Sunday 13th May 2012

To Tate Britain Private View for Commercial Sponsors of Picasso exhibition, although I’m not that thing. Nor was anyone else  by the looks. Arranged by Peter Acharya who left the next day to fight for possession of land in Trinidad. He was planning Court outfits.

Peter said there would be a higher grade PV and Summer Party later on at which Stephen Heston’s PA more likely to appear.

I can’t take Picasso, I’m afraid. Except for the blue period, which is so grave and monumental. ‘Boy Leading a Horse’ is one of the greatest paintings of all time (although, is it Blue Period? Now I look seems more sand-coloured). Otherwise Picasso ugly, nasty trivial colours. awful black outlines. That one of  lady as a series of spheres (in this exhib) looks like mail-order blow-up lady, horrid brown and pale blue with harsh red slab. What is the point?

Guernica all right though.

Over dinner Peter told me he had once flown to Madrid with a Gay who said certain shoe only to be bought there.  Taxi-ed miles to remote shopping centre. Peter realised the shoe in fact widely available but said nothing. So wise. Best not to shatter the radiant Gay illusion with dreary fact.

Remember Blanche Dubois? Streetcar Named Desire. ‘I don’t tell the truth.’ She knew what she was doing.

Now – the Photo Multi’s Birthday this year was held on a farm. I couldn’t have loved it more. An urban farm, hard by their penthouse! Who’d have thought it? Quite smelly and scruffy. Cobbled together wooden pens with vegetables growing. Don’t know where the animals were. Appearance low priority. But terrace for champagne beside our National River. The dinner in a wooden hut absolutely excellent and service very efficient. Pig (presumably farm’s own pig). The Multis self-wined at a very high level.

My dinner neighbour said her sons, 26 and 31, had been living at home until recently. Now in a parent-bought flat, bickering wonderfully and phoning home with girl-friend problems. I wonder. Maybe the ideal of independence for the young adult now out-moded. The new generation bask in the wealth of their parents and make  strictly noncommercial music videos. Good news for kitchen-loving Poor Little Rich Gays – that is, older glittering Gays who favour and can afford a younger treasured boyfriend/partner (?).

I’ve always taken a dim view, as you know, of the kitchen scenario. Perhaps time to re-think.

Merton Silverwater's Feather Trim for the Photo Multi's Farm Birthday Party: She Attends Trunk Sales at Designer Stores to Avoid Waiting Lists: Only Major Spenders Invited to Trunk Sales, Of Course

The Photo Multi's Farm Birthday: Simplicity

The Photo Multi's Farm Dinner: Farm Pig Main

Tuesday 8th May 2012

Val, keen on a drop, hovering on the edge of the abyss, yet one of the greatest Poor Little Rich Gays who ever lived, didn’t spend a weekend in the country. He spent a weekend at the Charing. That’s a hospital in London’s West. Yesterday he emerged with a new hip, which is more than a weekend in the country achieves – very often.

He underwent hip-snap in September from a fall while more than adequately refreshed. It wouldn’t mend, so was renewed by replacement.

Heaving forth from the facility yesterday (nurses lined up, weeping, to bid farewell. Well, one. But Val had gilded their lives and shown them a life never before imagined), I said, ‘The Queen Mother, when 94, remained at the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers for ten days after her hip replacement so that, when she left, she could walk unaided.’ ‘ That was one of the changeovers,’ Val rumbled, inching forth on a walking frame, his first substantial distance since Friday’s knife-work. It is widely believed that Her Late Majesty was substituted several times in latter years so that she might live to a hundred.

In that hospital they were in fact busy working up another Queen Mother.

Motoring back to the Val apartment, we wondered about the Yummy Mummys of West London. ‘What do they do all day?’ I said. ‘Look for keys,’ said Val, undiminished by anesthesia and hospital life.

Now he is enthroned on a high chair with his own sharps disposal box. All Mr Dhutta’s patients self-inject for six weeks against blood clotting. It marks them out from the run-of-the-mill. We took a simple supper including a black-edged salami. In fact it was pepper but we agreed it was a mourning salami  most suitable for consumption during a period of mourning. What about other mourning food? So odd that it has never been introduced. Where is it? Black-edged or black through.

