Darling, I’m not name-dropping I’m networking

Nicky knows everyone who is anyone and, as his book demonstrates, he has met most of the iconic figures of the late 20th century, including Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Cecil Beaton, Diana Cooper, Noël Coward, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol and Jack Kennedy.

The flamboyant interior designer and cousin of Princess Diana was the toast of this week's Tatler 300th anniversary party and is soon to be fêted with a BBC Storyville documentary, Hi Society - The Wonderful World of Nicky Haslam.

Haslam is not only an indefatigable networker; his book offers the most eloquent proof that name-dropping has come of age. It is the social glue that binds us together.

When you name-drop, you are not social climbing but social rhyming, hoping to strike a chord with your listener or reader.

Name-dropping was once frowned on in polite society. That's because it was seen as a status game whereby you claimed familiarity with a social superior to create a positive impression.

In Jane Austen's Emma, name-dropper par excellence Mrs Elton is ridiculed for boasting about her brother-in-law, Mr Suckling, his ever-so-smart home Maple Grove and his lovely carriage, or "barouche-landau", which she saw as proof of his gentility.

To be labelled a name-dropper was the ultimate stigma and it was used as an insult to keep arrivistes at bay in a hierarchical society where everyone was expected to know their place.

The modern-day rules have changed and society is in flux. As David Cameron has said, "What matters is not where you've come from but where we're all going to." In a sense we are all arrivistes now.

Those most admired in today's world share their best attributes - ambition, drive, a determination to succeed and improve their lot.

Name-dropping, as Haslam's book testifies, is no longer a status game - it is a networking game and a healthy sign of a flourishing meritocracy.

What is Facebook but one long cyber name-drop? The more names on your Facebook homepage, the more on-trend you are. It has become an acceptable form of social marketing.

Proof of how times have changed is how much-maligned name-droppers of previous generations are being rapidly rehabilitated. One of the great 20th-century offenders was James Lees-Milne, once dismissed as a snob.

He wrote what are now regarded as the best diaries of the late 20th century.

You don't have to be a like-minded snob to enjoy his diaries, just as you don't have to presume an intimate knowledge of Restoration London to appreciate Pepys.

The main redeeming feature of Haslam's book is that he is an unrepentant socialite.

Leona pays a price for being a celebrity

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face, wrote John Updike. It's also a mask that invites punches in the face, as Leona Lewis discovered this week.

I can think of any number of celebrities I would like to clock but the lovely Leona would not be among them.

The Bleeding Love singer was signing copies of her book at Waterstone's in Piccadilly this week when she was assaulted by a 6ft 5in fan, who then declaimed: "I love you, Leona!"

A funny way of showing your devotion - or was her assailant actually trying to give her a nose bleed? "I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love "It is the perfect illustration of our love/hate relationship with celebrities: we adore them as much as we desire to floor them.

Ladies, gentlemen — the Poem, alas, cannot be with you

Normally it is nominees who fail to turn up to award ceremonies. At this week's Literary Review Grand Poetry Prize lunch, the prize-winning poem failed to show up.

Sir Vidia Naipaul and Dame Beryl Bainbridge were among the luminaries who gathered to hear who would carry off the £5,000 cheque.

It is normal practice for the winning entry to be read out by Jenny Seagrove but she had unaccountably forgotten to bring it.

It was thought unfair to ask the winner, Bill Webster, to recite his masterpiece from memory. But we were all none the wiser as to why he deserved the plaudits.

Still, the sight of Dame Beryl Bainbridge waving a napkin over her head while a tenor sang Nessun Dorma to the assembled company was more than adequate compensation.

Even geniuses are fallible. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, admitted to a conference this week that the two slashes at the front of www on every web address (//www) are unnecessary. "I could have designed it without them," he said.

"A lot of paper, trees and human labour could have been saved if people hadn't had to type them." You could say the same about hyphens, apostrophes and colons - all punctuation, but where would we be without them?

Don't be so hard on yourself, Sir Tim. I wouldn't want you any other way - hooray for double-barrelled names and double slashes.