Monday 2nd January 2012

I’m so lulled post festivities – almost to extinction’s point. Lady Bertram, inert on her sofa with a pug, doesn’t begin to describe…

And there’s Reggie Cresswell’s New Year’s Eve party, world names skimming over acres of carpet in a veal shade, and Lord Arrowby so divine; those nursing home visits; Cousin Smurry’s Ottolenghi Christmas, THE SALES…

A Furred Greatness (Belted) Seen in Venice, Dec 2011

A Furred Greatness, Seen at Tate Modern, London

Saturday 31st December 2011

Departure for Reggie Cresswell’s in ten minutes: you remember him? He’s the internationally known Ghanaian ceramicist who, as it happens, shaped the nation’s Christmas. Oh yes! He was on TV. Did you see? He took a little quizzette and got through to the second round. Another contestant was a fearful hatchet nerd who knew everything.

Lady Bracknell: ‘Do you know everything or nothing?’ ‘I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.’

How many PLRGs have been elevated in the New Years’ Honours? Millions, to be sure.

Anyway, I’m to wear cream for the party. See graphs below. As you know, I’m taking summer colours into winter this year, among other things.

Very Happy New Year to you all!

Un choix de creme: Option One: Marc Jacobs cream jeans, Paolo Pecora Sateen Trim Shirt, Both Reduced, and Zara White Jacket

Option Two: Marc Jacobs Cream Jeans, Cream Knit by Fabrizio de Carlo (Terrible Snagger): Both Items Massively Reduced in Summer Sales

Friday 30th December 2011

Shattered actually but radiant. THE SALES!

Last night the Blond Multi wanted a blow-by-blow of my Christmas menus but soon got bored so we never reached the cold turkey on Boxing Day. At Selfridges earlier yesterday I’d tried on a pair of Orlebar Brown swimming shorts (designed to horn up the older man), such as the Blond championed so brilliantly in Tuscany this summer. It was oddly intimate, in his shorts, as it were! They were down from £150 to £49.  Did I mention that this Multi is a hunk? But the Orlebar were no good for me. The 32″ waist too tight, the 34″ flappy and baggy in the leg.

All my frockage life I’ve wanted FIT, FIT, FIT.

Hack out the excess fabric – on the spot if nec.

They fitted the Blond, who is a big guy, although never a buffed-up international Earl’s Court gay. He’s to be 50 at the Pont de la Tour in March.

So much to tell: I’ve made two nursing home visits and, do you know, I think Cousin Smurry’s reinvented Christmas! With Ottolenghi!

Who’d have thought it.

I’ll tell you later, when I’ve the strength.

In the meantime, here is a selection of Christmas cards received.

Look here, Poor Little Rich Gays, without fail, come next October, you will be in the studio, posing for your 2012 card, perhaps in a selection of your Olympic outfits!  So as to be ready for Christmas, just like the colour supplements.

My God! I’ve only just thought: we’re going to have to have outfits for the Olympics – and the Diamond Jubilee, if HM and Edinburgh don’t double keel beforehand.

To return to the point, only Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock mender (did I mention that he went to Monaco for the day recently to mend a clock? Turned out the billionaire hadn’t wound it up), showed the true Poor Little Rich Gay spirit with a self-made unique card never before seen.

Marcus Cargill (England's leading clock mender) and Hamish McCory's Christmas Card: It's Their Dog, Robin: Red Tongue Gives Christmas Lift

Odd Christmas Card Received by Aunt Lavinia from a Household Name

The Multis' Thrift Self Card: Graph by the Photo Multi of Chelsea Gold Medal Winner's Garden, First Offered as a Card 10 Years Ago

A Round Card that ACTUALLY Stands Up! Sent by Head of Huge Construction Firm's Wife

The World's Smallest Christmas Card: From Robert Nevill

Backwards Nun Card

Sunday 25th December 2011

In the first place, we meditate on the Nativity. We must remember that it was two weeks before the Wise Men turned up. Just think of the Madonna, Joseph and the extras stuck in the Nativity pose for three hundred and thirty-six hours. At last they could knock off or so they thought. But  the stylists said they’d got to wait another 1500 years for Raphael, Botticelli and all that lot to appear. It was rather like a wedding sponsored by Hello! magazine.

