William Cash - one of the WI pensioners bites back

Cool reception: The Gatehouse, Upton Cressett Hall, Shropshire

Further to my post yesterday on the banning of a Women's Institute branch from William Cash's Grade 1 Elizabethan moated manor house in Shropshire, Upton Cressett Hall - he escorted 27 pensioners off the premises after one of them asked to take a leak - an anonymous fan (of mine) has drawn my attention to further distressing developments pertaining to William's gorgeous home.

For I see that on Trip Advisor, Upton Cressett Hall is uniformly trashed by six reviewers purporting to have visited the mediaeval property. 'Unbelievable arrogance and greed. Such a pity, with some forethought and consideration this could be a most enjoyable visit. 5 stars for the Romanian lady who served tea and cake,' writes one Terence James of Shrewsbury.

Another appears to respond to the infamous episode of early August during which he ejected the 27 WI pensioners. Cathy writes:

'Well our local ladies group had a fun afternoon as Mr Cash is totally disorganised and has a very short fuse. He'd booked in 2 groups by mistake. The outside loos were locked and he didn't have the key, and disaster struck when another visitor went to use the loo in the house and shut the front door - everyone locked out! He lost his cool and ranted threatening to cancel the tour. eventually he or his staff got in through an open window. We had our tea and cake then a tour of 3 rooms - very disappointing. We were then treated to Mr Cash having a discussion with ladies from the other group which turned into him yelling and shouting at them to leave and he forcibly ejected them from the property! Not his finest hour and we certainly would not recommend this.'

Oh dear. Perhaps William should stick to journalism where 'yelling and shouting' are at least a time-honoured tradition.

To read other reviews of Upton Cressett Hall, click here.

To visit Upton Cressett Hall, click here.

Listen to William describe his home, click here.

To read my post on how William threw out the pensioners, click here.

William Cash bans 27 WI pensioners from home over loo row

Upton Cressett Hall in Shropshire

It has been ages since I wrote of the poppetiest of the Arcati poppets, William Cash. To be brutally honest, when I warm to someone I tend to lose interest. The thaw began after the odd Twitter exchange with his former second wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - usually described as the 'glamorous, intellectual Venezuelan fire-cracker who once dated Mick Jagger'. William has given the world many laughs - usually because of the unintended consequences of his extraordinary obsession with life's baubles. But at least he has turned this amour into an editorial expression with Spear's - 'the essential resource for high net worths.' (Or put simply, not you, probably)

You may not know this, but these days the poppet lives in a rather grand Grade 1 Elizabethan brick manor called Upton Cressett Hall in Shropshire. Its history is a roll call of royals, dukes and others with the hereditary X factor. One of its owner-occupiers contributed to the Armada Fund in 1588, for instance. And one of its bedrooms is named after Baroness Thatcher! 

Much to my amazement, parts of the property are open to the public. Which brings me to the saddest tale of the season.

William maintains a blog on a website dedicated to his home. And the latest post is entitled, 'Why I banned the Women's Institute from Upton Cressett'. It is a narrative of woe you must read if you have half an hour to spare - it's rather long. But compelling. I won't bore you with the he-saids/she-saids, suffice to say that an 'owner tour' disintegrated into farce when William came to blows with a branch of the visiting WI.

Problems began one early August day this year when a floral-skirted old cunty dared to address him as 'staff' and demanded to know where the toilets were. There are none. Now, I should have thought a public convenience essential in a place open to the public and where they tend to drink tea and eat scones. William was taken aback. But he recovered and pointed to a private 'loo under the stairs.' Following more peculiar antagonism, at some point everyone was accidentally locked out of the Hall and William threw a strop, banning all 27 members of one WI branch at a stroke. He even escorted them ('mostly white haired pensioners in summer suits or sixty plus blue-rinse members of the jam-making and Order of the WI Battle-Axe variety.') to the car park.

William is sufficiently self-possessed to spot his inner Basil Fawlty and send himself up a little. But I mean, where's his, er, famed noblesse oblige?

To read William's blog, click here

Richard Dennen: Crotch-gawping in the company of Prince William

Richard Dennen

"Please can we have more aristos in Tatler and stately homes," writes in Alastair, an Arcatiste with a strange fetish for Old Etonian upperclass males. "Anyone know anything about Richard Dennen who writes for Tatler and has a column in the Evening Standard X."

What is there not to know about Richard Dennen? The twerpy poppet is quotidian tour guide to his own private Norfolk. Though he admits to 28 he is probably north of 30 and his journalistic achievements can be attributed only to a preponderance of homophobes in the British media (or merde as the French and English aristos call it). Let's just say Dennen is his cock-cunting editors' revenge on their readers.

