Table Talk

Pearls before wine: All the vintages Ann Getty flew to Egypt from Paris for her luxurious Nile cruise with eighty highfalutin friends cost her $75,000 in customs duty. (And Jerry Zipkin and Betsy Bloomingdale are practically teetotal.)

Designer noses: Over lunch at "21" (between mouthfuls of smoked salmon) Dr. Robert Vitolo waxed on about the sculptural styles of his fellow plastic surgeons. In certain de-schnozzled New York circles, for instance, one can always recognize a Howard Diamond nose, a Sam Scheer nose, or a Robby Meijernose. Take your pick.

Lynn Wyatt, overheard in the front row at Dior: "How nice of OPEC to schedule its conference in Geneva [attended by her oilman husband, Oscar] at the same time as the Paris collections. I just hope it lasts till Thursday so I can stay for Saint Laurent. ' '

Profit prophet: A storefront palmist on the Upper East Side took one look at a Manhattanite's hand and said, "Your building's about to go co-op."

Freedom of speech: At Norman Lear's First Amendment bash at Visage, one white-haired party goer said, "If they could just turn off this awful music, this would be great. ' '

Forget pro wrestling; the growth sport for gentlefolk is croquet. Seven years ago there were five clubs in North America; now there are more than two hundred. Upcoming events for mallet swingers in-

clude a croquet cruise around the British Isles (Royal Viking Sky, May 20-30) and a Croquet Hall of Fame Ball (New York City, September 18). Croquet, monsieur?

The Rolex backlash: The boy bankers at Morgan Guaranty are proving their new nonmaterialist chic by ostentatiously flashing their ten-dollar Casio digital watches. What does this mean for capitalism?

After Liz Taylor had paid for Peter Lawford' s funeral in California, the entire Kennedy clan, including Jackie but excepting the senator, attended a memorial service at St. Thomas More's, New York City, and lunch afterward on Sutton Place. Betty Comden gave a eulogy about the old days at MGM. Very few other friends were invited.

On April 25, Sotheby's New York is selling an emerald-cut-diamond ring (18.42 carats, estimate $400,000-plus) among eighty lots of jewelry owned by Annie-Laurie Aitken, mother of Sunny von Biilow. (It's a pity that it won't be worn by Sunny's seventeen-year-old daughter, Cosima, who turns all heads when she enters Mortimer's.)

Junk-mail junction: Newsweek's Denver bureau was sent this computer-printout solicitation: "Dear News Week, Good news. A fabulous Time 35 mm Camera is all packed and waiting for your Denver Postman to deliver it to Denver Bureau. ... To be candid, Time wants News Week.... Time flies and News Week is there—right in the thick of the action, anywhere and everywhere on the face of the globe. ' ' Time out.