The fireworks at the party in Ladbroke Square were reputedly among the best in London last night.
Actually, the square has gained a reputation for the anual event as the meticulous planning is the envy of all the most up-tight garden square committees in town. To be part of a garden square committee is the epitome of arrival over substance - the prize of the American banker's spouse or the hedge funder's wife. And this square takes the biscuit.
Claudia Schiffer looked magnificant and glowed like a radio active Barbie doll in the brilliant light from the fire. ...such is her stature that its impossible for her to disappear into the obscurity of the crowd. Once, the great Sir Mark Thatcher, who used to hide in a borrowed pile in Landsdown Road would have been tolerated, if not welcome at one of these. I wondered, as I bit into my baked potato, where he might be just now and how he feels about the prospect of Simon Mann sodomising him in public and skinning him alive, as the President of Equatorial Guinea had intended to do to Mann before he decided to let him go free all of a sudden.
Quite apart from the balistics......the tents and the commotion, the organisational skills and facilities in Ladbroke Squarewould have made our boys in the Helmund Provence proud. we even had one of those prized helicopters to keep an eye on things.
The nearby mansions let off a volley of responses - like warships in the solent during a night time viewing of the fleet. We specualted as to which of the spectacular neighbouring silos were actually private parties and which were communial. This is important in this 'Hamptons of Kensington' where enough fireworks are discharged at some private parties to put a kid from South of The River through Eton.
Across the valley towards Notting Dale Rachel Johnson and Mary Killen enjoyed their show in Elgin Crescent before speeding off to Nicky Haslam's book launch.
As I Walked to the launch of the Venini collection at the Vessel gallery on Kensington Park Road, not five minutes after the fireworks, Jeeps and Range Rovers sped through the gunpowder smoke like UN rescue vehicles in the immediate aftermath of an air strike, as determind muns ferried kiddies that looked like they'd hardly recovered the trick or treating from the week before.
A N wilson was wrong. They've just raised the bar in this part of town and any event is enjoyed to the max.
Even the Electric club was empty....the puzzled lonely non-members looked into their cocktails like they'd been robbed.