I fancy he is the spawn of an unlikely knee-trembler between Nicky Haslam and Liz Jones at a Bessborough House shindig: if he put on 50 years and 50 pounds he'd make the perfect mongrel mini-me. His grail is a juicy boyfriend (forever elusive) sought within the crotch-gawping party environs of Prince William or the PM's father-in-law: take away the last two and all you've got left is a desperate tart divining solace in the smartest urinals.

One piece of advice to Dennen on his hopeless love life arrives from Josh Hunt who wrote a much more interesting gay column for the late freebie thelondonpaper. On the So So Gay blog he writes: "To be honest, spilling your guts about your personal life in the paper can make said life pretty hard to manage. My love life has improved greatly since the demise of the London paper, so I'd be loath to go back to writing in a freebie again (and I'm getting on a bit). I do however continue the column as a smaller scale blog - check it out at gayabouttown.com."

So there you are, Richard. Your SatNav to a happier life (and ours) awaits unwrapping. Meantime, Dennen's literary style critiqued. And if that sounds irksome then catch up with the weirdo Tatlersnob.

Rachel Johnson's A Diary Of The Lady: Masterly at the authorial hand-job

Over the weekend Rachel Johnson was canny enough to send me a fan letter in which she told me I was mentioned in her book A Diary of The Lady: My First Year as Editor.

I had wondered whether Madame Arcati might make an apperance in her pages because I'd earlier this year described The Lady as 'the cunties' weekly' in a short piece about the magazine's readership and masturbation. But I'm adept at delaying gratification myself: I fancied I might happen on my name years hence as I leafed through a dog-eared copy in a secondhand book store (in Arundel perhaps).

This fancy was discarded instantly on receipt of Rachel's email: Madame Arcati is responsive to stroking, and judging by the contents of her book, she is masterly at the authorial hand-job.

If you don't know or care, Rachel is the editor of The Lady magazine, once an incarnation of all things nanny-ish and scone-ish. Then she barged in with her Sunday Times ponciness and pals and imported nasty things such as 'lady gardens' (pubes) and erections (euphemism: 'Everests') - these alone from a Jilly Cooper Jump!extract. The Lady's venerable owner Mrs Budworth regularly channels outraged reader reaction, calling Rachel a 'monster' and 'sex-obsessed'. This is all splendid for Rachel's CV.

Now, I said I'd review her book but in all honestly it's too late for that. A Diary came out in late summer. Instead, I have a few observations to make which touch upon my own preoccupations. What is first so striking about her day-to-day life at her mag, described with staggering frankness, is the evident ghastliness of many of the London writers and editors she encounters and of whom Madame Arcati has already demonstrated an insightful and notorious dislike.

For instance, you may think unwarranted my occasional barbs at AA Gill's prolific and dyspeptic smugness. Yet dip into this book and witness him, with Rod Liddle, mocking Rachel at a party for being dumped by their cash cow, the Sunday Times. The paper's editor John Witherow dumps her after promising he wouldn't - then thoughtlessly rubs her nose in it later by praising her replacement as 'grrrreat!' William Cash - he of the sad heiress-wives fixation - staggers about drunk at a party feeling sorry for himself and volubly moaning that no one of his generation (ie his Oxbridge milieu) has done anything worthwhile, including Rachel's husband Ivo. Even the down market Kelvin MacKenzie pops up in Rachel's office and fills it with his special mix of noxious methane.

Nicholas Coleridge, the world's worst novelist and the MD of Condé Nast, comes across as a gracious and generous house host, even if one who insists on memorialising, in annotated albums, his every social interaction with those deemed sufficiently important. I read elsewhere he also collects animal corpses: all this is beyond anal, doncha think?

In the (Boris) Johnsonian tradition, the slights, betrayals and insults (and there are many more) are borne lightly by our heroine. She'd be perfect in a war. But she too is not averse to gross insensitivity. I'm not sure Roger Lewis will have been entirely happy to be described as the least attractive writer she's ever met, as he name-drops Michael Winner at their first meeting. And I can't imagine what the daughter of Rachel's predecessor, Arline Usden, must have felt to be characterised as a rather hapless and hopeless member of staff. Indeed many contributors will have delighted in Rachel's grouchy view of a lot of the journalism submitted (each piece requiring the effort of eight emails on her part) after fulsome and luvvie-ish encouragement.

As for Lady Antonia Fraser... well, she always looks slightly appalled anyway.

In other words, A Diary of The Lady is entirely riveting. Any student contemplating a life in journalism (high end, facile) should get this book for Christmas - as a warning. Robust souls may relish the rough and tumble, and Rachel makes for a marvellously blithe dame (in the Eton College sense). Oh, and Madame Arcati gets her name-check on pp 261-262: if there were an index, I'd be under M for masturbation.

One last thing. How can Rachel Johnson have lived as widely and well as she has and not know who Duncan Fallowell is? She should search him out on Madame Arcati: I think even Mrs Budworth might approve of him.

