Come rain or shine

On Wednesday evening Mary and I went to the opening of Ken Done's exhibition at the new Rebecca Hossack Gallery on Conway Street. Ken has a wonderful new set of paintings from Sydney, and an unexpected group from Japan. It's well worth a visit, and it was great to see him on such top form.

We went on to the Portillo's summer party, which started in sunshine and ended in rain. The talk was of Quentin Davies's defection to the Labour party, and the fact that Ed Balls, the new Children, Schools and Families Secretary, was letting everybody know there were others to follow. A former Cabinet minister expressed the view that a) if there was a defection we'd know about it by tomorrow, b) it's possible whoever was thinking of defecting has changed their mind and c) there never was anyone else who was going to defect, but Mr Balls was sucessfully creating havoc in the Tory ranks. No doubt all of us will know which it is by Monday. Michael and Carolyn always have fascinating guests drawn from a wide circle, not least Lord Bernard Donoughue who claims to have been new labour before Tony Blair, Sir Christopher Meyer's wife who has given up looking for a Tory seat, and Nick Ross who claims to be 59 but looks about 35 (even with one or two grey hairs). Nick interestingly revealed that he wasn't currently looking for another tv job, but was considering other options.

From there we went on to a dinner party at the Royal Academy (my third visit to the Summer Exhibition). I very much enjoyed the sculptures by Bryan Kneale RA, but my favourite was the veiled woman by Don Brown (NFS). During dinner, I sat next to an Italian who is the chief investment adviser for Scottish Widows and has lived in London for the past two decades. How interesting to meet a man born in the most beautiful country on earth who wants to spend his life in England. Very flattering. I told him I was in love with the Scottish Widow in her long black cape, and he courteously pointed out that there had been four of them in the past 20 years. Oh well, perhaps I've been in love with them all. Mary sat next to Lord Crisp, so they naturally chatted about the NHS and whether Patricia Hewitt would survive - she didn't. Mary now has a new boss.