Friday 14^th August 2009

 Elsa Hodgeman’s party last night! Glorious final burst before we close down for the holidays. Elsa is a crucial figure in the art world and tremendous friend and advisor to the Multis who were there of course. She’s also coming to Tuscany, so we’ll hear more of her. Her style is fully bohemian. Enormous Georgian terraced house which for years has been a kind of artists’ commune. No frilly little canapés on a slate in a nest of blossoms. In the kitchen a huge Parma ham and several cheeses, but access made difficult by a tremendous congestion of, as it turned out, QCs, Law Lords, Government Ministers, prominent doctors, art students, dealers and celebrities.

 Oh the names!  Grayson Perry! Last seen by me at the opening of the Towner Gallery extension in Eastbourne where I went with Bruce MacBain in April. Then he was in the frock. That’s all I know about him. He wears a frock, very expensive looking, silk, hand-made apparently. He makes pots. I’ve never seen one. Laura Malcolm doesn’t approve. This time he was not in the frock. He’s decidedly masculine in appearance. He said he’d been made deaf by riding a motorbike.

 That was it! No further conversation. The point is to gaze and be in the presence. Odd thing celebrity. Call it superficial but I’m all for it. What a lift ! Otherwise there’d only be reality. If you get to know famous people or they become friends, the magic fades. They are just like everyone else or worse. But you must have well-known people as friends. All poor little rich gays do. 

 And then Lord Baron. Former President of the Royal College of Surgeons. Ferociously important. I couldn’t believe it. He was also at the Towner opening. Lord B had an extension built some years ago by my friend, Gilbert Gray. So I brought that up. I actually spoke to Lord B. He said the extension had transformed his life, before house had been unbearably poky. It seems unlikely – I know his street. The houses are huge. Anyway all this was utterly riveting. Later Lord B departed the party in a cycling helmet.

 Only slight awkwardness was the lady from my bike shop, where recently I was just a little cutting and unstable about their enormous bill. Did rather reel to see her at Elsa’s. Quite a biking theme to the evening, as it turns out.

Lord Baron, the King of Harley Street, leaves Elsa Hodgeman's party in informal cycing gear