Filthy rich for the day

Pretending to be wealthy for a day is a simple task. All you have to do is wake up, get up, then go back to bed and stay there all day until it's time to go to the pub. (Well, isn't that what you'd do if you were a cash pot?)

Emulating the super-rich, however, is different. For a start, I had to get up pretty early just to make a dent in all that cash. The arrival of breakfast, at 8am, signalled another hardship, which was that I had to start drinking pretty early too.

The ?ber-rich can't simply scoff, you see, otherwise they'd be carrying extra pounds and putting undue strain on their ?ber-rich clothing. And if you don't scoff remarkably plush food treats, how else are you going to spend your morning quota of cash?

This was my explanation for the fact that when my breakfast came (straight to my house - I didn't have to bother with the shops or anything), it comprised one hell of a lot of fruit, some health-giving bagels and a bottle of champagne.

What I couldn't explain was the apple-carved-into-the-shape-of-a-duck centrepiece. What must it be like, having so much money that caterers can't resist tinkering with your food? Do the ?ber-rich always find that their fruit and vegetables arrive in the shape of animals? If so, how do they explain concepts such as animal/vegetable/mineral to their children? No wonder they send them to remarkably expensive schools.

The first genuinely rich moment of the day, though, was when the chauffeur arrived, rang the wrong doorbell and thus, inadvertently, alerted my downstairs neighbour - who thinks I'm some kind of cross between a tramp and, erm, a tramp - to the fact that I had a Mercedes waiting for me outside.

A proper ?ber-rich person, of course, wouldn't have the same thrill, since they'd never be mistaken for anything but a very, very rich person. (They wouldn't have a downstairs neighbour either, come to that.)

But, then, there are some things about richness that you can't emulate in a day - a good reputation being one of them. Shiny hair and an in-built assurance that you're not going to spill anything down yourself are two others, but that's another matter.

What struck me about being rich - apart from foodstuffs in the shape of bath toys - was this: everyone you meet has a story about other rich people. You get the works: the Saudi princess who paid £1,000 for Nobu to stay open for an extra half-hour; the captain of industry who arrived at Tiffany the night before Valentine's Day and ordered three pearl necklaces (for those of you looking for a career in discreet necklace retail, the correct response is, 'That will be for your wife, your daughter and your niece, sir?' It's the retail that's discreet, not the necklace); the woman who walked into designer Bruce Oldfield's shop and said, 'I can't wear any of my clothes in Europe one more time. Find me some new frocks, or I'll have to spend the rest of the season in Barbados.'

In fact, so regaled are you with the antics of the smacker brigade that it makes you want even more posh things than you already have. I assume this is the point. What, otherwise, would be the thrill of being rich if there weren't any rich Joneses to keep up with? Why, it would be like being the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. No, worse. It would be like wearing really nice outfits in the kingdom of the blind.

The second, and far more exciting, thing you notice is the endless flattery. This goes way beyond the ego-trip of being able to turn up at a couturier's shop an hour before it officially opens and finding him already there; even beyond getting a makeover with celebrity beauty guru John Gustafson, when most people have to sell their first-born and then wait three months for an appointment.

When I arrived for an early-morning fitting for a couture frock, Brucey, of the Lady Di outfits, said, 'I think my clothes are probably a bit old for you. Most women wouldn't touch them for years, and then hit 28 and have a Bruce Oldfield moment.' (Yeah. I'm 27, and put it this way, if there were a '28' certificate on scary films, I wouldn't be turned away.)

And John, the make-up man, worked at the speed of Billy Whizz for 30 minutes and, upon being congratulated on his swiftness, said, 'Well, you have a very easy face to make up. No craters, no boils, no nothing.' He's quite right, there are no craters, but surely craters are a relatively rare occurrence? At least they are in Hello!.

It's a self-perpetuating spiral of compliments, since all day people ask if you're having a nice time, and you reply, 'Yes. What I like best is the endless flattery,' and they say back, 'Well, you do look very young/ unpocked/clever.' I got the distinct impression that if I'd carried on with this fantasy life for a week, I could have winkled a compliment out of everybody on earth up to, and including, my mother.

