Before the government pulls the plug on all social interaction for the rest of the year, let us look back 50 years to more innocent days when Christmas parties meant a houseful of sloshed people from all backgrounds, so long as they didn’t have grubby feet. I am grateful to James Hallwood for alerting me to a piece the actress Joan Crawford wrote in 1971 on the perfect party. “Take some corporation presidents, add a few lovely young actresses, a bearded painter, your visiting friends from Brussels, a politician, a hairdresser, and then toss them all together,” wrote Crawford. She opposed inviting “hippies with unwashed feet” but said that all the young people she knew “dress like human beings”. And then the secret ingredient. “I always add a splash of vodka to everything,” she said. “Nobody ever knows and everyone ends up having a wonderful time.”
In another flashback to the 1970s, Karl McCartney, the Conservative MP for Lincoln, spoke in the Commons yesterday wearing a garish blend of green floral shirt and pink tie that made the eyes bleed. “I think you need to go to Specsavers,” Mr Speaker told him. “I’ve come straight from the dance floor,” McCartney explained. There ain’t no party like a Tory party party.
Blyton spirit
A new biography of Enid Blyton by Andrew Maunder reveals the gloriously testy relationship the author had with Alison Uttley, creator of the Little Grey Rabbit books, who was a neighbour and hated her success, calling Blyton a “vulgar, curled woman”. They first met at a lunch when Uttley, pretending to have confused her with Enid Bagnold, author of National Velvet, asked: “I know the book you wrote about a horse but what else have you written?” Blyton frostily replied: “Smith’s window is full of my books.”
Crowning gory
Don’t maim the audience is a good rule for an actor. Thirty years ago Brian Cox played King Lear at the National and one night he accidentally threw his metal crown not into the wings but the front row, where it struck a woman’s forehead, causing blood to gush over her husband. Cox recalls in his new autobiography that years later, performing in Edinburgh, he received a note from the same man. “I’m coming tonight,” it said. “I have a new wife. Is she safe?”
Rob Brydon’s impressive singing ability earned the Welsh comedian the thrill of performing at the London Palladium with Neil Diamond in 2014. He recalls on his Spotify show, however, expressing surprise to the Jewish Elvis that their song only had four chord changes. “I don’t count ’em, I just write ’em,” Diamond replied. “A chord change is like an orgasm: the longer you wait, the better it is.”
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Political reality
Ed Miliband led the hearty congratulations last week when Harriet Harman announced she was standing down after 40 years as an MP. The former Labour leader joined Harman’s team as a 23-year-old researcher and soon learnt how junior he was when he accompanied her to the party conference. “I spent the first day looking for idealism,” he said, “the second day looking for inspiration and days three, four and five looking for Harriet’s coat, which she had misplaced on day one.”
