Diary

The weekend: my 48th birthday at Portofino and the Hotel Splendido named with all the humility and understatement for which the Italians are justly famous. Here they employ a man whose singular job seems to be to kiss hand and arse simultaneously. He perambulates, ecstatically dispensing compliments: `Bellissima, please be discreet when you walk to the pool, you will make the other guests mad with love. We have honeymooners here. You are not fair competition for the young brides.' This to an American matron of mountainous hideosity. I am spellbound watching him construct ever more elaborate and ludicrous encomiums. Surely this one will be so vast and perfumed that she'll never get it down her throat. Ah! But in an Italian accent any old bollocks slips down a treat. If he'd been a Geordie, someone would have screamed and called the manager. His eyes run me up and down. The manicured hand semaphored speechlessly. He manages a strangulated gasp, 'Of course only an Englishman.' I smile with a ridiculous preening gratitude and only later realise that he could have meant anything, and anyway I'm Scots. People often shake their heads with a knowing schadenfreude at successful people, and point out that the defining flaw of mega-success is surrounding yourself with sycophants and yes-men. Well, I'm sorry but what's wrong with that? Floor-length fawning has to be the ultimate plutocrat's perk. I can think of nothing finer than to have the innermost crevices of my ego continuously massaged with unctuous spittle.

Monday: dinner with Eric Felner and Laura Bailey, and a soigne collection of brilliant, beautiful, concerned and amusing Notting Hill folk. I wittily put them right on an impressive gallimaufry of subjects. Eric makes me swear blind that I won't mention him in The Spectator Diary. This is the first dinner party I have been invited to since I was 45. 1 can't think why.

Tuesday: glittering premiere of Tomb Raider. A friend who is one of the producers comes over and says he hopes I won't hold the film against him and adds that he'd be grateful if I would mention him in my forthcoming Spectator Diary. Hold it against him? How could I? I'm speechlessly waving my hands about. It's a stunning achievement. Possibly the worst film ever made. Of course, only an American ....

Wednesday: Madonna concert. Have a fantastic time. Sadly make an unutterably foolish jerky idiot of myself, but in this crowd it's all relative.

Thursday: Elton John's Venetian party. Spectacular celebrity quotient that raises over a million pounds for Aids. The largest amount ever at a private party. Naomi, who is done up at the back like an inexpertly laced rugby-boot, bids a fortune for a pair of Grand Prix tickets and then leaves them in an ashtray. Gushingly I give her my best shot. `Bellissima, please be discreet when walking to the pool. You will make the other guests mad with love.' It doesn't have quite the desired effect, and I remember too late that she has an Italian boyfriend who in turn has a motor-racing team.

Thursday: dentist. Unspeakable things done to gums. I need false teeth. 'You have a choice: porcelain or gold?' asked the dentist. 'Er, aagh, err,' I replied. I may have a mouth like a gutter but at least it can be paved with gold.

Friday: Wimbledon. Men's semi-finals. Work. God, tennis is hell and the All England Lawn Tennis Club the most ridiculously pretentious and pooterish place in the capital; a little slice of pinkie-wagging, Panama-wearing Cheshire caught like spinach in the teeth of west London. A phalanx of grey-cropped, elastic-waistbanded Agatha Christieish lesbians glare from the sniggeringly named `members only' balcony at some hard-thighed girls in ponytails doing doubles as if it were an auction at Tattersalls. On the press benches I notice that all true tennis hacks write every point as if it were musical annotation. Oh Lord, can you imagine a lifetime spent being amanuensis to the music of the spheres.

One of my day jobs is being a television critic, and for some years now I have been keeping a list of `popular personalities' who are universally and unequivocally loved by the public. So far it amounts to David Attenborough and Joanna Lumley. As a general rule, to appear on television is to be loathed. Indeed, simply to be famous is to offer yourself up to spleen and bile. Now I know it's the received wisdom among celebrities that this is a symptom of `tall poppy syndrome', but I don't think this can be right. The general hatred applies to people who have done nothing quite as much as to those who have done something. It's just so much nicer, more sophisticated and fun to dislike than like. Even those knowing folk who say they never believe what they read in the papers can hold a frothing hatred based simply on what they've read. I have another list of people who are comprehensively and groundlessly disliked. To my certain knowledge these people are incredibly nice, decent, clever and kind: Michael Winner - no, I promise you, fathomlessly kind; Andrew Lloyd Webber - great company, syncopated enthusiasm; Peter Tatchell, had dinner with him a couple of weeks ago - utterly charming, one of the boys; Peter Stringfellow - perfect manners; Marco Pierre White - generous and a loyal friend; Richard Littlejohn - properly bright; Tara Palmer-- Tomkinson - truly, achingly witty; Vanessa Feltz - marvellous gossip; Fergie - much prettier than her photographs, absolutely without side or pomposity; Robert Kilroy-- Silk - no, only teasing: as you were on Kilroy. All of which brings me in an oblique way to Mr Colin Hall of Knutsford, Cheshire, who's been good enough to write and ask me to 'stop using words like tarts' make-up' which I think you'll agree is tres amusant. He adds: 'Only a right c- would call himself A.A. Gill', to which I must admit only a right one does.

I loathe jokes, so would you be so good as to dispose of this one for me. I tried to pass it over to the GQ 'jokes' page but Dylan Jones the editor said that Jewish ones were verboten - his little joke - and then begged me not to mention it in The Spectator Diary. Right. Why are Jewish divorces so expensive? Because they're worth it.

Copyright Spectator Jul 14, 2001
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