at the last minute and said he would do it himself because D2 was bound to muck it up.
Poppy in fearful snit after being put in charge of Wives’ Product Placement: Smythson’s handbags, novels written by spouses of members of the shadow Cabinet, etc. Says it’s beneath her. Well, excuse me!
For once I seem to have come out on top. Am on a secret unit helping to secure celebrity endorsements. It is run by a guy called Jack who is terribly nice — the snag being he doesn’t seem to know much about famous people.
This week we need Northerners: Nigel says Dave has set his heart on Morrissey. This is v bad news. Even I know Morrissey is a total leftie. Jack says, ‘Steady on, old chap, you don’t mean the one from Men Behaving Badly who does the Homebase adverts? Married to Gwyneth Paltrow ... ?’
TUESDAY
Am teetering on brink of very own sleaze row, courtesy of passionate affair — I love writing that word — with seriously gorgeous though possibly inappropriate tabloid hack. Let’s call him M. Today a story appeared on page 2 of his paper which I am sure is based on something I told him while we were ensconced in Pomegranates on the Embankment. Thank heavens it was only a small story, about poor Mr Hague sitting by the red phone all last week waiting for Condoleezza Rice to call. It was a bit rotten of M to include the bit about him humming to himself and swaying from side to side. Oh dear. Oh dear.
WEDNESDAY Bad news. Morrissey’s agent said his client ‘would rather lip-sync a duet with Britney Spears at Caesars Palace to an audience of abattoir owners than endorse the Conservative party’. So that’s a ‘no’, basically. To make matters worse, Neil Morrissey’s agent says ‘no’ as well and Jack only rang him by mistake.
Seb and Poppy keep singing ‘Heaven knows, I’m miserable now’ when I walk past, which I don’t think is funny.
PM Am genius! Have secured an A-list household name celebrity endorsement with Manchester links!! This must be worth promotion or at least an invite to Dave’s next Converse trainers-and-lasagne supper. Am to announce it at big meeting first thing tomorrow.
THURSDAY
I honestly can’t see what I could have done differently. The room goes silent, all eyes are on me and I say, ‘Ken Barlow, from Coronation Street!!’ Later Poppy explains why Dave asked me to leave the room in a not very compassionate or modern way. Bill Roache is our oldest celebrity backer. Then she looks at the notes I’m holding and says ‘thank ****’ I didn’t get as far as mentioning my other great names: Peter Stringfellow and Patti Boulaye. I wonder why?
tamzin.lightwater@spectator.co.uk
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