In the second place, the top of The Shard – it’s not straight. I’ve a duty to tell them. Near to, they can’t see. It’s like putting up a picture. You’ve got to step back to be sure it’s not skew.

It's Just Not Straight: The Shard Top as Seen from My Official Home

Can You Doubt It? It's NOT Straight: Who Should I Phone?

Saturday 24th December 2011

I’ve gained the country! The Gay Mother and I are roasting a ten ton duck.

My God, the shops in her nearby town: so high! Two sorts of pomegranate molasses!

By tradition, I list my pre-Christmas engagements: one cabaret, one Louis Vuitton party, two family functions, a country lunch, one opera, one ballet and dinner, four further dinners.

How can I catch the flavour?

At Rufus Pitman’s the mutton was from Borough. The Government was at the other end of the table: a rare viewing of the divine Lord Arrowby, my part-time love interest! Much talk of procedure and the correct address of members. Did you know that an MP who is a lawyer is the ‘learned’ member? Rufus said, ‘What about a gorgeous member? – would the proper form be “the hot member for Bostrich?’ One of the guests is about to become a permanent hard-on, which is as high as you can go in the Civil Service.

Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowski gave a luxury self-made fish pie dinner. Peter’s cleaning woman is small but still has to be ordered under the bed. They’ve acquired a bronze from the late Princess Anne’s hairdresser (no! Princess Anne’s late hairdresser) the bum of which must be dusted. Lord Waheed Alli was charming recently at a function; said to Peter, ‘We must be cousins.’

We were entrained 1st class on a Sunday for the Photo Multi’s mother, who lives simply and for others in the Midlands. This year, the Multis did not take a pub and entertain 40 to lunch. Instead the Photo Mother offered a sumptuous array and two knock-out cream puddings in her own home, much of it prepared by a saintly neighbour. I sat next to the Photo’s brother, who is a hunk but unable to gym in the neighbourhood owing to criminals in the gym. He said to me: ‘How can you have the trifle if it’s not Versace?’ He had a spell of labels and has seen through them.

Seen through them! No, no, no!

The Photo Mother is a good woman free of Poor Little Rich Gay tendencies.

In the next week, the Multis gave a dinner (again with Borough and Maltby Street elements) for a Chelsea Gold Medal Winner and his partner. There’s to be another garden this year at Chelsea from this person. Can’t wait. His last was my favourite of all time, with cloud-form yews and Persian carpet bedding. I showed him photos of my own garden. He was delightful; no arse or brittle or queen when horticulture mentioned as with most garden designers. As it happens Aunt Lavinia’s garden is by him, since he rented her house for many years. The Photo Multi found their rent too low. He went all the way over to her quarter to inspect agent’s windows and establish the true value.

At Ed Jasper and Roland Mainflower’s Ottolenghi (bought in from except for the ham and salmon)  buffet dinner after ‘The Nutcracker’ by Matthew Bourne, Conor Cadoux of a leading financial house briefed on the Cameron walk-out at Brussels. All wrong apparently. The City of London not threatened. A leading columnist from the Daily Mail was expected but couldn’t gain owing to having to write a last-minute piece. I’ve met him before. Knows everything. Fabulous gossip. Different boyfriend from last time, who was there. Ed and Roland have fallen out with their best friends.

I wore cream head to toe for Ralph Kitto’s International Supper. He’s the banker who’s given everything to Art. One of his Damien’s is on loan to an exhibition. Who should I sit next to but Danny George, who was the hottest muscled sweetness of his day and still ravishing and springy. Not seen for years by me. He’s daggers drawn with one of our millionaire company-owning Poor Little Rich Gays who rocks with a younger partner and sues if you work for him and leave. Also is on occasion the only one nude at parties. It was Danny who brought the Elton Johns together.  Perhaps within a year, Elton will host the party for Danny’s Civil Partnership. Opposite was an American who is huge at Burberry: ‘Winter white and separates,’ I barked. ‘That’s what we want.’  He lives across the garden from Ralph and after dinner we went over and peered through the back door into his fully honed, multi-million kitchen.