Rachel Johnson film on The Lady, knitting and chutney - click here.
Rachel's website

Zac Goldsmith: Saving the world on one cigar at a time?

Observers of the new Tory MP for Richmond Park, mega-wealthy Eton reject, former non-dom and recent divorcé, Zac Goldsmith, have long been amused by his championing of green causes while he puffs on scraggy roll-ups.

Still, at least he's not some ghastly holier-than-thou prig. When you're said to be worth an estimated £300m, and are young, tall and handsome, and the brother to Jemima Khan, it's as well to flaunt your human weaknesses, if only to neutralise the bitter envy of paupies.

Perhaps partly to this end, I understand Zac used regularly to drive from his home in Richmond to Jermyn Street to buy a single cigar at Davidoff of London. His preference was to shop when the 'glittery' store had the Closed sign up, in the manner of Michael Jackson and Princess Diana at Harrods.

My well-connected informant reports that when it was suggested to Zac that he might want to buy a box of cigars in order to save on the petrol he appeared underwhelmed. This I think not unreasonable on health if not environmental grounds. It is entirely possible that he could not trust himself with a whole box in a 24-hour period. Was it not Mark Twain who once said, 'I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.'?

How much Zac's enforced rationing reduced his carbon footprint I cannot imagine, but the more mathematical among you with time on your hands may fancy the challenge.

Of course my spy may have just dreamt all of this up on the grounds of envy. In these times of neo-Old Etonian English governance, class warriors are enjoying an alarming resurgence.

Joanna Lumley: Labour's last card against this goddess of AOL torture

The government is of course very foolish to upset Joanna - "Ayo Gurkhali!" - Lumley (again) over the Gurkhas. On Monday (or today if you're reading this on Monday; or yesterday if Tuesday, etc) she will single-handedly hammer the last nail into the Labour coffin. I had hoped Labour would scrape home but I see now all is lost, thanks to Joanna.

As I write she is, as Lady Penelope once was, an untouchable national treasure, the embodiment of the upper class geist that is about to repossess the Brits for the umpteenth time through the 19th Etonian PM (to-be) aka the half-wit former PR David Cameron.

Foreigners should understand that the Brits like the taste of upper class asshole: it's part of the ingrained cuisine (pause to spit out hair strands, inter alia, unsweetened by absence of bidet). They adore modulated vowels for it plays to the national Capricornian desire for hereditary privilege and power as expressed in sound and deportment and approved antecedents (cue: spires).

There is however one card left for Labour to play against the Nepalese goddess Joanna. It's called the AOL card. For years, Joanna's voice has been used to annoy AOL subscribers with an unwelcome welcoming message and the lie "You've got email". It's a lie because AOL users are blighted with this message whether they have email or not. Worse, she is the voice of "You've got company (bang)". It is another lie. The subscriber does not have any online company. It is just a noise-message intended to piss one off as the odd unfortunate ejaculates over the keyboard.

Somebody at AOL actually sat down one day and said, 'Oh, let's see how we can really piss off our customers. Great! Get Joanna Lumley to tell them over and over again that they have company (bang)'. It was marketing by irritation, as practised by those confuse.com TV ads, and others. The intention is to batter you into brand-recognition compliance through torture, a sort of extraordinary rendition for the sofa- (or swivel chaired-) bound.

Of course the goddess hadn't a clue she was just a tongue puppet for these wicked corporate shenanigans. She read the messages off a sheet and collected her substantial cheque. She gave no thought to the possibility that her voice would become one of the most detested sounds on the internet. Like the late Leni Riefenstahl, she is the creative incidental to the cultural foulness. For a goddess, Joanna is peculiarly stupid.

Joanna should be publicly reviled by Labour as a modern-day Lord Haw-Haw, as the expression of something noxious, whether witting or not. She should have foreseen this horror. There is not a day that passes by that I do not wish this ghastly woman some dreadful end for the earache and the headache and the ultimate heartache.

How to turn her off

William Cash: Cruelly betrayed by his London Evening Standard!

Treachery is the coin of newspaper life. But the London Evening Standard's disloyalty to its regular (former?) contributor William Cash is breathtaking. An Arcatiste tells me that a few days ago its City Spy column suggested that William's wealth magazine Spear's hadn't paid some of its writers "for months".

It claimed, "one contributor, fed up with the weeks of waiting, used to go and plonk himself in reception until a cheque materialised."

I am sure an embittered and penniless celebrant of "high net-worth individuals" fed this tale to Spy. Amused followers of Cash will be surprised the paper ran it. For years he has filled pages and pages of ES Mag with his homages to the super-rich - interviews, marital memoir, dispatches from obscure parts of Europe and reports from tax havens with lovely beaches and aristo memento mori - so for his journalistic home from home to stab him in the back like this is nothing short of scandalous.

