SOCIAL CLIMBING

How I enjoyed last night’s dinner party! I didn’t half make some useful contacts. That reminds me – I’d better update my ‘LinkedIn’ profile. It was a great coup to have had five minutes with old Sugden. I’m sure he can put some business my way. He simply drips with cash – his watch was worth more than my car. I think he was taken with my joke, the one about the local sheriff looking for a deputy, so a dizzy blonde went for the job. As a preliminary, the sheriff asked her who killed Abraham Lincoln. She went home and told her family she was working on a murder case already. I got some titters anyway, especially from Mrs Darnley. The jewellery on that woman! She has to wear a surgical neck-brace to support her ear-rings. I hope they didn’t think me over-dressed, but I was the only one in a dinner suit. Spendlove was wearing a polo-necked shirt and a pair of rope-soled espadrilles, for Heaven’s sake! What sort of formal wear is that? What a power-house Major Bilbow is! Not sure I agree with his ‘hang and flog everybody’ views, but I think I made all the right noises. He needs someone to develop a communications strategy for him, the rich old duffer, and I’m the boy. Lady Davinia was wonderful – I’d give an arm and a leg to get in with her. I'm not in the same class, of course, but I thought I tidied up my accent splendidly. That crack about the elephant and the driving instructor was a little risqué, but I think I got away with it – it’s all about timing.