But we weren’t in mourning, not at all.

Sunday 6th May 2012

Poor Little Rich Gays are away. Robert Nevil has gone to Edinburgh with Joshua Baring to visit Blanche Spain and been served a dessert with pansy garnish. The Multis have gained New York for Frieze Art Fair (the Blond Multi: ‘It’ll be great in New York because Frieze Art Fair will be on and we’ve got VIP entrance….oh, but I hate Frieze Art Fair’). They proceed to Palm Beach and New Orleans on visits to Grand Gays. Prince Dmitri Hersov is also in America but has not been heard of.

So I fall back on my tulips. This year I planned, for my front area, an exotic, daring ensemble of cardinal red, rich mottled bronze and royal purple. The result is a teeny bit common. For my upstairs terrace it was to be black, white and a tulip called Abu Hanza (no, Abu Hussein which is a burnished Middle Eastern orange/bronze). But something else came up, not Abu Hussein. Nevertheless the gloomy, funereal effect is most attractive, I find.

I’ve a third trio in my back garden which I’m saving to show you another time.

Tulip Time: Princess Irene (gold), Coleur Cardinal (red), Magic Lavender (Lavender)

Tulip Time: Coleur Cardinal (red), and Princess Irene (bronze)

Paul Scheerer (black), White Dream (white) with Unknown: Surprise Funeral Effect: Good

Paul Scheerer (black), White Dream (white) with Unknown: Mournful and Thunderous: Great

What was Meant to Be: Abu Hussein is the Orange One Here, in My Garden 2009. Seen with Paul Scheerer (black) and White Dream (white)

Monday 30th April 2012

Last week the Sacred Majesty of England visited the Multis. She came on by Range Rover from opening the Cutty Sark.

She was in red.

The Photo Multi took one of the greatest graphs ever of this miraculous personage who has been graphed a few times before in the years since 1926.

Her Majesty the Queen: One of the Greatest Graphs Ever Taken of This Glory: By the Photo Multi

La Grand Moment d'Arrive: Her Majesty the Queen Visits the Multis

The Queen Clucks Forth to Inspect Her Barge at the Multi's Pier

The Sacred Majesty of England, England's Throbbing Core, in Partenza from the Multis': Photo the Blond Multi

Sunday 29th April 2012

Rufus Pitman launched in Sloane Street – his new novel about Bangladesh in the 70s.  Fraught but hilarious – life in Bangladesh in the 70s, I mean. Marvellous book. V. Poor Little Rich Gay. On a knife-edge: wild ludicrosity, thundering horror.

Quite a few volatile Poor Little Rich Gays were contained in a jewellery shop in Sloane Street for the launch, as well as my own publisher, whom I ordered to re-issue all my works. My private architect, Bruce MacBain, who can near-hurl fellow guests into the Thames, tried to prise open the jewellery cupboards. The glamorous Polly Delfine, of the film world, arrived with Beth Murdo, the terrifying columnist; Polly said she often changed buses outside the shop and saw parties going on within. She said she could never endure to address a crowd of more than five. ‘Have you been on holiday?’ she inquired. ‘What do you mean?” ‘You’re so brown.’ I leapt almost through the jewellery cupboards: ‘My bronzer,’ I shrieked, ‘it’s Australian. I slap it on.’

I’ve never had a bronzer before that works! Space NK, of course. About £30. You must have it. See graph below. To tell the truth, Polly Delfine is not the first to have commented on my remarkable hue. I’ve been storing up in my heart more than several recent miraculous revelations, awaited all my life, that at last I am brown.

As a topic, bronzers were a dead loss with Polly Delfine’s husband, who is a poker-player and novelist in what I believe is called a pork-pie hat.

