Former gossip columnist Lloyd Grove recalled watching the Brideshead miniseries in the early 1980s with friends from Yale and being served plovers’ eggs, just like the ones Lady Marchmain sent Sebastian. Literary agent David Kuhn, who was “gay but not out,” watched it at Harvard’s Spee Club, which was “not gay but gay-ish.”

Surely Vogue leprechaun Hamish Bowles has had some Brideshead-like experiences?

“Dissipation in Morocco, I would say.”

Could he elaborate?

“I’d rather not.”

Vanity Fair’s George Wayne, who grew up English in Jamaica, cried during the Venice part. “But the best part of it for me was swimming nude in the fountain—that was awesome. I just talked to the actor who plays Charles [Matthew Goode]; I said, ‘I thought you were much taller, but you do have beautiful buttocks.’ He loved that!”

Saturday Night Live comedienne Rachel Dratch was at a loss. “Maybe I had someone throw up on my floor,” she said. “I’m not going to come up with any sexual indiscretions. I’m not your woman for that.”

What about all the Catholic stuff?

“I’m Jewish. I’ve got nothing for you.”

Over in the corner sitting and smoking with some British friends was the glamorously languid Rebecca Guinness. Here was someone who could relate! Ms. Guinness, a fashion editor and blogger for Vanity Fair, is the granddaughter of Bryan Guinness, who was good friends with Brideshead author Evelyn Waugh, who dedicated Vile Bodies to him (and his wife, the super-social Diana Mitford of the scandal-baiting Mitford sisters). The Guinness family home is a thousand-acre-plus estate with an “amazing” Henry Lamb portrait of Waugh.

“I’m very tempted to move back. I bought a house in London this year,” she said. “I think the thing is about England that makes it really fun to be there is that people don’t give that much of a shit. I have tons of fun here, but there are so many people who are so caught up in Being Something.”

ggurley@observer.com