We must await further news of his magazine's financial status. In the meantime I must add that I have in numerous posts cautioned him against making an altar to money: friendships forged in the world's gilded slops melt away at the first hint of impecuniosity. It is my karmic duty to repeat this message over and over again - I think I must have been the loaded Imam of the Nizārī Muslims in a previous life.

Josh Spero of Spear's: 'As for my bed, I did just kick a banker out'

Josh Spero, senior editor and website editor of Spear's. Click here for its website

Leathered Arcatistes will know that Madame Arcati has been most teasing of the publisher, editor and journalist William Cash. His writings, for instance, in ES Magazine are characterised by an extraordinary fixation on the super-wealthy and their gilt-edged micro-habitats: others might call this fixation his specialism. Inevitably, he owns and edits the quarterly Spear's magazine - itself a respected bible for the world's mega-monied.

Remotely, astrologically and Twitterly I have struck up a fleeting acquaintance with William's wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - an intriguing socialite whose chart reveals both a committed humanitarianism and a taste for sensation.

Now, remotely, I have made a connection with Josh Spero, senior editor of Spear's, and I couldn't resist asking him to talk about his work - and what it is like to work for William Cash.

Josh Spero! Hello. You're the senior editor and website editor of Spear's magazine - which means you work for one of Madame Arcati's frequent targets of interest, William Cash. Tell me about Spear's - it's all about wealth and the wealthy isn't it?

Hi, Madame - I liked your latest incarnation on Broadway - Angela Lansbury doing a turn. Spear's is about wealth but it's much more than that - people want authoritative intelligence about and analysis of global finance and the best writers on art, luxury and travel. Combined with our trademark witty style, it's the whole package.

What in Spear's terms is the minimum worth of a wealthy person?

We usually say £3 million - but anyone who's interested (wealth-regardless) can subscribe or read all our content plus blogs on spearswms.com

Spero/Spear's: do you think your name had anything to do with your appointment? And tell us briefly about yourself - are you innately interested in the wealthy? Where else you have worked and who shares your bed at night.

The name is a happy coincidence; I always think that being edited by William Cash and worked on previously by Sophia Money-Coutts is more apt. It doesn't go unnnoticed, tho'. The wealthy are interesting because - like any anthropological group - they have their own customs, hangouts and events, and it just happens that to observe them in their natural habitat you go to Berkeley Square, not Borneo.

My first job in journalism was hateful nightshifts on the Independent, after which (as the saying goes) I went freelance and wrote for the Guardian's ArtsBlog for a while. Then I met William at a party, freelanced for Spear's for a year and came on board permanently last July. It was July 14, Bastille Day - except this time I felt I was storming the fortress of the rich *on the side of* the rich.

As for my bed, I'm wretchedly single, tho' I did just kick a banker out. (This wealth thing is getting to me.) If any man considers himself eligible, my email's not hard to find.

And what do you do precisely? What time do you start work and end?

9-6 Monday-Thursday writing for, editing, commissioning the magazine and running spearswms.com with its blogs, newswire, party pics and all else. But a journalist's work continues in the evening - all the events (as fun as they are) are business as much as pleasure.

Tell me of the most interesting story Spear's has run of late.

There's Conrad Black's diary from jail (http://www.spearswms.com/good-life/diary/4411/exclusive-conrad-blacks-jail-diary.thtml), which got into the Sunday Times - he's unrepentant and on the verge of being proved right. Christopher Silvester wrote about what the wealthy should do when they're arrested, which is looking likely after l'affaire UBS.

William Cash

What's William Cash like - I mean is he hands-on? Does he rage and storm about as many editors do? Or is he an ocean of calm? Does he have an eccentricty? Anna Wintour I hear chucks coins from her purse into her wastepaper basket.

William doesn't rage or storm - he prefers to get things done. I've learnt a lot about how to run a magazine from him. He has, tho', been known to come in two days before going to press and say, I've commissioned this piece... He also says 'unacceptable' a fair amount.

Does William know you're doing this interview? I've been quite naughty about him in the past. Did he say, "Be careful of that crazed blogger Madame Arcati"?

He doesn't know, but that's because we've been mid-office-move for a fortnight so I've been working from home. I don't think he's ever issued a fatwa in your honour.

Who do you think is the best writer on the subject of money and wealth - best in the sense of style and accuracy? And who is the best connected?

John Arlidge is Spear's Chancellor of the Excessive - he's a whiz on luxury - and Stephen Hill is our prescient, acerbic economic commentator (http://www.spearswms.com/spears-world/salon/stephen-hill/). I have to mention Anthony Haden-Guest (http://www.spearswms.com/search/?search=haden&x=0&y=0), our arts editor, who is a legend both sides of the Atlantic and one of my favourite writers. William has some pretty good connections - you say 'Do you know someone who...?' and he invariably does.

