Sunday 2^nd January 2011

Happy New Year to Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the world.

I know you’re longing to hear how I celebrated. I was at Reggie Cresswell’s.

But it’ll have to wait. Do you remember those pheasants?  All over Christmas, the Gay Mother and I were harbouring this terrible secret – two complete dead pheasants hanging in the larder, a lovely surprise gift from the local shoot, brought to the door conveniently on 23^rd December.

‘What a treat!’ we said to the bearer. Or rather I did, because the Gay Mother would have been quite capable of ordering them away.

We managed to suspend the creatures from a shelf. Couldn’t bear to touch them.  Their heads and horrid sharp feet swayed menacingly. Then we played Pass the Parcel. ‘You must take them,’ the Gay Mother said. Me: ‘I couldn’t possibly.’ In the end I gave in. Luckily it was so cold in the larder, they weren’t going to go bad, although they’re supposed to ‘hang’ for a week or more to gain flavour and succulence.

Every time I went into that larder I feared that they would have committed some outrage before  resuming a sinister pose of being dead. The night before I returned to London, the corpses penetrated my sleep. Would they somehow infiltrate my frockage when stowed in the boot of the car next to my suitcase? In London, they might be a source of embarrassment or a cause for arrest.

Gingerly, at arm’s length, we got them into a bag of death for the journey. Horrible imaginings: what if their necks had rotted where they were tied and their heads came off?

In London the bag sat on the kitchen floor being avoided by me. It couldn’t have looked more normal, but when you knew...At last I took a running leap, got them out and re-hung, the feathers brushing my hand in the process. Astonishingly, soft, like luxury goods.

At least all that remained was to get them to a butcher to be plucked and drawn. Next morning I bowled into Theobald’s in Theobald’s Road. ‘Wouldn’t touch them.’ ‘You must be joking.’ But no. Tried another. Health and Safety. Then a third: ‘Haven’t got a licence.’

Hysterics, then had to face it. Would have to pluck and draw myself. Invited Joshua Baring and Robert Nevil, who comes from a pheasant background, to dine. In the afternoon, awfully brave, sat in the garden with a bin bag and got on with it.

Well, you can see how people become killers. You get used to it. Pull the bird to bits. Lop its head off. Scoop out its vital organs. Awful job. Took hours and unrewarding: very hard not to tear the skin.

By the time, Joshua and Robert arrived I was a shadow of former and with a new murderous streak. But the birds made lovely eating.

Some graphs are too horrific ever to be shown.

The Pheasants in the Gay Mother's Larder

Dunked in Hot Water to Aid Plucking

The Plucking Fields: Note Tell-tale Feathers on the Ground