OH, Nina, what a lot of parties,' lamented Adam Fenwick-Symes in Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, published in 1930. The Bright Young Things with whom Adam socialised knew how to party, at 'Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else...'as Waugh wrote.
Now the pandemic has subsided, it's official: the party is back—and we don't just mean the 'Midnight Orgies at No. 10', as Waugh described... oh wait, hang on. 'Carrie does throw a great party,' whispers someone who knows.
The recipe for a great party relies on a few key ingredients. First among these is people. Interviewed for a documentary in 2014, the Society photographer Hugo Burnand explained that former Tatler editor Jane Procter once gave him some advice on getting the best shot. 'She said: “You're going to have a picture of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and a picture of Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger... but the picture I want is of the Duke of Marlborough with Jerry Hall.” This level of contrast is key to a successful guest list. 'You always need a good helping of younger guests,' says Nicholas Coleridge, chairman of the V&A Museum. 'Nothing is sadder than a gathering exclusively of oldies.' Tor Dashwood, co-founder of digital party-planning platform House of Party Planning, agrees. 'You don't want to do a singles area, but cleverly put together some single people and mix old and young. It's a bit sad when there's an older table.'
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 16, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 16, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