What were you doing in Switzerland the other day?

I was interviewing the CEO of Hublot watches in Geneva. It's my second visit there this year, after Design Miami/Basel and Art Basel. It's nice but I'm a London boy through and though - it was way too small.

One of my beefs is that too many magazines and newspapers are preoccupied with wealth and status. Taking your Spear's cap off for a moment, what do you think?

Definitely. If you talk about wealth and status, don't fetishise them, which is the mistake most papers make - they can be serious objects of study and comment too.

William got back control of Spear's lately. Tell us about that and what difference that's likely to make to the magazine and to you.

William rescued Spear's from Luxury Publishing - and it feels good to be independent. With new investment, we've got our sights set on the world - we already have a Russian edition and we're looking forward to Indian and far eastern ones too. As for the difference to me, plus ca change...

Who is the most fascinating rich person in the world? - and why.

I don't think I can name one but I can pick a whole class - entrepreneurs. Everyday I meet and write about them, and the fizz of their brains makes them bound to succeed. They see the holes in the world where no-one else does and have the energy, creativity and intelligence to plug them. It's like watching kaleidoscopes of genius.

In a few words tell us where serious wealth resides these days and is it moving any place? For instance, is the Russian oligarchy about to implode?

At the moment, Russia and the Middle East are heavily oil-dependent for wealth, which is a mixed blessing. As for implosion, it's already happened - most have been bailed out by the Kremlin. I'd look to China in the future - it can only go up.

Vanessa Neumann

I did your horoscope, Josh. Capricorns such as yourself have a natural affinity with high status; your Moon in Leo makes you confident, exuberant even, with a keen sense that you can beat others at their game. It's a good leadership indicator provided arrogance is reined in. Your tender side does not always get properly expressed. Together, the placements make you independent, and eager for authority: indeed people with this combo often successfully seek high positions in large enterprises. Integrity is important to you. As I don't have your time of birth I can't calculate your Rising Sign, but other placements worth mentioning: Saturn in your 2nd House oddly enough puts a focus on finances - this can mean that lessons learnt in life will be through a preoccupation with money as well as hard work which does not generate much in the way of financial rewards. The Sun in your 4th House makes you dominant in family situations, can indicate a very close attachment to at least one parent, and is often found in people who make a "family" of friends or colleagues. Your Moon in the 11th House assures you a wide social circle among all classes and an ease with the powerful. This is an extremely brief horoscope I'm afraid - but does it ring true?

Gosh, it does - it's almost like you've seen my forthcoming autobiography (as yet unwritten). Confident - you can't be a meek journalist. Exuberant - I'd hope so. Tender - give me the chance (see above). And a wide social circle - I mistakenly synced my iPhone with my address book and wound up with 2000 names.

Where would you like to be in, say, five years' time?

I'd like to carry on in financial journalism, so maybe the Economist or FT, but my secret ultimate ambition is to present Front Row on Radio 4.

Thank you Josh! Give my love to William!

Spear's website click here

Nicola Formby's excellent bj* (oh, *brunette job)

After a blissful week of life-proactive events, I turn with a heavy heart to passive grazing mode ie catching up with what passes for news.

With no enthusiasm whatsoever I buy a copy of the London Evening Standard and - expecting to read more about swine flu or Lord Mandelson's Corfu holiday with Nicky Haslam - my eyes instead alight on the paper's front page exclusive and an item that fills me with restored purpose: Nicola Formby has altered her hair colour from blonde to brunette.

Actually, it's not an exclusive at all but a buy-in from Tatler. You have to marvel at the magic of celebrity - a secular version of transubstantiation - which can turn the most banal thing imaginable into the hottest goss thingy. I mean, would I get your interest if I told you that I had abandoned the grey of my permed tresses for a shade of cerulean as a nod to Picasso's Blue Period? No, I didn't think so.

Though you probably don't know who Nicola is, she enjoys a London micro-fame as the woman who cunt-cocks one of the many middle-aged Sunday Times lifers, AA Gill. He calls her "the Blonde" in his munch-munch reviews. The loveliness of her face on the Standard's splash page is not in the least compromised by the likelihood that hardly anyone on the 18.47 London to Littlehampton train (or any other train) will have a clue who she is: she's just another pretty face who fucks the right person who works for the right paper which imagines that ambient media starriness is of universal interest.

