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“... with posh people, including the Rothermeres, who owned the Daily Mail. (He painted a portrait of Ann Rothermere, who married Ian Fleming in 1952.) He got to meet Garbo and dance with Margot Fonteyn and socialise with Princess Margaret. He got to disappear into the night with Simone de Beauvoir, whom he met in a club. ‘He enjoyed the perks of being an ...”

“... Pitcairn or abandoned South American whaling station’. ‘The current Laureate,’ meaning Carol Ann Duffy, ‘invites us to celebrate an entire Twitter, as once she might have high-fived the Tatler.’ Or consider Coventry Cathedral: the original building was destroyed by Nazi bombs and left a symbolic ruin, but its undistinguished replacement serves only ...”

“... Tony Curtis shouted out: ‘Just start at the top and do it all over again!’ Henry Fonda, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, Jack Lemmon, James Mason and Steve McQueen all came to congratulate her after the show. When Judy Garland first heard her sing, she said: ‘I’m never going to open my mouth again.’ Frank Sinatra offered to set his goons on anyone who ...”

“... or less important people, among them Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, as well as Douglas Cooper … I got to know Francis when he designed some furniture for my Eccleston Street flat. I like to remember his beautiful pansy-shaped face, sometimes with too much lipstick on it … In those days Francis was living at the end of Ebury Street ...”