WANEY SEES IN 2012 AT NEW YEAR’S EVE CONGA
DILEMMAS, dilemmas. Should one have accepted the invitation to see in 2012 with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen at Roman Abramovich’s £5m party on the Caribbean island of St Barts?
Or should one have saved oneself the bother of a plane journey and make an appearance at restaurateur Arjun Waney’s New Year’s Eve party at his latest opening The Arts Club in Mayfair?
Even the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who played at Waney’s new private members’ club in November but spent New Year’s entertaining the oligarch Chelsea owner’s 400 guests, had a conflict of interests.
No such diary clash for The Capitalist however, whose invitation to toast the passing of 2011 aboard Abramovich’s yacht Eclipse was lost in the post; instead, ex-Investec banker Paul Pacifico was kind enough to fill in the blanks about Waney’s “grown-up” gathering.
“It was very well-behaved this time – there was no Prince Harry on the drum kit, even though he was in the Arts Club twice between Christmas and New Year,” reports Pacifico, whose nine-piece band The AllStars Collective provided the evening’s entertainment.
But restraint went out of the window after midnight, when Waney may or may not have joined in the enthusiastic conga around his club to the sound of The Love Train and Forget You.
The retro turn of events had nothing to do with taste-maker Mark Ronson, the musical director for The Arts Club, however – both he and his uncle Gerald Ronson, the property mogul behind the Heron Tower, had other plans that evening.
BOG STANDARD
THE NEW Year is only three days old, but the City of London Corporation has already peaked by winning the National Innovation Award at the Loo of the Year Awards. Where does it go from here?
Lord Mayor David Wootton will have to pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag in 2012 to top being recognised for strategic vision in introducing coin-operated barriers in Paternoster Square and Tower Hill at the British Toilet Association’s glittering ceremony in Warwick’s top hotel.
Judges, apparently, were “tremendously impressed” by the number of toilets achieved within a concentrated area.
ARTISTIC LICENCE
COME and see my etchings, says artist Alexander Massouras, whose above imagining of the Bank of England in ruins is on display at the Iconoclasts exhibition at the Lloyds Club.
“Artists have often looked to the past to shape the present,” say the organisers of the show of contemporary British artists. “As the fabric of the world’s financial centre appears to be unravelling, we challenge the old guard while inviting our audience to question their values and ideals.”
Food for thought for Bank of England governor Mervyn King, then – no doubt he will make it along to the Crutched Friars gallery before the exhibition ends on 23 February to catch a glimpse of the “different order”…