Friday  21st September 2012

This was last Saturday.

I’m behind because of September. Reborn after August, Poor Little Rich Gays are seething and glorious. I’ve never known the engagements. A dinner came through in the night. Angus Willis, the international food writer and stylist, his birthday, next Tuesday. I’ve a shop-opening the same night so will come on.

Tomorrow – hush, hush – I’ve managed to penetrate a function of gigantic proportions. We really could be looking at Sir Mickland Jagger all over again. And Janet Street-Porter, who sadly failed to engage with Reggie Cresswell’s many-roomed ceramic….

Reggie Cresswell, who was at Valèry and Conrad’s and gave Valèry a scarf  for his 40th birthday. The party was for that as well as to launch the refurb.

Where to start? A classic refurb conducted by Bruce MacBain, our private architect. When have Poor Little Rich Gays not got the builders in? A Victorian two-bed terrace now with massive glass-box kitchen surging out into the garden, smooth white (highly specialist white, you can be sure) walls and dark wood floors throughout , new bathroom, a roof-rethink to provide third bedroom, and a six-person stove (‘batter my heart, three-person God’).

Never have I seen a home so honed. The finish! Ukrainian builders, not Miroslav. I’m sorry to say I was demolished by Gay envy, or, more properly, crushing inadequacy. You should see the silicone work! Absolutely immac.

The guests: world-class Poor Little Rich Gays, colossi of the international stage. Only Harry Rollo was missing, detained in New York in advance of his massive opening there, which we’re all to attend, even the Gay Mother. Otherwise it was Ned Boule, the percussionist, Rufus Pitman, novelist and critic, dressed for hiking as a German schoolboy with gay tendencies and rare niche perfume, Reggie, as already mentioned, the Ghanaian ceramicist, radiant prior to boarding flat-bed for Jo’burg (reasons unknown). He’s also booked a junior suite in New York for the Harry Rollo opening.

And Lord Arrowby! Who runs the country. He’d woken at 7 but got back to sleep. Feeling and looking marvellous. Now that marriage is off the cards for at least 100 years, we’re back to our old teasing ways. ‘You’re very rude,’ he pranced, beaming. I think I said, ‘You’re never running the country. You’re always at Trustee meetings or shopping at a by-invitation-only boutique in Antwerp.’  He took a text from a cabinet minster as we spoke confirming a getting-to-know-you evening visit to an art installation on a council estate in Poplar. He was head to toe in Dries. Lord A, I mean, not the cab min.

Otherwise Poor Little Rich Gays were riddled with crisis, of course. Locked out by impossible,multi-pierced boyfriends, subject to violence, having to start all over again as usual.

Champagne was lavished. A most refreshing collation, including a sauce with tamarind, outstanding cheese and cake.

Oh, I forgot to say: suddenly Bruno-France Bruno, the mystery Poor Little Rich Gay, living in either London or Paris or both,Picassos on loan from concealed source, loomed out of the floor, as it were. Always a late entry, never before 11pm.

He’s thinking of a refurb too.

Six-Personned Stove: Now Essential

Bruce MacBain Bathroom Refurb at Conrad Matheson and Valèry Duplessis’

Perfectly Honed: Conrad Matheson and Valèry Duplessis’s New Bathroom

Reggie Cresswell’s 40th Birthday Gift to Valèry Duplessis: Paper not Cheap Either

Lord Arrowby in Dries: ‘It’s New!’ He Protested. ‘Everyone’s Saying I’ve Had It for Years.’