Briefly we exchanged with Rufus Pitman himself. Poor Little Rich Gays must achieve, as we know. How they achieve! Rufus Pitman is at the high end – at least a book a year, plus numerous appearances, newspaper columns and other attendances. There is a price to pay, though. No housework. But he does manage to fit in boutique perfumes, unusual trousers, interesting eye-wear and restaurants.

I saw Lord Arrowby in an outstanding blue suit. He’s my part-time love interest, not seen now for some months. Recently he asked me to a football match in connection with his charity work. Sadly I was stranded on my sofa, too weak to move.

My New Bronzer by Model Co: IT WORKS! Buy, buy, buy from Space NK. www.modelco.com.au

25th April 2012

Fashion is said to be superficial.

It’s not. It’s the fight against death.

So what’s looking new this Spring.

The shorts suit! In jade green or black. You remember there was a drive for shorts last Spring which came to nothing. Now they’re trying them again. Still tiny, with tiny jacket. Terribly flattering and absolutely novel for the Olympics or the Jubilee.

Surely a hot work look too!

Don’t let middle age hold you back from a shorts suit.

Pastels! Hideous but essential. Especially when combined with gingham or checks. Sandy Galore, now estranged, years ago identified the Andy Pandy look as unique to American tourists. So jolly and holiday-esque.

Chiffon sleeves! Yes! Chiffon sleeves. Adorable. Recalling elderly waitresses of one’s youth who reveled in chiffon sleeves for their blouses in black.

What humans have done when fabrics meet the human form!

The creativity! The inventivity! The endless renewal!

Topman: Suggested Mode for Summer: the Shorts Suit is Looking Smart for Work or Leisure

Or by Hermes in Black: The Shorts Suit is Fabulous this Spring

Relaxed Spring Look

Spring Pastels by Prada: Two Elderly American Gentleman Tourists of Uncertain Leanings, I Would Say: Or The Andy Pandy Look

Chiffon Sleeves ! Found by the Photo Multi

New Spring Clucks for the Photo Multi by Prada

Sunday 22nd April 2012

It was just the kind of event Poor Little Rich Gays embrace: unknown artists, installations to mark the switching off of the analogue signal, the location a Hackney shed, beside the railway line. Come and view and take a  traditional TV dinner. £15.

The event was whirled from nothing by people who could otherwise have been wallowing in their own obscurity: but no, they were making.

The Multis got to hear about it through tremendous banter and optimism at Maltby Street Market last Saturday morning.

They scooped back from the past a former gay employee of the Blond Multi’s, now 35 and in a mac by Joy. It was all marvellous. Let the graphs speak for themselves. We recognised a sofa from Habitat, circa 1985, with derelict TVs lolling on it. I loved the ghetto blasters come back as planters for cacti.

Être frank (to be frank), I did have trouble adapting: what if the TV dinners ran out? The booking system seemed a little haphazard. Where would we sit? The actual TV lounge was blocked by the Art young and other penniless self-inventions (no driven get and grab here, thank God). But the Multis were astonishingly blasé. We toured the show for 45 minutes; they befriended the artists and graphed them extensively. Then we got our trays and perched on a table beside an inactive sound system. Captain Blond Multi picked his way amongst a mass of young people doing a pub quiz on the analogue theme (lots of jumpers with sleeves covering the hands) and came back with 4 chairs.

We couldn’t have been happier. The TV dinner was absolutely excellent, provided by The Art of Dining (theartofdining@gmail.com). I’d never had a TV dinner before. You get three courses in separate compartments, all on the same tray.

TV Dinner Art Event Venue in Hackney

Analogue's End: Hackney Art Event for the Switching off of the Analogue Signal

Installation for the End of Analogue

The Actual TV Lounge at the TV Dinner Art Event: We Could Not Gain Access Owing to Blocking

Analogue to the Junk Yard

Recycing: a Ghetto Blaster of Yesteryear, Now a Planter

TV Dinners for 4: Taken at the TV Dinner Art Event to Mark the Switching Off of the Analogue Signal

TV Dinner Menu: Provided by The Art of Dining (theartofdining.co.uk)

Friday 20th April 2012

The richness! The riches! Rufus Pitman’s launch was in a jewellery store! Bruce MacBain tried to get the glass cabinets open. Susan Goodyear was there, as well as Beth Murdo. Huge names! More to come, more to come. Then on to the Picasso.

