Saturday 10th December 2011
It’s nothing but lunches, dinners and drinks from now on. And a funeral – Angus Willis’s mother is sadly gone. Only next Saturday is blank.
Before the great chasm of January opens up.
Last minute I go to Rufus Pitman’s this eve: he is to bring out two books next year.
Lord Arrowby will be there. He’s been elevated even higher, you know.
I’ve still got Venice decor tips to cover, plus Venice art and Peggy’s dogs.
Come back, do come back.
2 comments so far, add yours ▶Thursday 8th December 2011
The Private View was on Saturday night: Beatrice has done some outstanding new portraits, one with a Klimt feel. The previous show in the gallery was Hernan Bas.
But oh! Flavia, the gallery’s owner. What a greatness! 83, in cream Chanel, with Ferragamo clucks (we hope). For hours and hours, absolutely the hostess, chin up, face forward, giving, giving, giving. Then, onto the restaurant, the same.
She has a boyfriend of 60, who carried her shoes (she has a second best Ferragamo pair, identical, for the streets), never cooks at home, only eats in restaurants where she takes only steak, beans and grappa.
Flavia in Greatness: Owner of Gallery Showing Beatrice Cantor's Work
Flavia's Clucks - Possibly Ferragamo
Typical Heels at Beatrice Cantor's Venice PV
Venetian Gentleman's PV wear
A Greatness at the PV: Klimt-Style Beatrice Cantor Just Vis in Background: Green Shades
Our After-Restaurant: Flavia Gave the Dinner at Trattoria La Fenice
The Desert Melange at the After-Dinner Given by Flavia
Tuesday 6th December 2011
Where to begin? Where to begin?
10 mins to spare waiting for the airport launch yesterday afternoon in Venice. Well, pop into the Gesuati Church right at the Zattere stop and take some Tiepolo. My God! The Institution of the Rosary! Who’d have thought it. I never knew it had been instituted, did you? Huge swirling of drapery, clouds, set of steps, arms outreached. No sign of the Rosary.
That was in addition to the last-minute Tiepolo I’d taken at the Scuola Grande de Carmine.
3 days in Venice was a whole lifetime of hotels, restaurants, shops, hotels, boats, gallery openings, paintings, facades, church visits, cycles of paintings, ceilings.
I think I might have some decor tips for you.
I’m thrilled, utterly thrilled but in pieces.
We were in Venice for Beatrice Cantor’s opening at a gallery near San Marco. A party of about eight gained mainly from London, including those other artists of note, Seth Vaughan and Purbeck Crowhurst.
That was on Saturday night: I’ll tell you later.
On Saturday morning as I was coming in from the airport the Multis were being launched out to Torcello for the Locanda Cipriani. They had offered it to others at 120 euros each way just for the launch but, enfin, the Multis bore the terrible isolation of money.
It was at Florian’s on Sunday that the Multis moved the furniture for the first time since Byron was there, ripping the hearts out of a number of jewelled Venetian Greatnesses in butterscotch quilted coats. At Harry’s Bar the day before it had been a lesser upheaval. Have you ever taken Harry’s Bar? Tiny, bare brown room, hard wooden chairs. Absolutely nothing.
But it was later that day, in a simple restaurant apparently taken daily by Flavia, 83-year-old owner of the gallery where Beatrice Cantor was showing (we’ll be hearing more about her: an utter greatness), that eyes narrowed, voices were lowered to a slow growl and we were teetering on the brink.
We swirled in; Purbeck Crowhurst was with; he says things like, ‘Aw.. hasn’t he got big hands!’, of a waiter who might be within earshot and knowing English. But that wasn’t it. The Blond Multi addressed the waiter: ‘Flavia… we hear Flavia eats all her meals here. She always has steak and beans and grappa. Is that right?’ Then he said, as he always does, ‘Who owns this restaurant?’ Usually he follows up with, ‘Where does he/she live?’
He likes even lowly staff to be au fait, in the know, aware, even in a small way, that knowledge is power. He can’t bear to see them merely functionary. He wants them rising up, up and owning themselves.
But this waiter didn’t get any of that. He stiffened with hostility. The more the poor Blond tried to get a bit of buck, a glimmer of entrepreneurial spirit, the worse it got. ‘Now, I’m afraid this bottle of beer isn’t cold enough. Maybe at the back of the fridge there might be one that’s really cold.’
The Blond said he wanted to leave – with the bread brought and the wine opened!
