The Back of My Head is in Italian Vogue

Yes, it's true, fame at last: I went to a party last week or so for Benjie Fraser (son of Antonia Fraser) and his children. The theme was Arabian Nights, which was liberally interpreted, with some choosing to dress in, well, normal clothes. There are lots of pictures on Italian Vogue - and here is the back of my head, talking to Nicola Shulman, author of Graven with Diamonds. As is clear from the picture I am obviously wearing a costume. Ahem. Well, it was the closest thing to a costume I could find in my house - a blue Nehru coat. The party itself was roisterously amusing, with panjandrums, bishops, and Antonia Fraser in a moustache.  (The moustache was fake, I hasten to add). Harry Mount was there, inexplicably wearing an English hat. There was an abundance of Frasers and family, including writer Flora Fraser, and artist William Roper-Curzon in his dressing gown, which was conveniently suited to Arabian costume.

• Read my review of Graven with Diamonds
• William Roper-Curzon and Henry Hudson

By the River (Henry) Hudson

This photograph does not do the pictures justice

To the depths of East London last night, near the new Olympic stadium at Bow, for a showing of Henry Hudson's Hogarthian plasticene paintings, which depict the artist in a number of poses from the Rake's Progress. Despite claims of remoteness, I managed to take a bus there without mishap, although I did get a lift for the rest of the way from a nice man in a hat (thank you nice man in a hat).

A red carpet led in to the enormous warehouse, where huge tables laden with glasses were laid out. Behind hung the paintings: the effect was magnificent. Velvet coated guests thronged; I was upset because I didn't wear my velvet jacket (so I wore a brown one today). A pink haired Janet Street-Porter smiled affably in a corner. Also present (amongst legions of others) were artists Vanessa Garwood and William Roper-Curzon and curator Aretha Campbell. I talked to Georgia Byng, the author of the Molly Moon series, about children's writing.

The Olympian setting was fitting, the contrasts between the scuzzy location and the glamour of the guests, the sporting prowess and the artist's decadence illuminated. The debris floating in the river could have been put there by Tracey Emin herself. We ate roast hog, served by girls in white dresses with blue flowers in their hair, and tried (unsuccessfully) not to reenact any of the Hogarth scenes. There was a curtain marked 'DO NOT GO BEHIND THIS CURTAIN'. I went behind it. Hoping to find another world (maybe Narnia), I was disappointed in the result (which I will keep to myself).

Henry Hudson and William Roper-Curzon

I'm writing a short story for the artist Henry Hudson. He's a proponent of the new grotesque, and makes marvellous Hogarthian pictures out of plasticine. They are alive, haptic, roisterous. Here is the biography which appears in a pamphlet for the show, with a short excerpt from the story, which is titled 'Henry Underground'.

I've also been to a show by William Roper-Curzon, who does intricate drawings. One that particularly hooked me was Diana and Actaeon. Titian and Ovid, two of the layers that slide beneath The Liberators. The Actaeon story, in its violence, its poignancy, is always startling and shocking. The hunter stumbles upon the virgin goddess as she bathes; for his impudence, he is turned into a stag, and torn apart by his own dogs. You don't spy on a goddess.

"He flies through grounds where oftentimes he chased had ere tho;
Even from his own folk is he fain, alas, to flee away.
He strained oftentimes to speak, and was about to say,
'I am Actaeon. Know your lord and master, sirs, I pray.'
But use of words and speech did want to utter forth his mind." (Golding)

The Latin is as follows: "clamare libebat,
'Actaeon ego sum, dominum cognoscite vestrum.'
verba anima desunt; resonat latratibus aether.'

Golding misses the terrible, haunting contrast of the lack of words with the 'latratibus' - barkings - 'resonat' - resounding - in the air.

There are many theories as to why Diana exacts such terrible punishment upon the innocent Actaeon. Perhaps the myth stemmed from Actaeon's arrogance in boasting that he was better than the goddess at hunting (always a bad thing to boast in front of a god, I find); perhaps there is at the story's root a veneration for a female cult, where a goddess' statue was washed, and men were not allowed; it was only in later versions that the myth was eroticised. Whichever way, the suddenness of Actaeon's death is a reminder of our own fragility as we hunt through the forests of the world. I think that Roper-Curzon's drawing captures that wildness and that haunting sense of impermanence beautifully. The lines tremble, as we too tremble at the hunter's fate.