But Val – as you know, probably our most extreme Poor Little Rich Gay Rich, really teetering on the verge, but radiant in horror. He’s been hip-snapped since September, apres un tombe (after a fall) while lavishly refreshed. So on crutches, due a hip replacement in early May, very dependent on TV, as you might imagine.

Now could he re-tune his set to digital mode upon the analogue signal being switched off ? Could he, buffalo? QF (quite frankly) sauced beyond hope of any progress with a remote. So I go over Monday to find him lurching, his remote actually saturated with Pepsi. I achieve digital for him, except BBC2, which shows for five seconds then flips to the next channel. Why? Why? Why? I say to Val, ‘Ring the Digital helpline.’ He didn’t though. He rang Bridget Kendall. Such an old friend. The Diplomatic Correspondent of the BBC. Household name, of course. Bridget Kendallerama. It’s never been revealed whether any relation of Kenneth Kendall (small dogs, Brighton) who used to read the television news years ago. I think any connection unlikely. He was always known as the Kenneth Kendall machine. She is Bridget Kendallerama.

Quite unable to assist re: the digital switchover apparently.What is the use?

Otherwise Val was preoccupied with Ladies’ Day at Aintree Racecourse. He’d cut a graph out of the Guardian (see below). Somebody said, ‘Pigs in chiffon’ which isn’t very nice. Val said, ‘They’ll all be carrying stiletto bouquets by the end of the day.’

I’ve not heard that before, have you? ‘Stiletto bouquet’. It would be that their heels are killing them and they’re carrying their footwear.Geddit?

There was something of a tussle in the kitchen. Val announced pork chops with juniper and high-end tinned petit pois; then immediately hacked out the decoration. It was to be just the chops. ‘You’ll have to cook them,’ he declared regally. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘another little drop won’t do you any harm.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You’re somewhat stimulated,’ I said. Val sprayed me with a Roget et Gaillet floral spray. ‘Marvellous for the whisky fumes,’ I said. Then I did my imitation of Mildred, from Jewel in the Crown, utterly plastered, trying to meet the Nawab. She sways on the spot,murderously trying not fall over, giving a remarkable final effect of appalling hauteur.

We laughed.

Val heaved into the kitchen and began the chops somewhat randomly. I spied the tin of petit pois by the stove. ‘What are those?’ I said. ‘Shall we have them?’ So we did. I managed to get the juniper re-instated as well.

Eating, Val spoke of his friend Bobby Cartland: ‘She’ll be in the House of Lords any minute, you know. She’s on every committee to do with children failing to thrive.’

‘What about you?’ I said. ‘Think what you’ve done for neglected foodstuffs…such as the high-end tinned petit pois.’

Which is the greater achievement? There’s no doubt in my mind.

Ladies Day at Aintree: Saved from the Guardian by Val

Thursday 19th April 2012

Actually overcome with lassitude despite Poor Little Rich Gay life raving, absolutely raving: we’ve got: tulips, Spring modes (frockage), Val’s latest antics (he’s rather back on the refreshments), adventures in Hackney last night with the Multis (we penetrated a remote industrial yard)… tonight  piles in Rufus Pitman, his book launch (he’s caught Bangladesh), then on to Picasso PV at Tate Britain (at least I hope it’s Tate Britain), thence to dinner in Shoreditch.

BUT on Saturday Bruce MacBain, my private architect, gave a small dinner.  At 55, this award-winning architect is still winsome and flirtatious from a solid base of straight-acting (really not a hint of gay, which is unknown in a gay) down-to-earth Scots with Scottish accent. Women love him and carry on loving him despite lack of progress. Thankfully, scratch the surface and it’s My Suzie Cooper rare pattern side plates, my dining chairs by Ray Eames, originals at £400 a go, plus another set with slats (see graph below), also rare and designed by a designer. The Blond Multi said, ‘Is your vase chipped?’. Bruce MacBain had a fit. To and fro he’d gone for six months trying to decide whether to acquire this collectable by Lehmanfeld or whoever (Czech, I think. Huge in the 20th century vase world).

