Friday 1st October 2010

Today is the 53rd birthday of me, Adrian Edge.

I received a text greeting from Anthony Mottram. Yes! speakers are resumed. There’s so much to tell and private jets might be involved.

I gained the world in the Tavistock Maternity Home where the Gay Mother complained of the food.

In an hour I leave for the Ivy. A quiet party of six foregathers. If only I had the loveliness to fork for twenty…

But I said I’d tell you about Grace Monaco’s gilt mac (see graph below, taken from an original copy of ‘Semana’ 2nd October 1982), after the exhibition of her old frocks at the V and A.

It wasn’t there.

In October 1982, I watched Grace Monaco’s funeral on an ancient black and white TV in the wrong one-night-cheap Madrid hotel – having dragged or been dragged, having ‘met someone’. Simultaneously I was, of course, devouring the magazines, ‘Semana’ and ‘iHola!’, which were wall-to-wall Grace Monaco. Except when The Colbys was on on Wednesdays and Dynasty on Fridays, I don’t think I was ever more galvanised in the 80s.

But there were glimmerings of grandeur. Poor Little Rich Gays were on the inside, even then. I knew someone who knew someone who was going to marry the Comte de Paris – who knew the Monacos.  I said, ‘They’ll be wondering what to do with her things. Get me that gilt mac!’

If people showed 80s-type arse, I’d always say, ‘Grace Monaco….such an intimate friend….I haven’t got over it, you know.’

Worked a treat.

You too could have been intimate with a modern dead greatness – such as Michael Jackson or Andy Warhol.

In November of 1982 the saddest ever announcement appeared in The Times. It was headed ‘Monaco National Day.’ ‘Monaco National Day, usually held on November 17th, will not this year take place.’

It does’t matter that, if you actually go to Monaco, it’s ghastly.

Grace Monaco's Gilt Mac

Grace Monaco with Self-Made Collage and Matching Luncheon Frock