The Villa Herself

Waiter liked at Volpaia

Saturday 29^th August 2009

 The last supper has taken place, the villa party has broken up and the Multis are now underway for the Hotel Hassler Villa Medici at Rome – as I’m sure you know, a great classic hotel at 700 euros a night.

 These last days have been wild. The Multis have been increasingly bizarre and miraculous. At the Brancacci Chapel (frescoes, you know, by Massacio and others), the photographer multi photographed the post cards. The other remarked that the paintings couldn’t be that good since there were so few people there. Later he said, ‘Why were Adam and Eve chucked out of Paradise?’ But they loved the art. It is the life of St Peter. Everyone’s in pink. Not a gay pink. A very good rose pink.

 Restaurants remained simple. No Smallmeal-style dragging off to Michelin fork establishments, although, to be fair, Smallmeal was once persuaded into a simple trat in the car park at Siena by Robert Nevil and appeared to enjoy it. But the experience was not repeated. Perhaps this is tragic.

 At Volpaia, – tiny Chianti village – a very traditional mania for the waiter set in, led by Prince Dmitri Hersov, who tipped 260 euros over four occasions. At all meals, the multi camera was going without cease. It was a kind of built-in paparazzi. A timid family party might gingerly ask if they could  just possibly take the one picture. The rich gay style is to produce a £3000 Nikon with which there can be little argument and commence clicking . At one point, Elinor, Elsa Hodgeman’s daughter, had command of the camera. She was shameless. She pointed it straight at the waiter. He stuck an elaborate pose. She clicked. He struck another. She clicked again. Over the whole evening the young man was not quite whipped to orgasm by that relentless shutter. Lady Newell was on anti-biotics. Her daughter had warned her not to drink. ‘I’m going to, so be quiet,’ she said. After dinner she had to be supported to the car. I remarked to one of the Multis that if the Gay Mother, that’s my own mother, had drunk so much, she’d be in hospital.

 We must return to the question posed by Robert Nevil two weeks ago: were we happier or as happy in younger and poorer days? Why have all this money?  What’s it for?  The Multis paid £10,000 for the villa, easily £2000 for the wine, another £1500 for Donatella. All that, just to throw a ball around in the swimming pool, go to a few surprisingly simple trattorias and visit museums?

 In many ways this holiday was not so  different from those of years ago. Perhaps we were always poor little rich gays. We usually managed to get hold of nice villas, go to reasonable restaurants and so on.  It was all a great deal cheaper then, of course, but even so  there were low points which exposed the lack of funds – the car with no hand-brake to be parked in vertical Cortona, the night enjoyed by Anthony Mottram and I in the youth hostel at Piraeus.   Now we have choice.  That is the difference.  Rustics with no alternative but to go the humble local trat tend to be less enamoured. To fully embrace the simple life you have to be awfully rich.

All the same, there’s no guarantee that the Multis, on gaining their suite at the Hotel Hassler Villa Medici in Rome, did not throw themselves down on their beds and sigh, ‘Lord were we slumming it at that villa. Now at last we shall be comfortable.’

The Last Supper

Waiter much admired