The rest of the trappings are fairly predictable: the private jet, the so-exclusive-the-air-smells-different lunch, the private shopping, the parties, the not-sore-feet-due-to-chauffeuring, the sensation of looking like a minx even when you've been out for a full day and not even had a nap.

The surprise lies in the fact that all these things are amazingly fun. Is it just me, or does everyone think that once Martine McCutcheon has done something, it's not fun any more? The sorry fact is that's not true. Private jets will always be amazing.

If stepping out of a chauffeur-driven car and into a mini-plane - complete with walnut-veneer interior and a tray of snacks just for you - sounds a bit Dynasty, a bit bogus, a bit eeeuuw, well, listen up: it's the most exciting thing on earth.

And what's more, at this level of super-rich travel, nobody asks you for your passport, so you could, conceivably, think of yourself as the heroine of an action film (so long as nobody asked you to bomb anything, and you don't glance at yourself in any mirrors - not that my make-up wasn't expertly done).

Lunch was in France, although not in a valley in the Champagne region. That's because champagne is not posh - everybody's heard of it and most people have tried it - and a large part of being properly rich is not only spending the money, but spending it on things that the less rich wouldn't spend it on, even if they had, by chance, a one-off sum to play with.

No, it was in Vouvray, a region famous for its Chenin Blancs. (These wines come in fizzy, sweet and dry. I wish I could help more but, unfortunately, expertise in this area also falls into the can't-be-acquired-in-a-day-however-rich-said-day-happens-to-be category.)

While in France, I learned a couple more things I like about the rich (I should add that our host was a prince, Prince Philippe Poniatowski - I like that): they don't fuss about with food and drizzle things around it, as they do in arriviste restaurants; they let their dogs run about the dining-room; and they give you very, very fine wine. Mind, maybe that's just what the French rich do.

That's all very well, but even as the Chauffair jet touched down at Farnborough, the military airbase that happens to let you land there if you're cashed up a bit, I'd still only spent about (a theoretical) ten grand, when what I really wanted to do was (hypothetically) bankrupt not just myself and my family, but my mortgage company too. I wanted to spend my flat on a needless frippery that I couldn't possibly live in or rent out to anyone.

So this is when I went to Bond Street jewellers Tiffany & Co - after hours, like what Posh does. It's not necessary to point out that they have adornments there worth 200 grand or whatnot. It is, on the other hand, worth noting that not all such adornments are hideous, gold-chain numbers that only Paloma Picasso would design, and only she, feasibly, would wear.

Some diamond necklaces clunk on to your neck with such unavoidable beauty - no, such integrity - that you can't see how any person could possibly be expected to take them off. Frankly, you have to be a bit of a pro for this kind of shopping. Tiffany is a very top-flight shop after all (you wouldn't get Breakfast at H Samuel, would you?), and wandering round after hours when you're not going to buy anything feels a bit sacrilegious.

Even so, they're ever so nice and all, they just happen to inhabit a land of myth, a land where, in the right anklet, everybody's beautiful, and where it's every woman's right to own a necklace of hugest pearls. They're also amazingly discreet, to the extent that they wouldn't even say which one of them sold Zo? Ball her engagement ring. (It couldn't have done any harm, could it? After all, they are married now.)

Not being able to elicit dirty tales, I left. (They did, though, tell me a story about a certain nameless celebrity who was waiting behind an indecisive lady, who was all 'Ooh, I can't decide', to which he replied, 'Well, you can phone a friend, go fifty-fifty or ask the audience.' Sweet.)

Everywhere really was closed by now - even after-hours-shopping places. And short of cramming in more snacks, only a party would do.

Hanging out with the likes of Mel B, Jarvis Cocker and Amanda Donohoe at the hip Chanel party had the major downside of denying me the outlay of any more virtual cash. The snacks on sticks were also free. There wasn't even a little saucer by the cloakroom for discreet tipping, let alone a cigarette machine or gift-shop area.

What do the rich spend it on when, after 8pm, all the drinks are free and all the shopping opportunities have dried up? Children? Drugs? Pets? Yachts? Maybe. But I think more research is needed, more time needs to be spent in this world of the ?ber-rich, then I'll be in a position to report back properly.