What I found was a superior tea party in an imposing South Kensington flat, the home (I was told later) of the titled sister of a member of the Cabinet.
If I were a comic novelist I could I suppose make much of the fish out of water experience I had. But what took me most aback was what happened when the conversation turned to politics, & the iniquities of (spat out & snarled) That Woman.
The sentiments were the same as those I saw spelled out on posters or overheard on the streets, expressed in the less refined language of the Peoples Republic of Ladbroke Grove where I lived, which was not in those days the centre of the Notting Hill Set as that term is currently understood.
Funny how That Woman holds such a demonic place in political life.
Bill Clinton did not have sexual relations with her.
And now Gordon Brown may have hammered the final nail into his own coffin by referring to Mrs Duffy as That Woman.
Politically speaking, That Woman is emasculating.
And so we are back on the familiar ground of a men-only election being fought out on tv, and The Times headlining the final stages of the campaign as a Virility Test.
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