VANITY OF VANITIES

I've been gloaming round with a face like a wet weekend, deep in the midst of a Scandi-depression. It's much like normal depression, except it comes with modular furniture and a fitted kitchen: Faktum exterior, with IrRationell interior monologues. I've lamented the parlous state of the economy in general and my finances in particular, executioners guilt at work, the ghastliness of an untidy house, the way one can't get the staff these days. I've quite wailed myself into a corner. I've evolved from simple solipsist into a philosophical zombie.

But is my life really directed by Ingmar Bergman, with a script by Strindberg and additional dialogue by Schopenhauer? Erm, I don't think so. It might just be time to give myself a shake and snap out of it. Wailing Verboten. Absolument interdit. Banished back to wherever it is wailing banshees come from. 

Spring poking its optimistic head through the dead earth has helped add a little cheer, but really, there's nothing like the idea of a party to perk up Mrs Trefusis. And I have not one, but two parties to go to tonight. Yippee. As I write, I'm looking at the invitations, enticingly engraved on board so thick I can't even bend it: They could stand up on their own on the mantelpiece, if only I had one. The first is to Esquire's Beat the Bleak cocktail party, and the second to a Fabulous Moet Celebration: A Tribute To Cinema, at which the new celebrity 'face' of Moet will be revealed, and where much champagne will be drunk by seriously glamorous looking people. 

I confess, since the invitations arrived when I was deep in the slough of despond - the only time in my life go anywhere near Slough - they didn't meet with unalloyed delight. The ungrateful, petulant, unbelievably spoilt child in me immediately started complaining: Gah, I grumbled, what am I supposed to wear? How can a single outfit take one from cocktails to 'Red Carpet' glamour, for such is the Moet & Chandon dress code? What am I to do about a dress of any kind, since calling something in from a pet fashion PR is off-limits, now that the misery eating has knocked the 's' off sample size. And then there's the depilation of legs and application of copious amounts of fake tan. Not to mention the pedicure and manicure and up-do and make-up and the fact that fabulous Graham* has swanned off to Southern Africa and isn't available to treat me to his usual hair-fabulousness (see profile picture for just one example of his amazing rug re-thinking talents).

And then I thought, Mrs Trefusis: you have become impossibly ungrateful and deserving of an emormous slap. Or detention. Or worse. Go directly to jail. Do not collect two hundred pounds. You have a wardrobe full of beautiful dresses that can work perfectly well for two-centre partying and you can adequately apply varnish to your own toes and probably even conjure up something halfway convincing in the hair department with the aid of a can of Elnett and some carmen rollers. Most people would give their eye-teeth to be in a position to have lovely invitations like this. And as my mother always used to say, 'You'll enjoy it once you get there'. I shall loiter as elegantly as I can, trying not to spill martinis and Moet down the vintage English Eccentrics frock, whilst surreptitiously taking pictures of famous folk on my iPhone. 

By God, I shall go to the ball. Get thee gone, Ingmar - it's all Busby Berkeley and Grace Kelly in High Society from here on in.

 And by the time Mr Trefusis discovers I've used his razor rather than the evil epilator to shave my legs, I'll be miles down the Westway in a lovely taxi.

*graham.tilley@hotmail.com