Ed Jasper and Roland Mainflower: Their Table Centrepiece

Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowski: Their Tree

The Multis: A Day Out in the Country

Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver's Tree

The Multis: Just a Small Tree This Year

Cousin Oscar's Neapolitan Crib

A Tasteful Stockwell Ensemble

Wednesday 21st December 2011 (the shortest day: now we career towards Spring)

Ralph Kitto’s international supper tonight, tomorrow Meistersinger (5pm start: ends 10.45). Friday board for the country.

Oh the engagements! How blessed I have been (to use vicar-like words of Harry who won Strictly). I’m going to do a round-up in the style of Jenufa: do you remember her? As in Jenufa’s Diary in Harpic and Queen. In real life she was Mrs Betty Kenward and I once saw her on wheels at Claridges.

But I was in the middle of Ronnie Ronnie at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. He gave a show last week. At the best table at the front, Robert Nevill, Joshua Baring (only 27: youth interest) and myself took three mini-tubes of Pringles (canapés not known at the RVT). Then Ronnie Ronnie, that rare songbird of the Borough, loomed on the stage-lette in a Christmas outfit with Andy Warhol wig.

He is a miracle, going back, back into the low past of Robert Nevill, those Brixton railway-line days, above the male brothel, with the thrice daily burglaries. Now Robert Nevill’s top, top at the Royal Literary Fund and the London Library and Ronnie Ronnie’s got a Bruce-MacBain-designed home.

It was the Blitz with Steve Strange where Ronnie Ronnie was huge, in a duo then with Masha Minx. That was in the 70s.

Now he is supreme solo and gave a thrilling cabaret with highly unusual songs and brilliant banter. Highlights were ‘Grandma got run over by a reindeer’ and a new ballad about the late Bernard Matthews: ‘Bernard Matthews had a lot of turkeys/ But his favourite one was Flo..’ So it started lovingly. Sadly by the end, they’d rather fallen out: ‘You dirty crook, you twizzled me.’

Owing to pressure of engagements we were unable to stay to the end but whirled round to Hot Stuff, a Stockwell treasure of Joshua Baring’s (he knows all the restaurants, although only 27). Hot Stuff is actually an Indian, modern décor, a cut above, and highly informal. Our dinner was waiter-selected. Previous diners had strewn large qualities of Christmas debris over the floor in a delightful manner.

I’ve heard also that Caravan in Exmouth Market, in London’s north, is very good – if you’re thinking about diarizing for January, which you should be.

We’ve also got Meryl as Margaret to look forward to: if I don’t go with the Multis I’ll die.

Ronnie Ronnie Evoking Through Hand Gestures Bernard Matthews' Favourite Turkey Bird, Flo

Tuesday 20th December 2011

It can be done. There is a route.

You may not know the Royal Vauxhall; it’s not exactly rough. The ‘Royal’ is rather hopeful. It is a pub where Gays perform.

Packed programme! Packed programme! Including back to back and three on a night. That’s my pre-Christmas evenings. In the daytime, I’m in on all the deaths. Tasteless, I know, but Poor Little Rich Gays love to throb at the core. It gives shape and meaning.

Christopher Hitchens’ mother was a great friend of Aunt Carstairs but the Gay Mother and I never forgave him for snide remarks about the Headmaster of my prep school, where he went too. He’d gone off, if you ask me. Thrilling when young; later limited. Then Anthony Mottram, of Prague, with whom I’ve not been on speakers for two years: he’s been heard of, in a manner of speaking. He hovered at Vaclav Havel’s bedside and is planning an open casket funeral. It looks likely that we will be reunited at another graveside though.

Only the Korean man I’ve got no entree to – except that certain Poor Little Rich Gays, when they go too far, rather resemble. Apparently the shoe-in lookalike grandson has already had botox.

