Life’s a hedonistic whirlwind

Recently designer Ben Kelly had a very busy day.

He showed up at the Royal College of Art’s redesigned ArtBar at 11.30am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to the joy of the students who have kept and treasured the logo he designed while a student back in…well, never mind when.

Kelly then scampered to the Science Museum to await a visit from Virginia Bottomley. “She was mind-numbingly boring,” he observed.

Our Heritage Secretary was opening a space Kelly designed which links new galleries created by Casson Mann and Gilles Cenazandotti (see News, page 4).

Then it was back to the RCA, where a party to celebrate the new bar was in full swing and people were dancing four to a table. “Ben was completely off his face, he had his arm round everybody,” says a reveller. “I daren’t tell you any anecdotes about that night, Ben’ll kill me,” says another.

Good for Kelly – but what a shame that Met Studio – which designed a new theatre project for the Science Museum – missed the first party. “Our invitation arrived miles too late, it was an admin cock-up,” says a Met spokeswoman sadly.