Mrs Botogol and I did indeed go to a party at the weekend.
When did everyone start hiring staff for their parties?
It's hard to recall, now, the precise moment when our friends suddenly crossed this boundary that separates the ordinarily middle class from the genuinely wealthy.
It can't be that long ago: I can definitely remember being greeted at front doors by the hostess rather than a bewildered Serb, and taking my own coat upstairs and piling it on the heap on the bed rather than having it pulled lightly from my shoulders with a "thenkyu, and iss thiss a pressent? I vill tek thet es vell"
In the hierarchy of wealth Canape Shifters must have come after cleaners and probably after Having Our Colours Done, but before, I reckon, Cranial Osteopathy, personal trainers and dog walkers. I wonder if all these services will be relinquished in tidy reverse order now that the carnival is over for the wealthy bankers as well as the extremely wealthy bankers.
Still, the axes don't fall until next week, and meanwhile it was a good party, a fin-de-siecle-party, a stuff-the-credit-crunch and drink champagne all night, a we've-even-hired-a-band party and there were loads of staff: not a canape went unpassed, not a glass untopped up and not a guest unwelcomed.
It's good to see old friends, and we were amongst bankers so I was thankful I didn't have to single handedly defend the Wall Street bonus system all over again.
I did wish I had a pound for everyone who asked me whether I had been fired yet, for I'd have eleven pounds which would make up the rather repetitive small talk:
- "Good to see you as well". "No, not yet luckily Ha! Ha!". "Well anyone working for an investment bank has to be worried don't they?". "Well, I hope you're right".
"No, no idea at all, ha ha! Perhaps I'll hand out canapes at parties."
If there are any canapes, and if there are any parties.
2 comments:
I remember the first friends who had staff at their party. It was Graham and Susanna, a very long time ago (at least fifteen years, maybe twenty. They had a tiny expensive house in Richmond (this was before they had a large expensive house in Richmond) and when a polite elderly couple met me at the door, one to take my coat and one to offer a drink. Remember? I asked you whether they were Graham's parents or Susanna's. Neither, as it turned out.
I do remember that!
In fact I think I had remembered that even before I finished writing the post. I think that would have been 89 or 90. . .Mrs Botogol would know.
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