Tuesday 1st September 2009
Prince Dmitri Hersov has thundered across Europe in the Porsche and regained this country. We go to the Prom at London’s Royal Albert Hall (do you know it? It’s very hideous) on Monday. He is worried about the waiter. I wasn’t going to write about this but I see it has some bearing on my main theme. Yes, today I’m going to have a theme.
The Prince fears that our enthusiasm for the Tuscan waiter was no better than grubby straights ogling the waitress. He regrets the lavish tipping. On Friday, before leaving in the Porsche for this country, he tried to dispel any possible resentment by leaving 100 euros for the other waiters but by misfortune this fell into the hands of the favourite anyway. So that young man is now 360 euros approx up. That’s it really. Money, you see. 360 euros to be made a fuss of and mildly assaulted with a camera. And , truly, no leering or suggestive talk. How much worse would have been the straight with a measly, guilty 50 euros and constantly falling on the floor to get a look up the skirts.
The sheer grandeur, scale and boldness of the poor little rich gay method.
We don’t often touch on sex. You may have been wondering about that.
But my theme, my theme. Fergus Strachan – you remember him, the brainy one, at law, loves products and gym-work and crackpot diets – has been asking, Is it better to go dutch? As you know, in Tuscany we did not go Dutch. The Multis paid. I am imagining the squalor of wrangling over who did and who didn’t put money in the kitty, who didn’t have the gin or thinks there might have been a cheaper balsamic vinegar. What’s the point of being older and richer if you can’t be vague about whether some haven’t paid as much as others. Early in life obsessive nit-picking over money enables an accumulation of capital to fund grand carelessness later on. Also, with age and increased riches comes more being paid for. Because others have got even richer. If I were the Multis and had an income of £10,000 a day (approx), I’d take a villa and treat my friends. Why not? What’s the harm? If those fuckers ever get on and dig all that metal out of my mine (I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned that I’ve got a mine. Well, not the sole possession of, and at present inert and likely to remain so), that’s exactly what I’d do. And, I hope, not count the cost. I’d also have a car and driver. But that’s another matter. And a lot of diamonds.
No, their money has done the Multis the world of good. They’ve been infinitely freer and more extraordinary since, through their own design, they created it. They couldn’t possibly be employees, not like Smallmeal – whom they now far exceed in wealth, by the way, which was the original object. And I really don’t think they’ll throw me out of their lives just like that, I really don’t.
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What a funny posting – had not thought of this as poor little rich gay method. Multis bought wine and I had nothing to throw my money away on. I got drunk without drinking if you understand me.
As it happens I’ve been doing some maths – not very well, I’m sure. I think your tip was only 20 per cent – so very modest really in the category of ‘not related to table service’, as another commentator, Hugo Priestley, puts it, There you might range between 50 and 1000 per cent. Beyond that might provoke arrest.
I really can’t understand the fuss about the Italian kitchen (see Glossary: Mottram speak for desirable young person), at least if the photograph is anything to go by. But I do agree about leering. It is deeply suspect and equally as offensive as the straight practice of ogling, especially if there are decades of difference. However, it is less dull than conversation.
Certainly less dull than conversation with a Kitchen
I can confirm to Anthony Mottram that the italian kitchen was no looker as far as this lady is concerned, although better from a distance, and not without a certain charm (possibly brought on by lavish tips). Is leering the preserve of gays and ogling only for straights?
Leering is less optimistic.
Comment of this quality is one of the reasons why I have stood by Anthony Mottram for the last 40 years inspite of everything. Equal relationships, as Jane Austen rightly said, are founded on understanding and esteem and are the only ones likely to last.
I am dismayed at the implication that my dear friend Anthony has his detractors. But I do agree with your Jane Austenova. She is widely known in my country. Her film about your English Navy is my nation’s favourite.
I also, it is normal.
I remember now, it is Tendence.
What, exactly, is normal, Stoyan? To what do you refer? And, Vladimir, unfortunately we all have our detractors.
I suspect front syllable lopping. ‘Tendence’ doesn’t seem to be the back syllable of any known Jane Austen novel
I mean Tendency.
Jane Austen’s novels are: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanager Abbey, Emma, Mansfield Park , Persuasion, Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon. Now which is it you refer to?
My friends suggest alternative title of Coercion. Anthony would know probably but he is playing squash just now.
I think you mean Persuasion, my darling.
He’s fucking gorgeous and he’s MY DARLING!
Whatever.
Marcus Cargill, as you know, England’s leading clock restorer, refers to the Volpaia waiter, lest you should be confused or fused. Isn’t it typical; here are all these poor little rich gays and the one thing that gets them really excited is an unknown Italian waiter. What are we to make of it?
I fear the tone of this admirable site is sinking: 2 ‘f•ckings’ on this virtual page. Wash your mouths out.
Aesthetic standards also in steep decline if hapless squabbled-over Italian waiter is anything to go by. If totty is going to be posted here – and I’m all for that – please could we make sure it is rather more decorative?
I cannot now remember if Adrian was of our party one famously embarrassing evening in a London restaurant. A table of single gentlemen were loudly extolling the physical charms of a chef, glimpsed through a hatch, only to be admonished by a waitress who said, reasonably enough in the circumstances: “Do you mind? That’s my boyfriend, thank you very much.” I wish I could remember whether her tip was adjusted – and, if so, whether up or down.
No, Robert Nevil, I was not present when this incident occured with the chef and the waitress. Gays do go too far at times but I’d rather that than grubby furtiveness. Undoubtedly Poor Little Rich Gays act as they please – and take the consequences.