Talking of strings, not even Joshua Baring, that coming young man with fingers in every pie, can get tickets for Richard 11 at the Donmar. I’d no desire to see it whatsoever until I heard it was sold out. Eddie Redmayne (he plays the main part, which I suppose must be Richard 11) was at Eton with Joshua. Joshua put through a private call, but not even the star has box-office access.

The place must be democratically run.

Unlike Louis Vuitton: the Multis were top of the list, as Grayson owners (x 2, it emerges), for the launch of Grayson Perry’s travelling trunk for Louis Vuitton at the store in New Bond Street. You can’t have it by the way. There’s only one and LV have given it to Grayson. The Photo Multi suggested I ram with him and the Blond Multi as back-up. But I had a sudden flash. Paris, you know! The very top of Louis Vuitton. An instruction was sent, no mere request. I was to be more than admitted, I was to undergo complete embracement.

Clasped to the very heart of Louis Vuitton.

The indescribable pared-down elegance and honed beauty!

I purred forth from there directly to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, favourite haunt of my part-time love-interest, Lord Arrowby of the Government, so little seen recently owing to all these engagements. Ronnie Ronnie was to sing – oh no! I’ve overrun.

Come back tomorrow for Ronnie Ronnie. Come back! Come back!

Trunk by Grayson Perry for Louis Vuitton, Shown at New Bond Street Store

Private View of Private View: the Blond Multi and me, Adrian Edge, Given Exclusive Tour of Back of Grayson Perry Trunk by the Artist Himself

Grayson Perry, Darling!

Louis Vuitton Grayson Perry Trunk Launch, London: Staff

Two Furred Greatness at Grayson Perry Trunk Launch: Louis Vuitton, London

Ronnie Ronnie at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern

Saturday 17^th December 2011

Can barely breathe with the engagements: Louis Vuitton Bond St opening, Ronnie Ronnie in song at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, dinner at the Multis with a Chelsea Gold Medallist, Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker, then afterwards to Ed Jasper and Roland Mainflower’s for an Ottolenghi slap-up spread.

And still Tiepolo, Veronese and another Venetian painter seen properly for the first time to be considered from the Venice visit.

Radiant with it, though. I’ll tell you, I really will.

But on Monday Angus Willis, the international food writer and stylist: his mother was laid to rest. Poor Angus is distraught: she was such a support, not at all the usual Poor Little Rich Gay mother, slightly in competition. She hurled herself in to the food world, was often at dinner with the Carluccios or on the tasting trips to India: nothing was to stand in the way of her son’s talent and achievements.

Oh the funeral! Sad but uplifting, one of the best I’ve known. I motored up in my black official car with Xenon driving lights, conveying Merle Barr, head of health, and Angus’s London housekeeper who does part-time clairvoyance for Russell Grant. The church was packed, also with daffs and tulips, done by Angus, of course. There was a proper funeral procession with the coffin shouldered by the funeral men, no horrid trolley. Angus had made a pall: it was a white cloth with a web of white roses attached. Charlie Hurling, the boyhood friend of Angus’s, was to speak which was alarming: he’s the one who thinks of the worst thing to say and says it. But he was marvellous and unafraid and untrammeled by convention and also distressed . As often with those apparently brittle and given to one-liners, beneath lie such depths. He revealed the truth and the truth is always wonderful however far from many people’s simpering ideals: Angus Willis’s mother was splendid, even more so now, in death, than when alive. She was very fond of bickering, and never gave in on any point whatsoever in all her life but, oddly, she was quite free of rancor. In her last months she regained the quality of translucent innocence she must have had in youth. She was terribly wounded by a man in her early 50s and absolutely refused to recover, despite common sense.

She was a force, she really was. The other speaker had taught with her in a primary school. In the lunch-hour, she explained, they would tour charity shops for brooches and the like, just regaining in time for the bell. Angus Willis’s mother would then consume the afternoon showing the children what she’d bought. When accompanying ‘Away in a Manger’ on the piano, she often fell asleep but the children were used to this and carried on. Her stories of psychotic tenants at her holiday cottage in Sussex once held an entire railway carriage spell-bound.

