p.

& a piano. The concert people went on entertaining us - and my two Naval Commander friends brought along a Surgeon Commander called Gay French who used to know Noel Coward - and was first class on the piano himself, & had a number of Coward's unpublished and unpublishable songs. It all went on until 3.0 am & everybody got a bit tight & enjoyed themselves. One man who came - he has been living in the Mess, the week before - was called Dan Christie & comes from Coleraine, where my pa went to school. He said himself that the war is "atrocious". Can remember Frank [Hanican?] of Warrenpoint. Anyway - this man gave a house warming party in his new mess yesterday to which I was bidden - & this was also a pleasant, amusing drinking party. It seems I distinguished myself by dropping an amusing brick. There were two women there - one of them I know quite well, the other one I had never seen before, the latter was rather remarkable - middle aged & very blond, & full of pep & she was wearing a sort of blue fluffy coatee. So I asked the woman I knew, who the funny old girl was, with the bright blue rabbit round her neck. This remark was greeted with howls & screams of laughter - & it turned out that she was this woman's oldest & dearest friend, & rather a famous person in these parts - a Lady Helen Ibrahim - the wife of the Rajah of Johore. Well, well - how was I to know.