Like AA, Nicola name-drops and brand-drops with abandon. Here's a digest of her ES article:

1 She attended Wellington College. Good genes, then.
2 She had a friend called Lucinda. Well, her name wouldn't be Chardonnay, would it?
3 Father of her twins is "Sunday Times restaurant critic" AA Gill. See 1.
4 Diane at Cadogan Salon. Only the best *bj for Nic.
5 Jemima Khan and Laura Bailey have "enviable tresses". Flattery ....
6 Diane von Furstenberg and Christa D'Souza are role model friends. Flattery ...
7 Quotes acquaintance Jeremy Clarkson, AA's mate. Remember the slebby jerk circle.
8 Is "being labelled the Blonde" a curse? No, it's the reason why Tatler commissioned the piece.
9 Passes the fishmongers on Kensington Church St - ES country.
10 David Bailey put her on the cover of Ritz. Ambient starriness, darling!

Nicola's bj in full!

Vanessa Neumann: MPs' expenses "source" named?

Someone on Twitter asked me the other day about Arcati's dear friend William Cash: I hadn't written about him for some time, I was reminded, and what was the fellow up to. I haven't the foggiest: still writing about the rich, I guess - and comforting his MP dad Bill Cash and sister Laetitia after this morning's news in the Telegraph, I suppose. Fancy getting the taxpayer to bankroll his rent for Laetitia's flat when he owned another flat already in London. Oh well. I've heard worse.

It is William's wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - the Venezuelan intellectual and so-called "Cracker from Caracas" after her Mick Jagger fling - who interests me more, to be honest. She and William parted a while ago. Vanessa now writes a blog on her elegant website, click here. I see in her bio she makes no mention of William: we learn of her four degrees, the six languages she can speak or read. Among other things she's editor-at-large of something called Diplomat magazine. Here she is rubbishing Hugo Chavez.

Happily, we learn that the pair (Vanessa and William, that is) are still on speaks. On May 17, 2009, she quotes William's good advice about attending a society birthday party in London: "'You must be prepared; that’s the key to these things,' said my husband, who is highly perspicacious but rarely prepared for anything." Such are the perils of intimacy: familiarity. See Katie and Peter, too.

The May 23 posting - on my birthday - grips the eye: she appears to name the "source" in the MPs' expenses scandal: one Heather Brooke, an investigative journalist. But hold on, not quite. Later in the piece, we learn that Vanessa is still unsure of the identity of the whistleblower despite this claim in her opening par: "The identity of the source remains a mystery. No longer."

Then again, in her last par she comments of the Telegraph: "[They] have reinvented themselves as the clever kids on Fleet Street and are the real winners in the scandal - except for maybe Ms Brooke, whose journalism career will now be assured." I'm confused. We can agree Brooke started the litigation ball rolling on MPs' expenses transparency in 2005, but does that justify Vanessa's headline: "Anonymous No More: Meet the UK’s Deep Throat"? Click here and tell me what Vanessa's saying. I haven't a clue.

London Evening Standard relaunched: 78 year-old man in rescue mission

As a celebrant of elderliness, Madame Arcati has decided to reverse her previous toxic opinion of editor Geordie Greig in the light of his new London Evening Standard relaunched today.

For at the apex of the neo-goodies on display is Tom Wolfe, 78, messiah of the not-so-New Journalism, and author of a lengthy "world exclusive" for the paper titled The rich have feelings too... - a showcase of Wolfe's schtick - the italics, the capitals, the pastiche demotic, the love letter dressed up as satire - which doubtless has made many other fossils nostalgic for his brand of literary nattering on. The work, comic in intention if not effect, is all about fallen super-wealthy cunts divested of their private Lear Jets, now forced to use the Gatwicks and Heathrows of the world and queue with us commoners. Not quite Swiftian is all I'll say. But nice to see the old boy still in his white suit.

Complementing this heavy-weight contribution from Gotham is... Sam Leith in his Monday debut as a weekly columnist. I was recently less than impressed by his gossy colleague Sebastian Shakespeare. I now have reason to revise this opinion. Sam today loses his ES columnal cherry with this opening original piece of writing: "The devil, as a wise man said, is in the detail." I wonder how long it took him to think that one up. Shakespeare, you're rehired!

I thought the front page splash quite original: a news story all about a very rich man with a "secret common-law wife and child" reluctant to give his betrayed ex-wife £11m. While the rest of the UK media froth about MPs' expenses and other trifles, Mr Greig betrays his true love: the rich and their doings. Expect more long-winded soap on the loaded. What's Lord Linley up to these days ever since that other matter got covered up?

In other news, I learn that the let-go theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh was on a £120k contract and has a £38k pension pot. That's an extraordinary amount of money, all deserved I'm sure. A new theatre reviewer is sought. One can only hope that Sam Leith is on nothing like that amount, if only for the sake of the paper. Though I'm sure Wolfe's piece was VERY EXPENSIVE.

William Cash: Has Vanessa buggered orf?

Is it true that Dr Vanessa Neumann has taken her leave of her husband William Cash's society? An Arcatiste makes this claim, but since I have stopped reading publications that deify the rich or run anecdotes about dull people who happen to be loaded, I do not know if this true or public knowledge.

