Dear Rowley,
Missed writing to you my dear but life in London has been awfully frantico of late. Now I promise you this is the last letter where I’ll mention the M word: no, not Madonna, migraines. My most important appointment this week – excepting a three-hour lunch with Henry Poole & Co Chairman Angus Cundey – was a 9.30am with the National Migraine Centre in Charterhouse Square yesterday.
I’ve made rather a meal out of my health problems over the past months and you will be pleased to hear the headaches only arise when I hear voices I don’t want to hear any more. I went to the National Migraine Centre yesterday and had an hour of absolute trust and good advice from a terribly nice lady who told me I’m doing all the right things except eating regularly and knocking off the Prosecco a little in future. Acid indigestion don’t you know Mrs Cohen. You know you’re getting old when you check your bag for wallet, passport, Gaviscon and Asprin.
But revelation to end all was that the worst migraines are caused by overdosing on Aspirin and Codine. Who knew from the theatre as Barbra would say? So it looks like I am firmly on the mend despite some people’s best efforts to keep me under the cosh and on medication. Enough about health already.
Weren’t you so proud of the British justice system to see Julian – liver lips and coy smile – Assange on the balcony of the Ecuadorean embassy in London making an impassioned speech for human rights and liberty? The irony was not lost when one considers Ecuador extradites trouble makers in much the same fashion that Argentina’s First Lady Eva Peron showed Che Guevara the door.
Mr Assange is, well, words fail me. Apparently I was wrong about him being a rapist. He is merely guilty of ‘sexual etiquette malfunction’ by sleeping with a Swede he’d already had when she was still asleep. In my vast experience, I’d say the lady should have been glad to be in the land of nod. So presumably he can’t be extradited to Sweden. Nor can he leave the Ecuadorean embassy unless he is smuggled out in a diplomatic bag…calling to mind that poor MI5 spy who was found in a sport’s bag. That was a mystery and a tragedy.
The Artist thought Mr Assange could hop away from the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge in a hessian bag rather like a school sport’s day sack race. Can you imagine the rozzers chasing him down the Old Brompton Road like the Keystone Cops as he hop, hop, hops towards the Victoria & Albert Museum? Too funny.
Second favourite moment this week was a telephone from Alisa – Queen of Diamonds – Moussaieff who has called one and all (well, La Farmer and I) to lunch at Nobu to talk about a Diamond Dynasty feature I am to write for Hong Kong Tatler. Mrs M is some kind of wonderful and has more knowledge about diamonds than any other lady on the planet. She’s whip smart and has a lovely daughter called Tamara who we are all very fond of. She’s also no slouch when it comes to carat weights.
So what else is new? I’m off to Corfu on the 3rd of September to finally write that bloody novel and make my fortune. Gosh I hope I can pull that one off. I might include a Julian Assange character who has been extradited to Agios Stephanos and is holed-up at the Rothschild villa. Wouldn’t it be lovely if he was arrested mid-swim towards Albania and thrown into the Venetian fort for life. Mind you there’s a very chi-chi gay bar in the old fort so there’s always a silver lining, no?
I am longing to send you the most recent portrait the Artist made of me in Nice but I’ve lost my camera cable so will have to hustle like an Arab dope peddler in the souk on Tottenham Court Road to get a bootleg one without having to buy a new camera. Speaking of embezzlement, Better Half, La Farmer and I went for a post prandial at the Zetter hotel in St John’s Square in Clerkenwell last night. My three Prosecco’s were about £24. Their four glasses of Chablis went north of £50. This is pure greed and we’ll never go back. Pity!
Do you like my trio of balcony scene photographs? I thought Madonna made a very good fist of Alan Parker’s film of Evita. Mind you, I thought Signora Peron made a very good fist of ruling Argentina. She was only 33 when she died. Eva achieved so much in such a short time it puts everything in perspective. Many moons ago I was posted to Argentina by the Sunday Express to find Evita’s lost wardrobe of Paris couture.
Turned out the collection was in a bank vault – in terrible condition – in a suburb of BA. Along the way, I met the Duchess of York’s mother Susannah Barrantes at an Hermes party, I stayed at the Alvear Palace hotel right next door to the Recoletta cemetery where Eva is interred two floors down from the President of Panama (me not her) and I was mistakenly arrested for soliciting by a policeman after having tangoed the night away with a George Clooney lookalike. Never a dull moment.
So in conclusion for the defence of the man in the dock this week, could it not be beyond the bounds of possibility that someone who has suffered from excruciating migraines since childhood would occasionally be a little excessive when the pain passed by and overindulged in the things that he has always absolutely adored doing? And I don’t mean netball.