Alex James is better...Q April 2000

From the conversations I've been overhearing, it appears I have moved out of the sprawling Andrew Gide novel I was living in last month, and now reside in an F Scott Fitzgerald short story. Which is lovely while it lasts.

The Soberthon continues. La bonne a toute faire has hung up her Marigolds and moved to cleaner pastures. A serious blow! Who will get the crumbs out of the bed? Good cleaners are pursued like pastry chefs in PG Wodehouse books. We head-hunted Revecca from one of our dear friends, the Pratts of Ladbroke Grove, and they've never forgiven us.
The power these people wield - these cashmere shrinkers - is quite fearsome. Revecca "house sits" - ie lives alone in an ambassadorial schloss overlooking Regent's Park - and was, I swear, having lunchie-bloody-do's at the River Cafe last time I went there. Evidently you can name your price for providing a perpetually full sock drawer in a stickiness-free environment.

It's only now, but I already feel so "noughty." Forget lattes and sushi, we're out of there and back on cappuccinos (hold the powder) and kimchee. The jigsaw puzzles and Pictionaries have gone back under the stairs and the cards have come out. It's bridge weater and the cultural sector is back from holidays and attempting to jump start itself by having awards ceremonies, which means so much arugula and Pinot Grigio and waving to your buddies across crowded rooms made out of icing sugar.
Each year we either get invited to none or all of them and you only know you're at a good one by how many mayoral candidates are there (which is usually either none or all of them).

Went to Devon for lunch yesterday but it was too soggy to land. We didn't mind - "the great affair is to travel!" - we just zoomed around drinking in all the green. Tried the boat show  wasn't impressed (apart from the fashion show). Boats have to look like a German's idea of a cool trainer apparently.

The car park has been an unlikely source of glamour recently. The NCP batcave on St Martin's Lane (an oily pigeon toilet) is the place to rub shoulders with snootier neighbours and parking soap stars, as they anxiously await their rag top's safe return at 30 miles an hour in first gear, by the nice man who calls you "Yez, Boz."

I went to the classical department at Tower. Fat Les are reforming so I thought I'd better listen to some good riffers like Saint-Saens and the boys from the 1800s. It's brilliant. It's a buyer's market, so you canbuy classical CDs by the yard and so I did. That'll do.
Molesworth and Mendes are cool and Beckett is a twat this month. Cheerio!