In one of the last pieces that I read of William's in ES, he had revealed tensions in his marriage, one brought on by his blowing up his vintage car by failing to replenish it with oil or petrol. He also appeared to have seen the light on wealth, eschewing his once infamous craven fascination for the glamour of money; though whether this was empathetically precipitated by the fashionable credit crunch and the new unemployment of his many friends is hard to say.

It's always difficult to know whether people mean what they write.

Catherine Ostler to edit Tatler. Oh dear

Yes, indeed. But my lips are sealed. I'm not one to gossip. Catherine, married conveniently to Condé Nast general manager Albert Read, is perfect for Tatler, a money- and status-worshipping priestess whose idea of heaven is a string of pearly noughts - she certainly never discouraged writer William Cash at ES from regaling us with news of his latest heiress love interest.

More to the point, Catherine suits her boss Nicholas Coleridge whose own craven attitude to wealth and status has to be seen to be believed - well, read one of his novels: just money measures set to dialogue. I shall never forget observing him running around like a deranged whippet at a Cartier polo day many years ago, trying to get a photo shot of the Queen blocked off by a crowd of ghastly gawpers. In those few moments I sensed all the materialist kinetic energy that drives him on.

As for Catherine, I'm just praying we don't have a Jane Procter re-run. I understand that she is blessed with a clear sense of purpose that sometimes is enforced by a voice that might be appreciated at the Royal Opera House. Or Wembley.

William Cash and his foursome

Dear Madame
In case anyone is interested (I doubt it!) William Cash's newest magazine has no less than four pictures of himself.
Anon

Dear Anon
Thank you for telling us. Which magazine is this? In ignorance one supposes it is dedicated to the super-rich and makes much use of the word "oligarch". I hope it's called something like The Cash Register or Heiress Today, Gone Tomorrow. I like the story of the silly rich cunt who is having a wing built for his or her doggies that will have eye-recogntiion technology so that the woofers can come and go as they please - that is something Cash will be onto. How's his marriage to Vanessa? I really can't be bothered with any of this but please feel free to tell me what you all know starting with the magazine - has it Nicholas Coleridge as a contributing writer?
MAx

William Cash marries another rich woman

It's not every day someone is given the opportunity to write about his forthcoming nuptials twice in the same edition of a newspaper. Yesterday the London Evening Standard permitted its wealth-worshipping correspondent William Cash to regale the few dozen people who know (of) him with a blow-by-blow account of his engagement to Mick Jagger's ex, "Venezuelan-born writer and academic Vanessa Neumann" (who wrote me a little while back about William's journalistic output) and planned wedding. If you missed the double-page spread in the paper itself, the magazine supplement offered a reprise and more name-dropping. Cash appears to have a Jasper Gerard-like hold on editors.

Regrettably, the two pieces could not quite agree on the precise day of the ceremony or ceremonies. The paper suggested Saturday while the magazine offered "11am" Friday. I had soooooo wanted to toast them at the right moment, but was thwarted! Perhaps the magazine piece is the accurate one: they married yesterday at the Chelsea Register Office but then had their Mass of Celebration at the Palace of Westminster and then the dinner dance at the Carlton Club (phew!) today ... it's all so confusing.

But if all went well at the register office (let's say yesterday), the pair will have been greeted outside by the "surprise" Edwardian horse and carriage William "splashed out" on. Sipping chilled champagne, they will have clip-clopped about the gates of Buckingham Palace (a nice aspirational touch that) prior to lunch at Mark's Club in Mayfair. Both bride and groom can boast beau monde wedding guests: she, Topper and Tinsley Mortimer, "the ultimate WASP Manhattan socialite couple"; he, er, Piers Morgan. Toby Young was banned by Vanessa because of his false claim he shared her with Jagger, William gallantly repeats. William's ex-wife is Ilaria Bulgari, "of the jewellery family". She will not have been welcome at the wedding(s) either.

One really would have to have a heart of stone not to wish Vanessa and William all the luck that money can buy and brand celebs can vouchsafe.

A horoscopic glimpse of Dr Vanessa Neumann, click here.

Liz Hurley - now SHE wants to write a cookbook

Liz Hurley is planning to write a cookbook. Just what the world needs, another fucking cookbook. She tells her adoring friend William Cash in ES magazine that she has 35 piglets, 18 adolescent pigs, four sows, two boars, 40 cattle, 80 sheep and many other beasties on her Gloucestershire farm. Perhaps her cookbook could feature gorgeous, cute photos of these animals – she’s bottle-feeding three lambs – on the left-hand pages and more gorgeous photos of the self-same animals turned into delicious meals with recipes on the right-hand pages - a before and after concept. I happily offer this idea for nothing, she is free to use.

