High Society

I woke up humming tunes from High Society, which husband and I went to see last night at the cinema in our local country house hotel. I’ve decided it edges out Love Actually as the best rom com ever, what with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and Grace Kelly (in the best Grecian toga bathingsuit cover up EVER), not to mention the totally awesome mid-century patio furniture that features in most scenes except the ones in the library where a bar magically appears when you tug on a tome of Darwin. The movie is unfettered by political correctness allowing Grace Kelly’s character, Tracy Lord, to get plastered the night before her doomed wedding and snog both her ex-husband, played by Bing, and the paparazzi man, played by Frank. (As a trivia bonus I now also suspect I know where the porn star, Traci Lords, took inspiration for her name.)

Tonite is the Cotswold Hunt Ball and I fully expect, nay demand, all kinds of equally unpolitically correct and fabulous behaviour to be on display. I’ve procured a long evening dress with relative ease following my panic last weekend, thanks to a sale at Ghost. Undergarments have been trickier. Despite bragging about my Trinny and Susannah Miracle Pants in my last post, the truth is I bought an imitation “slimming pant” that was half the price. I tried on my dress yesterday and found to my horror that said girdle, while very effective at squashing in the right places, created just the merest hint of, gasp, back cleavage. As if the indignity of needing to purchase a “slimming pant” wasn’t enough. I was never very good at physics but I vaguely remember something about mass displacement—it’s got to go somewhere—so I guess the formation of a small ass on my upper back stands to reason. Looks like today’s agenda will feature a mad dash to the lingerie department at House of Fraser. That elegant pencil Grace Kelly never dealt with the challenges of back cleavage, but then again, she probably never went to the Hunt Ball either.