Lord Bath: He'd make a nutritious meal for his lions. That's all.

Nesta Wyn Ellis' scandalous, unauthorised bio of Lord Bath and his wifelet addiction, Lord of Love, has just been published. For a flavour of the book you can read this as part of a recent serialisation in the Daily Express.

An analysis of soul-compromised aristocratic decadence, it's a must-read: a narcissistic, cock-driven shit stuffed with a sense of entitlement and the self-critical faculty of a precious thug: at least that's the impression one gains of his lordship as Nesta burrows through his modest accomplishments ever framed by inherited (ie unearned) capital Longleat. His only use so far as I can see is as sweet meat (Bath is diabetic) for his lions.

Why would a woman marry such a man unless just to acquire a title, a few servants and a teaspoon of blue blood spunk? The question has to be asked.

Do you find this man handsome?


Nesta's tendrils embrace all regions of his flaky Tudorbethan facade - he ought to be on his knees in gratitude that a celebrated John Major biographer should focus her attention on him at all - and pulls off a decorative effect on a yesteryear zeitgeist figure. She converts him into a useful pathological case study. He's not just cat food then.

I cannot think of higher praise.

PS: The photo (above right) is of a young Alexander Thynne (aka Lord Bath), cover boy for yet another instalment in his interminable autobiography. A writer in comments asks me to consider whether I find him handsome. I would say not handsome, but pretty, period catamite-style: had this photo appeared in an Oscar Wilde bio, as one of his green carnationist admirers in Worthing, only the uniform would have surprised me.