You've got to get your priorities right at the Cannes Film Festival. Heading the hit list is The Party Invitation. Beg, borrow or steal as many as your hands can get round. Everything else comes second. Especially if it's a party with the promise of makan. Free food is a great leveller, it brings everybody - including people you thought the epitome of cool - to their knees.
"If we don't get to enter one of these functions, we don't get to eat," some press person told me one time.
Why I Deserve A Party Invite makes for one of the better anecdotes on the Croisette (the main action strip).
"I own a kilt" and "I eat Welsh rarebit" don't count when hoping to score on the Entrapment party list. (Oh for goodness sakes, Connery is Scottish and Zeta-Jones is Welsh.)
Once you've TPI in hand, find something to wear that won't let your country down. Choose any colour as long as it is black. Rentals are available, that's why it's called Oscar de la Rented.
Last night the pleasure of our company was requested by Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Miss Joan Collins to a reception following the screening of A Clandestine Marriage, their period comedy of errors. It was held at the Belle Otero at the top of the Carlton hotel. You can't do much better than that venue.
The food's always good, the drinks don't run out, and Sir Nigel (you don't say Sir Hawthorne unless he's a Lord Hawthorne, the Brits are very good at this sort of thing) is a modest old dear.
I told him Singaporeans only ever see him as Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister,
even though I thought he gave a lovely performance in Object Of My
Affection and he said, "Jennifer Aniston is a wonderful girl, I love her,
but she's gone off with Brad Pitt now, so I've lost out."
