Lunch with Anthony Scaramucci

Former White House communication director Anthony Scaramucci has set a high standard for interesting interviews, but this lunchtime exchange with Edward Luce raises the bar.

Since I am at Scaramucci’s special booth, the staff is highly attentive. “I can tell this is going to be a bloody nightmare,” Scaramucci says as he strides in. He is dressed casually in green slacks and a dark sweater. Not at all, I protest. We will have a conversation and I will write it up. “Which part of England are you from?” Scaramucci asks me. Originally from near Brighton, I reply. “Are you gay?” he asks. Somewhat thrown by the question, I start to mumble that I am not but that some of my best friends are, and . . . “I don’t give a shit,” he interrupts. “I’m just curious. There are a lot of gays in Brighton, right?” I have little chance to weigh up Brighton’s sexual demographics before he interrupts again: “That’s something I get no credit for, by the way,” he says. “I have been for equal opportunity in gay marriage for the last 12 or 13 years.”

We haven’t even ordered, but I am already losing control over the conversation.