Changes

Born in September 1939, the month the war broke out, and brought up at the sumptuous Great Hundridge Manor estate near Chesham, he seems to have met or attended social functions with almost every person of consequence during his lifetime, and found something to say about those he hadn't. Ever since he was introduced to the eccentric film star Tallulah Bankhead as a boy of fifteen, he has collected famous names the way many of us have collected stamps or coins at ''introduced Maynard Keynes to the City,'' while his mother was born a member of the Ponsonby family, and was a goddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Elsewhere, he regales us with the story of a nightspot in Soho when a young androgynous-looking student from the LSE called Mick Jagger, bored with increasingly loud and snooty speculation from a couple of guests about whether he was a boy or a girl, undid his trousers far enough to dispel any lingering doubts about his, er, manhood. When punk rock came along, he was eager to patronize Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, as he was ''amused by this gang of rule breakers'', even if he found the sound their spiky-haired protégés made ''frankly unbearable''.. Diana Cooper, Greta Garbo, Cecil Beaton, Bryan Ferry, to mention only a few, have all been part of his circle at various times. More recently he has moved into Cool Britannia circles, befriending such modern icons as Tracey Emin, Alex James of Blur and Liam Gallagher of Oasis. While on the musical aspect of things, he reminisces fondly on the release of the Beatles' 'Sergeant Pepper', adding that he only has to hear 'The Long and Winding Road' to be transported back to that month. Any Beatles fan (oh yes, he knew them as well) will instantly spot the deliberate (?) mistake there. Either that, or his memory is failing him and he needs a new research assistant.