Saturday 16^th July 2011

Glyndebourniana, Glyndebourne desmesne is both our home and our hell. (If you don’t know it’s England’s finest country-house opera, impossible to get in, madly expensive, seething with huff and puff English middle to upper classes adhering to the dress code, and a few grand gays)  Loathed Robin Smallmeal, head of landfill in this country or whatever, always steamed in in the Bentley, drawing up illegally at the garden door to ease the conveyance of his 15 picnic baskets (bare minimum of a party of four) to his preferred lawn spot which was the front row by the ha-ha. Now they’ve put up signs by that garden door saying ‘No Stopping’, just to keep him away.

In all other ways, Smallmeal was the worst sort of stickler for Glyndebourne correctness and dinner jacket mania as only one from the lesser quarters of Stevenage could be. Cruel and snobbish, I know, but true. Do admit.

By the long border this year, a spluttering dinner-jacket-victim with normal wife made way for Val and I (yes, Val gained Glyndebourne; he’s having a dry run, or at least only fancying the tiniest little drop – another little drop won’t do any harm! But nowhere near the orthopaedic ward as before after that splintering gin-soaked fall) in the following manner: ‘Feel free, chaps!’ It was a way of saying, ‘I can just about tolerate two gays.’

Val was in a light grey suit, self-pimped with best green edging to give a Tyrolean look. At the neck hung a rock crystal whose butch pewter mount was attached to a matching green ribbon. I had my Zara white jacket and black nylon slacks by Prada, with my Dries summer scarf. I conceded a tie which wrecked the outfit, in my view.

Val was describing loudly the ideal recipe for a marquis au chocolat. He’s been building on the original from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Thus does he spend the long afternoons of dry existence. Marmalade and ground almond are his latest additions.

We had Glydnebourne lawn to ourselves. It was raining, you see. The uppers and middles could be heard ra-ing away on the loggias around the theatre. But moving a garden bench a foot or so back under a tree provided excellent shelter. We were quite dry, in fact enthroned, I thought, in full view of the odd enemy audience member who observed narrowly, only to be knocked downt by triumphant missiles of Poor Little Rich Gay ingenuity and superiority.

Val produced an aggressive German herring concoction, loathed by Robert Nevil, for our first course. Superbly un-Glyndebourne. For our main, we had cold veal and sauce vert, then Ottolenghi tarties. We visited the spot in the ha-ha where Robin Smallmeal chucked a substantial quantity of foie gras, only, as he might have said, doing his job which was landfill after all. No long afterwards, mad cow disease or perhaps foot and mouth ravaged the nation.

In the interval, Bruno-France Bruno texted to say that one of the singers had a sore throat. The only person we met was a household name – Tristan Pasco. So inside information and in at the top combined. Perfect. Tristan would have liked a lift back in my new important car, in fact.

There was an opera, as usual at Glyndebourne. It was Don Giovanni. He’s quite Poor Little Rich Gay and in some ways to be preferred to all the shrieking harpies and delusionists who disapprove of him.

Departing Glyndebourne there was a traffic jam as always. Val said, ‘They want to sweep away that village. They want to put in a dual carriageway.’

I’m not quite sure which village he meant.

Val's Self-Created Tyrolean Look for Glyndebourne. See Also the Glimpsed Heraldic Badge Run Up from Different Tie-Fabrics Acquired by Val in a Sell-Off at a Tie-Fabric Warehouse

Our Glyndebourne Picnic Throne

Glyndebourne Lawn, Ruled By Poor Little Rich Gays

The Enemy, Stalking Glyndebourne Lawn

Glyndebourne Ha-Ha Where Robin Smallmeal Hurled Foie Gras

The Uncompromising German Herring Dish