twenty things to tell my children

1. Marry for money. Your children will never forgive you if you marry for love and then complain about school fees and offer up only feeble holidays and shared bedrooms.

2. Boys, you should marry a girl you admire. A girl who is your intellectual equal or superior. A girl who will stand by you when you are a fool – and you will be a fool. All men are fools. A girl who will chivy you out of the blues. A girl who can keep you guessing.

3. Only drink tea in good china.

4. Diamonds must always be worn if there is even the slimmest chance you may drink champagne at breakfast, luncheon Tiffin or supper.

5. Never befriend someone who hasn’t attempted to cultivate a personal style even if it isn’t entirely appealing to you.

6. Wear lashings of pearls and cashmere and expensive scent when going to confession - you will find it softens the blow of the penance.

7. Diamonds fare better in mud than pearls so team your Hunters and Barbour with diamonds when feeding the hens or mucking out the stables.

8. Be extravagant when it comes to knowledge and experience. It never pays to be stingy or penny pinching over books, culture, travel or “the new”.

9. Crocodile shoes and handbags are a must for school visits but alligator is better. It is much easier to ensure the upper hand with teachers and headmistresses in sturdy shiny accessories. Also crocodile shoes have a better chance of surviving the inevitable trudges across fields required on speech days.

10. Only eat oysters in months with an R - the other months are for storing your fur. A light ocelot may be kept on hand for chilly summer evenings.

11. The thank you note is at the heart of good manners. Always take the time to send a thank you note after you have stayed with someone, been taken out or shown a special kindness by another.

12. If a man invites you out on a date and suggests going "dutch" or in any way at all insults your finer feelings with gross behavior, do not look shocked or glare. It shows awfully bad breeding! Stand, gather your belongings elegantly and with extravagant flourish throw his wine stylishly in his face. Nota Bene: This is not an excuse to neglect writing a thank you letter afterwards though perhaps a stern letter of complaint to his mother may also be in order.

13. Never slap a man with red hair across the face as they feel no pain - Edward de Bono told me this repeatedly along with a lot of blonde jokes of which I don't think you or anyone else will benefit.

14. Never raise your voice to anyone. It is for this reason that I encouraged you to cultivate linguistic superiority from an early age.

15. Never strike a child especially your own. Limit yourself to chinese burns or tiny pinches but only if they are very dangerously naughty - and never while angry. Nota Bene: you were never dangerously naughty.

16. Anger is terribly aging, as is self-pity. Besides you are a Catholic, which enables you to gorge yourself on mea culpas and wander proprietarily through luxurious cathedrals so cheer up.

17. In times of crisis when even family seem inadequate your faith will be of great comfort as will your minks and jewels. A few decades of the rosary and you'll inevitably be wrapped in the boon of sleep.

18. People let you down. Don't obsess over this. Put on your nicest attitude and do something selfless for another.

19. Avoid reading the bible - like most books written by bearded men it is part thriller, part horror. Focus on Our Lady a fabulous role model. The Queen of Heaven never sullied herself with he said/he said gospels or nagging letters or warnings not to lead blind men the wrong way across a field or whether or not to stone a rapist. She busied herself chatting to angels and didn't even require sperm to bear a God/Man. No, the bible is for the most part though perfectly suitable for those studying theology or misogyny.

20. When something needs to be said say it. Truth since fine architecture and 4.30 dining has been dying out since Georgian times. Don’t demean yourself with excuses such as “trying not to hurt feelings”. Lies are the wickedest sins of all. Having said that, not everything needs to be said.

Dropsy drops in for Semolina and whotnot

I have swollen glands and a sore throat. My doctor is calling it glandular fever. I am calling it dropsy. I have no idea what dropsy. Its one of those old illnesses that fell out of favour like pox. Illness like manners are so faddish. No one seems to suffer from dropsy anymore so I felt as I was going to be ill and moping about doing nothing useful I should jolly well roll my sleeves up and do my bit for tradition. Having a cause is good for ones health and mind, even if it is a rather ironic cause of sorts.

As a result of my dropsy I am unable to care for myself in the normal fashion of going to the cafe up the road for a fortifying freshly squeezed juice and a ruinously strong late. Nor am I meeting friends to peck at morsals and sip at cocktails. Instead dropsy has driven me to eating semolina. I found it in the cupboard of the South African chap I'm renting rooms from in Sydney. It which sounds like something that grows on old eggs and hens but is actually a sort of nursery food. Just the thing when dropsy's got the better of you. I boil milk, add a thin stream of semolina powder and take the pot off the heat. After transporting the contents of the pot to a bowl, I repair to bed with a suger pot where I eat it with a runsible spoon. This carry on has lasted three days.Then I ran out of pots, spoons and bowls. Today I listlessly looked at the contents of the sink, poked them hopefully but alas I didn't have the courage to do what needed to be done. Instead I went to bed with an improving book - The Secret History by Donna Tartlette.

Housework is largely a fools errand according to Quentin Crisp and others who have attempted a life of hoopla. For some I fear it is merely a task faute de mieux. For me it is a terribly exhausting and life changing terror. I classify it as taxing as driving a car or swimming neither of which I have ever had the courage to attempt.

Nancy Mitford as ever summed it up beautifully when she wrote:

"I think housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is, no comparison, and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea and were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if nothing special had happened."

This is why I have left my dishes to soak until someone made of sterner stouter stuff comes to visit. Dropsy or no dropsy I can hardly tackle those pots and just go on living as if nothing remarkable had happened. I just don't have that sort of resilience.