An evening of conversation

One of the items I regularly auction for charity is the opportunity to hold a dinner in a special place with a top chef, maybe the boardroom at Coutts, Mosimann's, or the kitchen at the Savoy. Last night, one of my friends who'd purchased such an item for a vast sum of money, held a dinner for 14 of her friends, at Partridge Fine Arts on Bond Street. We dined around a magnificent oak table in their private room, with its beautiful Jacobean oak pannelling; the food was sumptuous, the wine delicious and the company scintillating.

Sitting next to me was a man who had recently lost $75m with Lehmann Brothers, and on the other side, a man who sold Dutch paintings, so it was an evening of learning. The banker told me that within the next few months, oil could fall as low as $25 a barrel, but he had personally bet on it reaching $200 within 5 years. Those with a long memory, keep this in mind. The man on my right, told me that the very finest paintings were still maintaing their price, but anything between £5,000 and £100,000 remained on the walls, unsold. Perhaps the most fascinating statement of the evening came from the sort of Republican who voted for Goldwater - no Democrat would ever be acceptable - who claimed that Obama would raise taxes for the rich to 65% (they are currently at 30%). He also predicted that Mrs Sarah Palin was history. We shall see.