The White Company offers its loyalists an altogether better, whiter world. The White people have edited out any colours that aren't white, off-white, milk chocolate, grey, taupe or black. They can't be doing with Johnnie Boden's cheery Sloane jokes, his spots and stripes, his occasional 'if it's me, it's U' loud colours.

Nobody knows anything. I deal with people in all walks of life, some of whom should have some idea of what they're doing. And they're all clueless. It's astonishing that any bridges stay up, or that planes don't constantly plummet from the sky. It's heartening, in a strange way.

Chandeliers are marvels of drop-dead showiness, the jewellery of architecture.

Imagine a State occasion where the Queen is wearing trainers with her tiara because she thinks it will make people like her better, more folksy. It's unthinkable. But that's patently the thought process Gordon Brown (or his spin doctor) went through before the Prime Minister appeared on the world stage in Beijing without his suit and tie.

Rock and roll is the hamburger that ate the world.

The library was one more essential in the parade of rooms in a big 18th-century house - and part of the required kit ever afterwards. The important thing was to have the books, not actually read them.

London clubland divides itself between the St James's refuge for toffs, and the Conquest of Cool, for the arts and media.