Our friends in the north

By mistaking this wholesome staple for a faddish dip - the sort of thing that the quintessential arriviste Abigail would have served at her ghastly party - Mandelson incontinently exposed himself as the effete, southern bourgeois that so many socialists (remember them?) believed him to be.

In which Will Self gets it wrong. Gentle readers will know that it is not Abigail who is the arriviste; it is Beverly; we never see Abigail, Susan's daughter and whose party is the reason Susan has come over from next door. Sadly, the guacamole story cannot be attributed to Peter Mandelson.

Here's the Spice Girls, up north among the quaint working folk.