I’ve forgotten the name of the Portuguese photographer who went back to pick up his film from the Rainbow Warrior at just the wrong moment.
I’ve forgotten ‘Mental AIDS‘.
I’ve forgotten Jean Lecanuet and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. And Bjorn Borg.
I’ve forgotten Opera Night, the Eldorado and Rose Bonbon.
I’ve forgotten the names of all the Lebanese hostages apart from Jean-Paul Kauffmann.
I’ve forgotten the make of car from which they lobbed the bomb into Tati on the rue de Rennes (Mercedes? BMW? Porsche? Saab Turbo?).
I’ve forgotten there used to be two-tone black and brown Westons.
I’ve forgotten sweets like Treets, Trois Mousquetaires and Daninos.
I’ve forgotten Fruité used to come in a purple apple and black¬ currant flavour.
I’ve forgotten the Partenaire Particulier group and ‘Peter and Sloane’. And Annabelle Mouloudji. And ‘Boule de Flipper’ by Corinne Charby! (Actually, that’s one I do remember.)
I’ve forgotten the International Diplomatic Academy, France– America, the American Legion, the Cercle Interallié, the Automobile Club de France, the Ermenonville Pavilion, the Pavilion des Oiseaux, the Pré Catelan and the swimming pool at Tir aux Pigeons.
(That’s not quite true, who could forget THE SWIMMING POOL AT TIR AUX PIGEONS skinny-dipping at four in the morning with the dogs right behind us?)
Downstairs, dinner has been served. Marc finally tracks down his table. His name is written on a small manila card between Irène de Kazatchok (the décolleté deaconess) and Loulou Zibeline (a pretty cool entrepreneuse). They haven’t arrived yet. Which one will Marc hit on first? Unless maybe they decide to take turns snogging him? His right hand down someone’s blouse and his left hand on the other’s arse. Marc’s penis is almost hard at the thought.
God be praised! Marc’s daydream is interrupted by a useful ally: Fab. This useful ally is wearing some sort of skin-tight, fluorescent lycra outfit. His head is shaved so that you can read the word ‘FLY’ on his bleached blond temple. Fab could be the result of Jean-Claude Van Damme mating with a Ninja Turtle. He speaks only in trance-speak. He is the sweetest moron on the planet, it’s just a pity for him he was born a century too early.
‘Yo chestnut tree.* Lookin’ pretty fresh there!’
‘Yeah, Fab. Actually, we’re at the same table.’
‘Phat! I gotta feeling this is gonna be massive!’
Tedium, it would seem, is not an option.
* Author’s note: Marronnier in English is ‘chestnut tree’. English is very trance.
As I write, night is falling and people are going to dinner.
Henry Miller Quiet Days in Clichy
Groups form, forms group. Sooner or later we will sit down. The people standing around might be considered the elite of Western nightlife civilisation. Hundreds of Α-list celebs and a smattering of Bs who might well be dubbed the ‘Indispensable Ineffectuals’.
Money drips from everywhere. Anyone carrying less than 20k in hard cash on him looks suspect. And yet no one is showing off. All these despots secretly want to be artists. You have to be a photographer, an editor (even a deputy editor), a TV producer, ‘just finishing a novel’, or a serial killer. Nothing could be more suspect here than the absence of an opus. Marc Marronnier filched a copy of the guest list so as to have a better idea of the guests. Glancing through it, he is reassured: the same faces he met last night, the same ones he will meet tomorrow night.
Those placed upstairs are happy to have a table. Those downstairs are happy not to be at one of the tables upstairs.
A NIGHT IN SHIT
Inaugural Dinner – VIP List
Gustav von Aschenbach
Suzanne Bartsch
Patrick Bateman
The Baer Brothers
Henri Balldur
Gilberte Bérégovoy
Helmut Berger
Lova Berandin
Leigh Bowery
Manolo de Brantos
Carla Bruni-Tedeschi
The Castel Family
Pierre Celeyron
Chamaco
Louise Ciccone
Clio
The Albans of Clérmont-Tonnerre
Matthieu Cocteau
Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Francesca Dellera
Jacques Derrida
Antoine Doinel
Boris Elstine
Fab
The Favier sisters
His Excellency Geoffrey Firmin, consul
Paolo Gardénal
Agathe Godard
Jean-Michel Gravier
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
The Hardissons
Faustine Hibiscus
Ali de Hirschenberger
Audrey Horne
Herbert W. Idle, IV
Jade Jagger
Joss + friends
Solange Justerini
Foc Kan
Irène de Kazatchok
Christian and Françoise Lacroix
Marc Lambron
Marjorie Lawrence
Serge Lentz + the tigress
Arielle Levy +2
Roxanne Lowit
Homero Machry
Benjamin Malaussène
Marc Marronnier
Elsa Maxwell
Baron von Meinerhof
Virginie Mouzat
Thierry Mugler
Roger Nelson
Constance Neuhoff
Masoko Ohya
Paquita Paquin
Roger Peyrefitte
Ondine Quinsac
Guillaume Rappeneau
The Rohan-Chabots and family
Gunther Sachs
Eric Schmitt
William K. Tarsis, III
Princess Goria von Thurn und Taxis
Lise Toubon
Baron