Never mind the pleasure of always turning left on an aeroplane; imagine the joy of climbing into a taxi at the end of another merry evening out and being able to say to the driver, in an exhausted, I’m-going-home sort of a voice: “Eaton Terrace, please”. It would be like living in a black-and-white film, wouldn’t it? To get the full effect, of course, one would need to be wearing fitted gloves, a good hat, a big pearl necklace and a three-quarter-length pencil skirt with a short, tailored jacket. And, of course, a fox-fur wrap.

One day, perhaps, that will be me. If I work really, really hard. Just got to get these damn columns out a bit faster. Got to inject a bit more smut into the wretched novels. Got to write in a scene or two set at wizard school. Or, if all else fails, I could persuade the Other Half to pull something dramatic out of his hat. He could arrange some arms deals with the Saudis, for example. I hear there’s a lot of money in that. Or help to organise a little coup d’état somewhere in Africa. Can’t be that difficult, can it? I’d do it myself if I only had the time. I do wish he’d concentrate.

In any case, I mostly blame my parents. For everything. Obviously. As we all do. But especially for the lack of “Eaton Terrace, please” moments in my life. My mother always advised her daughters to steer clear of exceptionally rich men, because, she said, very rich men (as opposed to other men) tended generally to be either crooks or shits, and usually both. But I’m drifting.

Although wise in other respects, she was completely wrong on both fronts. Nice men can accrue vast fortunes (and buy themselves beautiful five-storey houses on Eaton Terrace) without being in the least bit horrid to anyone.

Take the second Baronet Thatcher, Sir Mark. Or Thickie Mork, as his old school chums liked to call him. He’s a lovely boy, according to his mum. And not only did he not help to organise an attempted coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea (because that was his friend wot dun that; and he’s paying the price, in a prison cell not in the least like Eaton Terrace), he didn’t do a lot of other things – for example, involving the Saudis and any deals related to arms. He also didn’t evade any American taxes, and he was never a Cape Town loan shark, although some jealous people wrongly accused him of both. And the other thing he didn’t do was any racketeering in Texas, because that matter was settled out of court.

So, what we are left with is one exceptionally nice baronet, who once spent $275,000 on chartering a helicopter in the mistaken belief it was going to be used as an air ambulance for poor Africans, and got himself into a lot of undeserved trouble as a result.

One exceptionally nice, exceptionally rich baronet, I mean to say, cruelly besmirched only because he has such a famous mum, and who once upon a time lived at 34 Eaton Terrace. It’s on the market now, for £4.5m. Which, given that it’s a five-bedroom, four-bathroom, three-reception-room palace with a garden, a small conservatory and a (revealingly horrible) basement staff flat – strikes me as rather a bargain.

Thickie Mork moved out of the house in 1990, claiming, apparently, that it was “a little too pokey” for his requirements (no landing pad, no gun room, no escape tunnel, perhaps). Yet, remarkably, itstill bears all the hallmarks of his reign.

He sold it for £1.3m to an Italian count, who let it to the current owners, who, after finally buying the place only a year ago, decided for unfathomable reasons that they would prefer to live in Somerset. So, for one reason and another, it hasn’t been done up in years.

In its current state, the house is a worn, exhausted shrine to 1980s interior design, to the point where it’s actually faintly creepy, like stepping into an embarrassing time warp. Did we really once think painting trompe l’oeil cracked Corinthian columns on the bathroom wall was a chic way of going about things? Apparently so. Noel De Keyzer, the estate agent handling the sale, who has a perfectly creaseless face and lovely dark eyelashes, despite being 50 and mostly blond, is a man who clearly knows his stuff. And he can date the “hand-woven” Colefax and Fowler patterned carpets, the patterned wallpaper, the ghastly faux-marble paint effects, even the flouncy tart’s-knicker curtains, pretty much exactly to the brief period when our besmirched hero wasin situ.

Which is probably why the house is such a mess. It’s astonishingly horrible. The previously mentioned basement staff flat has no outside view at all. Which ought, really, in our postThatcher, postDickens era, to be more or less illegal. There are damp patches on the ceilings. And the main kitchen, which is long and thin, with no space for a table, is so depressing, it made me want to weep.

Nevertheless, the good news – well, quite good for someone, I suppose – is that the house has all the necessary planning and listed-building permissions in place, so the new owner can go full steam ahead with a total Thatcher-era-banishing rejig.

In the meantime, what can I say? Eaton Terrace –yes, please. Just not number 34.

34 Eaton Terrace, SW1, £4.5m

What is it?A Grade II-listed five-storey townhouse

Where is it?A few minutes’ walk from Sloane Square, in the heart of Belgravia

Who is selling it?Savills; 020 7824 9016, www.savills.co.uk

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