Viper wit from the gardener, writer and Knight of exquisite taste.

“Gianni Versace’s driver was at the airport in Milan to collect us. That evening it was just dinner à quatre. I have never seen Gianni better, full of excitement about his palazzo della fantasia in Miami.”

Alexandra Shulman, Inside Vogue: A Diary of My 100th Year (£16.99, Fig Tree)

Formidable editor reveals the Duchess of Cambridge as Vogue’s secret cover girl.

“Kate Middleton, Marlborough girl of pleasant appearance, now the wife of our future king, with us all in thrall. One part of the brain says she’s just another nice woman, but when you come face to face with her you can’t help but feel she’s something more.”

Alan Bennett, Keeping On, Keeping On (£25, Faber)

Pet gripes and grumbles of the Leeds-by-Primrose-Hill playwright.

“Idly listening to Radio 4 and none of it is anything to do with me until some Scottish woman in the course of telling off the novelist Mark Haddon accuses him of ‘Alan Bennett tweeness.’ It’s not a serious injury to my self-esteem but rather as if someone passing me in the street has just turned back to give me a flying kick up the bum and then gone on their way.”