“When the season opens later this month, there will be a new restaurant designed by architecture’s oldest enfant terrible, Nigel Coates. A scheme has been introduced to woo the under-thirties by allotting them cheaper tickets. There’s been a clean-out of the notorious 20-year waiting list for admission to the club which sustains the enterprise, and 4,000 of those in the queue have just been fast-tracked into ‘associate membership’.”