A horoscopic glimpse of Dr Vanessa Neumann

As I await to hear further from Dr Vanessa Neumann – the future Mrs William Cash – said to be worth $100m and of a family worth $200m (so the papers say!) - I have glanced at her horoscope.

The birth details I have: born Feb 18, 1972, in Caracas, Venezuela. If correct, Vanessa is Aquarius with an Aries Moon: she will be reticent and unusually self-willed as well as highly perceptive (I wonder if that's true?). As I don’t have her birth (tick-tock) time I cannot calculate her Rising Sign. Her Sun in the Fourth House confirms the importance and almost peculiar influence of family on her life while her Moon in the Fifth House underscores a need for privacy, shrewdness in business matters and a strong attraction to sensation.

Saturn in the Seventh House inclines her to caution and promises quite testing times in relationships – the key to spiritual growth it should be said. This placement can mean she is fairly cool and undemonstrative - not quick to show her feelings - but may denote a dutiful nature in important liaisons. Despite her wealth and position she will feel restricted by all sorts of relationships in her life and by a resistance to her ideas, which is most interesting. She just has to persist. Who says the rich have it all?

There’s so much more to be said but that’s enough for now. I need a glass of wine.

William Cash - an important clarification

The impossibly beautiful intellectual Dr Vanessa Neumann - the future Mrs William Cash - has clarified something to me that didn't make much sense before now.

William revealed in ES mag that he would have to write "5,000 pieces" to pay for a £670,000 engagement ring, which would average a paltry £134 a feature. However, Dr N writes: "William's column on engagement rings was edited by ES - he actually wrote '5,000 articles in The Spectator'. Which is about right; or maybe you would know more about Spectator pay rates these days than William." Well, these small magazines can't afford to play King Farouk - even with Andrew Neil driving up the lifestyle copy quota - hence the eternal presence of the rich man Taki whose column is a low-return hobby and no better for that. But I'm happy to make this point on the 5,000 pieces clear and wish the couple all the happiness in the world. Their joy draws attention to my own singleton existence - perhaps I should start an online diary to tell you all about it. It would make a short movie; Duncan Fallowell could play me (in drag of course).

I have asked Vanessa for an email-interview, btw. She is definitely a most fascinating person and I wonder whether I should propose to her, too. William would have to share her with Madame Arcati. The variety might intrigue her ...

William Cash: Full of Bulgari

My William Cash story has generated all sorts of thoughts on the man named after his first love. For instance, I hear of one journalist sent to interview him at the West London home of his then betrothed, Ilaria Bulgari. It was a media story about his persuasive skills in flogging Spear's Wealth Management Survey to some rich people..

The pair sat in his (ie her) 5* sitting room, and the journo was just about to start asking questions. As he embarked on his first question (which should have been "How did a joker like you end up in a place like this?" but was actually something dull and supine), Cash asked: "Is the dictaphone on?" The journo said yes. "Then I will begin..."

What followed was 45 minutes of Cash droning on about how wonderful he and his magazine were and all his famous friends, especially Elizabeth but also Tom Wolfe et al. The hack tried to ask questions but Cash spoke straight over him. Sometimes he would pause for breath, at which point the journo would interject with something. Cash would disregard the question and continue with whatever it was he was talking about.

After he had exhausted his soliloquy, he showed the writer out. "That," he said, pointing to a large photographic canvas, "is an original Alison Jackson."*

*Know a Gordon Brown lookalike? Click here

William Cash - feeding from the 5,000 ...

My good wishes to journalist William Cash on the news of his latest betrothal - to Venezuela-born socialite intellectual Vanessa Neumann, last seen frolicking with Mick Jagger. In ES magazine he relates the most amusing episode of his proposal to her on New Year's Day in Mustique - where else? - with novelist Jay McInerney and new wife Anne Hearst stepping in valiantly as branded name-droppees for din-dins.

All this excitement leads William - founder of Spear's Wealth Management Survey - to wonder how much a chap should spend on an engagement ring. "Tradition has it that it should be two months' salary," he informs (news to me), so I can understand why he nearly keeled over when in 2002, on a visit to a Bulgari store in Bond Street, with his now ex-wife Ilaria Bulgari (the Bulgari heiress), he was quoted £670,000 for one of the "smaller rings" in the glass cabinet. He reveals disarmingly: "I calculated I would have to write at least 5,000 pieces" to secure the bling. This is shocking. I hadn't realised that a man as preoccupied with money as Mr Cash laboured so cheaply - that works out at a mere £134 a piece. Surely this breaches minimum wage laws?

With his cute nose pressed up against the glass windows of expensive shops he cuts a rather poignant figure in my mind. Suddenly I quite like him. And let this be a warning to aspiring hacks as they dream in their colleges ...