My sister is married to gameshow host Alexander Armstrong and last week we went to the London Library to celebrate the launch of his book, Evenfall, which is a thriller for children. I didn’t get a book because I am not queueing up to get a book signed by my own brother in law and anyway my mother has read the book twice so she can just tell me what happens.
I found Giles talking to Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet about War and Peace next to a set of circular iron library stairs. “I started reading it when I was on tour,” said Gary. “You’ve got a lot of time on your hands on tour.”
“How did you keep up with all the different names for the same characters?” I said. “It did my head in. I gave up after four pages. Anna Karenina was alright but War and Peace? Baffling.”
“Yeah you have to plough on,” said Gary. “There’s a glossary. You can also Wikipedia the first bit just to get you through it. And in the end it’s just about two families. Anna Karenina, though,” Gary went misty-eyed. “What a book.”
Xander then made a speech about how absolutely amazing everyone he has ever met is and it was exactly as you would imagine, because my brother in law is a completely on-message celebrity. What you see is what you get.
Then Giles and I left and went to The Spectator Writer’s party, even though neither of us write for The Spectator. Me because they have never asked and Giles because they don’t pay enough. We were excited about this because we have never been invited to a Spectator party before and they are famously debauched and mad. I crashed one once, in 2005, when they were still in Doughty Street, and witnessed Boris Johnson (then editor) fall up some stairs. I laughed a big sort of wheezy laugh, because slapstick gets me every time, and his assistant snapped her head around and looked absolute fucking daggers at me.
Anyway Giles somehow scored this legit invitation and we went along to their new(ish) office, which is right by Westminster. This part of town is silent and deserted after 8pm and I was able to stand right in the middle of Tothill Street and look up at the Abbey, illuminated and ghostly.
“Come on,” said Giles, “it’s down here.”
The Spectator now lives at 22 Old Queen Street and it’s the most extraordinary building, crazy digs to have as your office and the kind of place that only commercial barristers and hedge fund managers get to inhabit these days. My knowledge of architecture is basically zero but inside it is very wide, wooden and old-timey, with original features, fireplaces, bronze doorhandles and so on. It’s neither narrow and Victorian nor square and Georgian. Is it maybe… Jacobean?? Queen Anne?
It even has one of those creaky lifts with an elevator gate. In the hall there is a set of pigeon holes, labelled “Books” “Spec Life” and so on. In the “Arts” cubby lay a single pair of spectacles. I noted that Andrew Neil, who resigned from the magazine in protest at its recent sale, for £100m, to Paul Marshall, still retains a pigeon hole, which contained a goodly amount of uncollected post.
The party was downstairs. I thought we would see Spectator grandees like Matt Parris, Sam Leith, Mary Killen, Martin Van Der Weyer? Tanya Gold! Joan Collins!! But we either missed them or they weren’t there. Instead, we saw first Charlotte Ivers, who was talking to a lot of young hipsterish people. The men were either in chore jackets with little moustaches and earrings or young fogeys in three piece suits. I talked to a New Statesman staffer about the sale of the magazine and she said, “The most hilarious thing is that Fraser [Nelson, the editor] said, ‘The Spectator never does clickbait,’” and we both threw our heads back like seagulls and went Ha Ha Ha because they totally do clickbait.
“I recognise that man,” I said to Charlotte.
“Yes it’s Tom Holland from The Rest is History,” she said.
“Oh my fucking god,” I said. “Of course it is.”
“He’s my best friend but he doesn’t know that,” said Charlotte.
“I know right, he’s also my best friend,” I said.
Then Tom walked straight past us and we stood there gawping at him with our mouths open and he struck up a conversation with Giles about cricket. Giles who doesn’t even listen to TRIH!!!! Charlotte and I hung about mooing and pretending we didn’t care, like those village girls in Beauty and the Beast who love Gaston, and then when Tom left, Giles sort of shuffled his shoulders about and said, “He likes a chat doesn’t he?” and Charlotte and I fell to the floor and verily wept for this and all the other many grave injustices of our meagre lives.
Then we all agreed we needed to get a grip and circulate and I spent a while talking to Lucy Denyer and Sarah Ditum about the great luxury of being able to drive yourself, on your own, to the garden centre. Lucy was fizzing because she was off the next day to Pisa on her own, (she has three children), to do a story about olive oil.
My bag started vibrating and it was Sam and Kitty FaceTiming me from Sam’s iPad, wanting to know when I was coming home. It was 2057. Kitty loomed over the camera and in the background I could see Sam doing his evening weightlifting (he has decided he wants to be in the special forces).
“I am leaving in 3 minutes,” I said. “I will be home by ten.”
We walked through the door at 2135 and I made cheese on toast - because seriously almost the best thing about going out, is coming back and having cheese on toast. Kitty said, “Can I have some of that?” and I said, “I will make you your own, but don’t eat mine.” She said, “Okay,” and then ate hers and mine.
Kitty was holding a bible, I don’t know why, and read out a description of the Ark of the Covenant from Exodus and we all agreed that Raiders of the Lost Ark did a good job in recreating the ark faithfully.
Exodus 25:20: “And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.”
Then we all went to bed, the end.
This post is for Whining Speccy, who enjoyed my previous party report.
How about you? Can you shed any light on the age of 22 Old Queen Street? Do you have a favourite out of Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook? Please leave a comment in the handy pigeon hole below.
This is opium to me ❤️
This is exactly the kind of celebby juice I was hoping for this morning