HACKWATCH Vine art
“ FORGET every other reading matter
– put down your 250th anniversary copy of
Pride and Prejudice
,” trilled Melanie McDonagh in last week’s
Standard
, “because the required reading right now is the extracts now being published from Sarah Vine’s memoir,
How Not to Be a Political Wife
.”
Er, OK then. But can Michael Gove really compare with Mr Darcy? Well, on this evidence, he could drink the owner of Pemberley under the table. “He loved Europe – especially its vineyards,” writes Vine at one point, before retelling an anecdote where her hungover husband nearly vomits on the Pope’s shoes. Amid the expenses scandal, he comes home from a fiery public meeting and puts away “three-quarters of a bottle of whisky in 20 minutes”. And while Michael might not ever have emerged dripping from a lake, Vine notices when they first meet that he enjoys “hour-long baths in the chalet, reading Paradise Lost and emerging, pink and smiling, in his pastel lavender Hackett dressing gown and matching pyjamas, smelling of Clarins Blue Bath”.