She was a true Poor Little Rich Gay.

Angus Willis's Flowers for His Mother's Funeral

Angus Willis's Flowers for His Mother's Funeral

Tuesday 13th December 2011

Actually since regaining from Venice one week ago, there have been four dinners and a funeral, two last minute.

But first we must ask the great question we always ask: what did Venice give to the Poor Little Rich Gays? Has it shaped our style and art? Did we shape its?

My day alone, after the main party had mounted for London, last Monday, was one of the most thrilling for cradling art and buildings in recent years if not in my entire span of life, although, truth told, I don’t really take Tiepolo, Veronese or Guardi. If ever the sum was greater than the parts – although I did make one great discovery. I’ll tell you about it soon.

And the Fortuny Museum was closed, did I mention?

In the larger arc, Venice is supremely Poor Little Rich Gay, highly ornamental, possibly unnecessary, lurching on mud in the middle of that wondrous bleak lagoon. Most places in some small way resemble other places, but Venice absolutely does not. Even the water in behaviour and colour is quite unique.

But within is flock wallpaper, a certain heaviness, just a wheeny bit blowsy. Damask is also loved, as a complete room lining, even of the ceiling: old-fashioned. And marble, of course.

Then I remembered, Val, that glorious spirit who flashes on through a vat of the wrong kind of spirits, once lined his bedroom (including ceiling) with a reproduction velvet from Shepherd’s Bush market. It was deep blue with gold fleur-de-lys. I must ask him how the other fittings were done. I’m sure there was a bed canopy, the whole effect very Doge.

Then one day he chucked it all away.

And the Photo Multi’s bathroom (the Multis have separate bathrooms and dressing rooms in their Riverside penthouse but one bedroom, not twin) is a marble symphony, except that it’s onyx. The Multis were done, you know, when they marble-clad their penthouse. A vicious stonemason disappeared with £25,000. Their response was to fly business-class several times to Pisa to select directly from the mines and fly in a team of Italian craftsmen to install.

In the Photo Multi’s bathroom, the very cupboard doors are marble – or onyx.

In Venice I found a exquisite church which gave birth to it – the Photo Multi’s bathroom, I mean. Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Do you know it? It’s awfully well known. A marble jewel, marble without and within.

Let the graphs below speak.

Bathroom Idea?: Marble Used at Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice

The Perfect Bathroom: Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice: Marble-lined

Why Not Try at Home? Marble Lining of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice

Outside of the Bathroom: Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice

Veal and Damask Heaven: the Multis' Suite at the Luna Baglioni, Venice: I mean the Carpets are Veal Shade

Tented Heaven: the Multis' Damask-Lined Suite at the Luna Baglioni

The Multis' Suite at the Luna Baglioni, Venice: Casing Tape Detail

Three Nights Away: the Multis' Accoutrements at the Luna Baglioni, Venice: Note Even the Dressing Room is Ceiling-Lined

Sunday 11th December 2011

I did love the art in Venice, really I did. On Monday I took Veronese, Guardi, Tiepolo x2, Palladio;  twice I assaulted the shut Fortuny Museum. Lunch was 95 euros.

But at Peggy’s I failed. I’ve been to her before and loved. But this time, it was the dog graves that absorbed. Visiting the previous day, Purbeck Crowhurst was suspicious: he is an international artist with a gothic bent, as well as a dog-lover.

‘I blame Jackson Pollock,’ he declared.

‘….?’

He’d spotted a high incidence of early dog death at a particular period.

Just the time, it so happens, of Peggy’s affair with the splurgist.

So now we know.

Me, I was stuck by the tiny-ness of Peggy’s dining table. Huge room, with little bench set-up marooned in the middle, barely space for 6 to huddle round nor hope for a plate to balance.

Peggy's Lost Dogs

Christmas Decoration at Peggy's