No, it wasn’t chipped.

The Photo Multi tried both kinds of dining chair. Tancredo Viamare, partner of Bruce MacBain (tremendous decor clashes: luckily Tancredo equally embattled; in fact only person who has been able to stand up to Bruce MacBain in years) remodelled Tiramisu. You may remember 3 years ago in Tuscany Angus Willis, of Angus Willis Home Store, Hastings , international food writer and stylist, told the villa maid to rethink her tiramisu. Can you imagine? An Italian! He said, No nylon custard and chocolate powder.

Tiramisu looms large in the Poor Little Rich Gay world, which may surprise some. It’s all right but it must be done differently.

Tancredo’s was decorated with those dried rose buds you use to make tea and saturated with an almond liquor. It was also turned out as a cake – highly complex to pull off.

A dispute broke out about the population of Bologna. The Blond Multi googled from his iPhone. But Tancredo said Google was absolutely wrong, no, no, couldn’t possibly be right, complete nonsense…

Sunday Robert Nevil and I drove out to Beth Chatto’s garden. She second most famous English gardener after C.Lloyd. C.Lloyd, of course, we adore because he was abominably behaved both in the garden and out. Such joy and colour and nonsense. Beth is just a teeny, wheeny bit dreary, despite some marvellous plants. It’s her design, so many curving beds, just a little interminable, and one part of the garden much like another. And rather a bleak Essex spot – flat, you know. Bang in the middle of the garden is her bungalow, heavily shrouded with net curtains.  We longed to megaphone: ‘Come out, Beth. We know you’re in there.’

Then we saw her at her kitchen window! She’s 89.

I told Val about this scheme and he recalled Cilla’s TV show of the 60s where she did just that: megaphoned from outside a person’s home for them to come out and meet Cilla. Blinking figures would emerge, bowled over at the surprise, unsuspicious, apparently, of vans, TV lights and personnel which must have been crowding round for some time before.

I’m sure the woman in Beth’s shop did it deliberately. After all, despite criticism, Beth is a cut above. The shop lady overheard us talking about where to get clematis and recommended a lovely garden centre near Tiptree. I’m sure she regularly seizes the chance to plunge la-di-da Beth lovers into Hell.

See graphs below!

Important Chair Belonging to Bruce MacBain

Bruce MacBain's Table: The Photo Multi Tried Both Kinds of Chair

Tiramisu Loaded onto Suzie Cooper Plate at Bruce MacBain's

Beth Chatto's: Not Right Somehow

Rare Trillium at Beth Chatto's: 'Not Rare Enough,' Robert Nevil Said

Spotted Laurel: One of the Worst Shrubs Ever: Seen at Beth Chatto's

Lovely Magenta Shade: Seen in Garden Centre near Beth Chatto's in Essex

Charming Stoat Water Feature Seen in Garden Centre near Beth Chatto's

Monday 16th April 2012

At 88, the Gay Mother tried something entirely new with spring greens. They were tossed with lovage, sorrel and spinach, all self-plucked from her garden. On the other hand, she revived a Robert Carrier lamb bake with a cheesy crust. Rather good if you pre-cook the tomatoes with a bay leaf rather than dump them in straight from the tin.

She leapt three feet from her chair when struck that Madmen was about to begin on Sky Atlantic. Loves Peggy, Joan: extraordinary shape, dislikes Don Draper’s first wife, doesn’t mention Don Draper himself. Later took a Miss Marple: doesn’t like Geraldine McEwen as.

Her flowers in Church were better than anyone else’s. See graphs below.

The Gay Mother's Floral Installation at the Lectern's Base in Church for Easter

The Gay Mother's Easter Flowers for the Lecturn in Church

The Gay Mother's Font Work: Easter Flowers for the Church