Southampton, Long Island

‘Why, oh why, do the wrong people travel?’ sang Noël Coward back in the early 1960s. Lucky Sir Noël, he never met the present bunch. Just as the Bolsheviks deemed the aristocracy and the intelligentsia to be enemies of the people back in 1917, good manners and conservative dress are viewed today – at least in the Bagel – as false and affected. But I’m getting away from the subject at hand. I just bought Masquerade, a doorstopper biography of Sir Noël, but I remember the song from way back, before the one time I met him. It was 21 June 1969, in Vevey, Switzerland, and Charlie Chaplin’s daughter Josephine was getting married to a Greek friend of mine, Nicky Sistovaris. I was the only journalist invited and was allowed to take pictures for Paris Match. Chaplin was gracious and eager to talk, whereas Oona, his wife, was very guarded. After the wedding Noël Coward arrived and we were introduced. ‘I’m no paparazzo,’ I ventured. ‘I can see the Via Veneto rising up behind you,’ answered the great one.

Needless to say, it’s good to be back in London again. Two encounters took place, both totally unexpected. I caught an early flight from the Bagel, checked into my hotel and went to Sloane Square for a bite to eat. As bad luck would have it, I drank a bottle of red on an empty stomach – when flying, the trick is never to eat – and when I walked out for a cigarette, my head was spinning and I had to lean against the wall in order not to look even more ridiculous. That is when a young man approached me. Uh-oh, I thought. He probably thinks the old boy is easy pickings. It shows how good a judge I am of human nature. The polite and handsome young man’s name is Anthony, he’s in banking, and he has been reading the Speccie all his life. ‘Please keep writing,’ he said and disappeared into the night. If I keep this up, it’s going to be curtains, I said to no one in particular.

What is it about good things coming in pairs? The next day, outside Sandoe’s bookshop, another young man stopped me and asked me if I was who I am. His name is Jack Gallagher, and he’s a reader of you-know- what. However silly this sounds, I was not only flattered, but also amazed. I don’t use social media, so how does anyone recognise an old man hanging around Belgravia and its environs? Perhaps it is the bump on my forehead from the last karate session in the Bagel.

Never mind. The difference coming from New York to a sunny London is the women. In the Bagel they’re loud and brash; in London, they’re more demure, prettier and much more feminine. Actually, Londoners are much friendlier than Bagelites, but that’s a cliché – like saying that some sports team or other is owned by Saudi Arabia. London might one day belong outright to the Saudis, or the Qataris, but I don’t see it becoming like New York, and that’s because of the people. Londoners will never flee as Bagelites have done in order to escape high taxes, out-of-control crime, and a homeless population that is violent and ubiquitous.

As the beautiful, talented and allergic-to-Greek-charms Mary Wakefield wrote: ‘It takes a Brit to enter into the inner life and social standing of a floorboard.’ But I prefer the Brit contemplating a floorboard to the American chewing on a triple-deck hamburger and bragging about how Uncle Sam kicks bad guys’ ass. Mary had very kindly paid a bill I owed as I had no chequebook with me in America, so early in the morning I stuffed the moolah into an envelope and arrived at Old Queen Street planning to give it to her and announce that it was for services rendered. But I’ve been in America too long. A joke can land you in the clink over there. So I meekly gave it to the beautiful Mary whom I first met at her house on Camden Hill Road when her father Sir Humphry had me to lunch. That was around 1994, and – as she correctly wrote – like many little girls she was a tomboy. I shoulda put the moves on her back then, but I was young and dumb.

Never mind. Simon, Tinus and Fasie are three wonderful South Africans and the last took us out to dinner at Robin Birley’s Hertford Street. The subject of conversation was women and the tragedy of South Africa. All four of us are happily married but with a roving you-know-what. They roved all right, but that’s about all. The next day, under a brilliant sun, it was down to Seymour Walk, to a country house right in the middle of London, where Richard Northcott had all his buddies celebrating his son George’s birthday. Fine rosé wine and champagne, beautiful women in their summer dresses, no two guesses necessary: Greek boy very drunk and in love with Vanessa, who has not had a drink in 20 years. In the middle of all this, I thought of the difference between a Bagel party and this one: there were no transactions taking place here, at least not business ones.

The best, needless to say, was the last one of the week, for the sainted one’s 50th birthday. I will be giving you details of that and of more of the rest of my stay next week, if I am still with you.