To the Wolseley Restaurant on Piccadilly for the third Sunday in a row. This is Mr Xavior Roide’s idea – a gathering of some of his bohemian friends and regulars from his Hanky Panky Cabaret event. The Wolseley is a very stylish but affordable place to take afternoon tea. Impossibly high ceilings, black Chinese panelled doors, well-dressed and friendly staff, not too touristy yet not too snobbish either. It may not have the reputation of The Ritz or Fortnum and Masons, but it suits us to a, well, to a tea.

We tend to get a nice round table in the corner, so naturally we all imagine we’re taking up where Ms Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin Hotel left off, passing around books, reading aloud, ruminating archly on Life and Love while the scones and Earl Grey are dispatched. Present are myself (the oldest person), Mr Roide (who I think is about 29 but very little is known about him at all), then some energetic young people who I tend to look upon as my club-going stunt doubles: Ms Lucinda Godwin, Ms Hazel Barkworth, Mr Laurence Gullo. There’s also Ms Alison (a fellow American friend of Mr Gullo’s), and today a Mr Rodrigo, who tells us he once made hats for Brazilian royalty. He also recently made a ten minute film of a dead sparrow decaying in his garden, which we all watched at the cabaret last Friday. This was in between the various musical acts and Mr Ernesto, a poet who takes all his clothes off while reciting his verse.

I’ve seen Ernesto’s act so many times now, I fear I am better acquainted with his genitals than I am with my own.

Books passed around at the Wolseley today include Ms Barkworth’s copy of Joan Collins’s My Secrets, an autobiography with an excellent section on make-up tips. Blusher is underrated, she maintains. I’ve come with a fascinating tome sent to me out of the blue by a young lady in Paris called Ms Sheridan Quaint. It’s Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840 – 1918, by David Deitcher. The text is essentially about the art of speculation upon uncaptioned photographs. Specifically, ancient sepia images of male friends posing affectionately together. The onlooker has to imagine the backstory themselves. Fascinating in its own right, but also useful for inspiring future stories.

I do like the phrase “Men Together”.

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Today I have an email interview from an Italian woman, concerning Fosca. I always agree to interviews, and love nothing more than talking about myself at length. Even so, I sometimes have to decline a question if I feel it does little favour to me, however I respond.

Sample question: “Which one of these sentences would irk you more?”

I brace myself and read on.

“(a) You sound like Pulp.
(b) You sound out of tune.
(c) You sound not particularly 2005”