I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch
by Simon Napier-Bell
Ebury Press $165
'Sometimes my life seems to have been one long ramble of rootless hedonism,' says Simon Napier-Bell at the beginning of his romp through three or so years of 'boys, booze, and how Wham! were sold
to China'.
He's not exaggerating: in the course of this memoir he checks into countless top-notch hotels in exotic locations across Asia, the US and Europe, enjoying days that begin with sumptuous breakfasts, and continue with the sort of lunches that would cost your average Joe a month's salary, afternoon naps and then up again for cocktails.
Having not made any decent profit out of Wham! until the end of the band's career, you wonder how much Napier-Bell must have been worth when he started. You're also left wondering how he manages to remember the intricate, 20-year-old details in the story. He either has a photographic memory or has made detailed diary entries after his invariably boozy nights out. Take this meeting with Eartha Kitt in the New York Hilton in 1984: 'I moved quickly onto another subject. 'Eartha, I once heard you say - when you first became a star and heard people call Eartha Kitt a great artist, you couldn't recognise that person as you ... you felt guilty about benefiting from her success or buying things with the money she earned'.'
