Friday 30th April 2010
I’m rushing for Queer Question Time at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Sacred Lord Arrowby sent an e-mail: ‘Are you planning to attend this important event?’ Rufus Pitman is on the panel. I fear I’ll be too late to post a question. It would be: ‘What is the minimum wage for a Poor Little Rich Gay and how will the new gov achieve it?’
But tulips, tulips. ‘Fancy Frills’ is recommended by ‘Christo Lloyd’ whose biog Robert Nevil is currently immersed in (see comments on ‘Gay Tulips’ yest). CL said it was like coconut icing but what I grew (this was some years ago) was a stunted impertinence – nasty pert pink with white fringe. Nobody could believe it. People had to be lead up to accompanied by trained attendants. Robert Nevil was jumping up and down with glee, almost self-wetting at the wrong.
Here are some of my other combinations: Paul Scheerer (black), Abu Hanza (no, not really, Abu Hassan), White Dream. That was last year. White Dream planted on its side to delay flowering until the other two ready. Now on my top terrace this year there’s been a drama. I planned Spring Green, which is off-white with a green streak, one I’d not tried before called Phillipe le Comte (rare, you see) which turns out to be virtually miniature and black and then, for just a small frisson, Estella Rijnveld, a crazy streaky parrot tulip. They’ve all come out together, which is remarkable for a first try but Estella turns out to a red and white sea-side awning affair, very uncompromising and assured.
But all in pots, so problem simply solved by moving. Then I put them back together again for the graph. Now I’m not so sure.
Estella Rijnveld on Her Own
Spring Green and Phillipe le Comte - good taste
Spring Green, Phillipe le Comte and Estella Rijnveld - Are They Friends?
Paul Scheerer (black) Abu Hassan, White Dream May 2009
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I wish I had the technology to post graphs of Matt’s pots of tulips – you would see how we have embraced your moving pot philosophy here in Normandy. We arrived late last night and after dinner Matt caught a lovely furry mouse in a milk jug as it dived off the kitchen counter. Unfortunately it then jumped out so is somewhere in the house. The episode was captured by Kelm on his video phone, we must meet to share.
We too have spring green tulips, having learned from you over the years that colour is common
Anyone interested in colour should read ‘Chroma’ by Derek Jarman, written when he was going blind due to his HIV infection. Puts a few things into perspective.
My dear,
How I wish I could get Solange to finally attach graphs, it is so exhausting when she is being difficult. Only yesterday I was admiring some wonderfully chic black tulips planted with honesty, daphne and violas in a divine Cambridgeshire garden of real wit, humour and – dare one say it – standing. Oh, it was sheer bliss. I pressed the button on the camera so there are graphs to show but club-fingered Solange is no good… of course the real beauty of the tulip is all in the flare of colour, a graph is only an invocation. Tant pis.
The tulip is my most favourite chair – do you know it? It comes in lots of colours.
Yes! £840 a piece! The Multis have them with different coloured leather cushions. The Photographer Multi’s god-daughter wee-ed on one but it was replaced by 11 the next morning for only £236, to be subtracted from her legacy.
Sometimes the plants have to be dug up and re-positioned for a photo-shoot. Solange should be ready with a spade as well as a camera
How one dreads blindness
Now you have learned, you must unlearn. That is how it is for the Poor Little Rich Gay.
Not mice again! My mouse has not been seen for months at least! Even the very greatest are plagued by nature, and, related, flushing lavs. Yesterday I was in a het mansion in Highgate and even there heard a toilet flushing. Consoling.
You must have felt very at home in Highgate.
Was lav actually IN dining room?
Robert Nevil persecutes me with the notion that my downstairs ‘toilet’ is actually in my dining room. Readers should be assured that it is at least twelve feet away down a corridor. At the Nevil/Archer res you can hear the lav flushing in the drawing room. You can’t here.