Interesting to read, in a profile of the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, that although his parents lived in a Nash terrace in Regent's Park, sent him to Eton, had a cook, etc, they always had very naff old cars. In other circles, this is called "dropping a bollock", which means scrupulously covering every angle except one. I went to see Castle Howard in North Yorkshire recently, and there, on the beautifully maintained south lawn, was a bouncy castle. If the present-day Howard who owns the house had placed it there for his children's or, better still, his own enjoyment, then this would be a clear case of a bollock dropped. But it turned out to be for use by paying guests.
Brian Sewell, the surely extremely posh art critic, once dropped a bollock, I thought, by mentioning that his main interest apart from fine art was stock car racing. But then I read an erudite article by him on the beauty of the curve made by a cornering car - even, presumably, one with its doors hanging off - and I realised he had absorbed motor racing into his overall aesthetic scheme.
Most of my socially successful friends never come close to dropping a bollock. All the current self-consciousness about lifestyle militates against any lapse.
I go to smart houses slavering after any minor faux pas: orange toilet paper in a bathroom with Philippe Starcke taps; an egg-timer set in a miniature ship's wheel bearing the slogan "A Souvenir from the Isle of Wight" proudly displayed in a Bulthaup kitchen; an ELO album among the Mingus and Coltrane records of your typical, unshaven Notting Hill culture vulture. It seldom happens. Toffs just don't drop bollocks like they used to. Or, rather, the bollocks are dropped quite knowingly. I could imagine the Notting Hill culture vulture saying up front, so as to appear charmingly vulnerable, "I know it's weird but, while my main love is atonal music, I think 'Evil Woman' by ELO is a great record". Well, I can't actually. But we are all familiar with the professors on Desert Island Discs who archly slip some nursery singalong among the string quartets. One of the good things about the Queen Mother, I guess, was that she never leaked her liking for Ali G.
