Saturday 6^th November 2010

My Boscoe Holder, ‘Tobago Wedding’, arrived from Trinidad on Thursday.  It’s superb, the brushwork so fine and it turns out the bride has two expressions, depending on viewpoint.  I’ve been buying more, but where’s the money? Then there was that delirious last-minute Ivy dinner on Wednesday. How happy we were.  Three Poor Little Rich Gays and three women without men. The Multis and me, Beatrice Cantor, the painter, a cat-loving picture editor and the costume-designing wife of a well-known film director. No arse. No side. We held up parts of life with no particular cachet and looked at them with pleasure in the light (that’s a metaphor). The Costume-Designer lifts napkins from restaurants. At the end, the doorman came to the table to say there were no taxis (because of the tube strike). She said, kicking up red lacquer heels, ‘If you can get me some sensible shoes I’ll walk back.’ He said: ‘Well, there’s the napkins. You could tie them round your feet.’ She said, holding coyly up one of the Ivy monogrammed ones: ‘I’ve got heaps of these at home already.’  The Photo Multi had been to an auction at Sotheby’s beforehand, stood in a doorway at the back and bid. But he breathed not a word. Only afterwards did he reveal the ordeal. Bidding from the back, for Beatrice Cantor’s work as it happens, everybody turns to stare at you. The Photo Multi is unbelievably forward but terribly shy.

Tonight my dinner at home for eight seems to trip over last Saturday’s dinner at Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowski’s, yet to be covered. We saw people in drag but they weren’t actually there. Now there’s trouble with Borough Market and Lord Arrowby has re-loomed.

So much to think about. Come back tomorrow. I’ve got my pinny on. There’s also been a saga over labneh. Do you know what it is?

So much to tell.