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RIP: Lord Michael Pratt
...He was also a leading light in another Oxford club called the Snuff Committee, the sole purpose of which was to take snuff and drink port.

...After graduating Pratt found a position at Lazard Brothers, the merchant bank. Three months into his new job, however, he judged that it would be more agreeable to attend Royal Ascot than to turn up at the office, and his services were dispensed with. He never again sought full-time employment.

...Towards the end of his life, however, he found himself barred from one of his clubs. Ironically, this was Pratt's, where he was asked to leave the premises following a spectacular altercation with a waitress.

Lord Michael Pratt
Last Updated: 1:36am BST 09/09/2007

Lord Michael Pratt, who has died aged 61, will be remembered as one of the last Wodehouseian figures to inhabit London's clubland and as a much travelled author who pined for the days of Empire; he will also be remembered as an unabashed snob and social interloper on a grand scale.

Pratt would arrive at country houses announcing that he was en route to another castle or (even larger) stately home, and was intending to stay for only one night. Quite often the "night" would turn into weeks, and sometimes months.

Although he was generous with his conversation, gossip and anecdote, many hostesses tired of Pratt's failure to make anything but the smallest contribution to the house or staff.

Michael John Henry Pratt was born on August 15 1946, the youngest son of the 5th Marquess Camden.

He was sent to Eton, having already acquired the rotund shape that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

At school the young Pratt distinguished himself by emptying a vessel of soapy water over the head of his housemaster.

Pratt had been washing in a bucket and, rather than dispose of the contents into the drain, he tipped them out of the window.

"Come here, Pratt," said Mr Addison, the drenched housemaster.

"Certainly not," responded Pratt. "I'm far too busy."
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