But we clung on. Thank God the Multis liked the food, simple as it was. At half time through wine came a sudden glimmer of hope: if the Multis wanted to spend 30 euros on a second bottle, the menacing waiter could offer them the best for the same price: a barolo. They liked the barolo. We ordered tea and coffee to complete the dinner but then the Multis were reversing, back into the wine: more barolo required. How about cheese? The waiter who I’m sure earlier would have gunned us down had it been allowed announced his shift was ending. Leaving, in civvies, he waved through the window from the street, the Photo Multi shuttering away with the Nikkon like mad. It was a great scene, sustained for some minutes: Verdi or Puccini should have been called in.
We were en fete. We ordered pudding and various further specialist wines, cognacs and grappas.
Florian's, As Re-Modelled by the Multis
Fully Edible: a Florian Elegance for Daintiness
The Multis in Venice: the Breakfast Room of the Luna Baglioni
The Blond Multi Being Launched Out to Locanda Cipriani, Torcello
Locanda Cipriani on Torcello: Awful Metal Door Frame: Could Be Anywhere
The Multis Gain a Discount at Locanda Cipriani: One of Their Tenants is a Cipriani
Harry's Bar Bellini: Tiny, Brown Interior: Could Be Anywhere
View from the Multis' Suite at the Luna Baglioni
The View of San Giorgio from the Multi's Suite at the Luna Baglioni: Night-time
Monday 5th December 2011
I don’t mount the air for London until 19.40.
I’ve such a busy programme. Can’t stop.
Il Rendentore, the Ghetto, the Fortuny Museum, San Sebastiano, San Raphaele, plus find the shop where once I bought some glasses. And lunch where Ruth Rogers lunched on Saturday.
Not easy to find anything in Venice.
In my life I’ve spent a total of three weeks here but every stroll is beginning anew: new astonishments, new miracles.
Yesterday we went on a gondola. On Saturday the Multis went on the Cipriani launch to Torcello: they asked me to join at 120 euros each way not including lunch costs at Locanda Cipriani. Instead I sent competitive graphs of my own lunch at restaurant Riviera on Giudecca, including bill of 59 euros.
But actually they came in at the Cip (but only Locanda) at 170 euros. One of their tenants is a Cipriani. They got disconti.
I was charged £20 by O2 for data roaming.
And no pictures: once again Windows wants to import 1544 photos. I could have shown you the Multis suite at the Luna Baglioni, the acres of veal carpet and damask lining. I’ve a wonder shot from their window of San Giorgio across the lagoon at night.
Can’t stop: must rush out, out into Venice.
Just can’t believe it; can’t believe I’m here.
Leave the first comment ▶Friday 2nd December 2011
Here is a recent bill of the Multis and some further evidence of life-style – not quite as expected.
The Multis at London's Cheapest Restaurant: Bring Your Own Bollie
The Photo Multi at a Chinese Possibly: Only This Graph Sent Without Caption
Wednesday 30th November 2011
You would have thought the Ancients were so taken up with fundamentals, they’d no time for anything else. When you think of the struggle to get a fire going or assemble any frockage – weave your own cloth. Need a comb – well, make your own.
But, no; Poor Little Rich Gay tendencies set in early. Look at those combs below. There they were, carving away, putting in unnecessary details. I bet someone was cross about those irrelevant bird-shaped handles. Why bother with a comb at all, in fact, if you’re sweeping night and day to keep all that desert sand under control?
There might have been a lack of extensive celebrity coverage in Ancient Egypt, but the style of life had its advantages. Quite frankly, take a few evening classes in pottery, carving, mummification, tomb painting , bash out the odd piece and 5000 years later it’ll be revered in a museum as a wondrously vibrant example of ethnic craft.
So, Poor Little Rich Gays, why not start with a wanking statue as below, before launching on the painting of a full sarcophagus, perhaps for self-use in the long run.
Render your own artefacts for future archaeology.
They Didn't Have to Have the Birds: Poor Little Rich Gay Tendencies in Ancient Egypt
Wanking Very In in Ancient Egypt: They Thought Semen the Source of Life Even When Applied Directly to the Earth
Ancient Egyptian Queen Mother
One Eye Blanked Out: Could be New for Spring: Gives a Suggestive Look
Nice!
Tuesday 29th November 2011
The Autumn Budget! Oh No! If this goes on much longer the Poor Little Rich Gays will have to be disbanded on grounds of taste.
No, they won’t.
I was saying: Oxford, last Friday, the Ashmolean Opening of the Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries. The gathering just a wheeny bit stuffington. Certain looks at my tiny suitette with satin binding, from Topman.
I thought to myself, I thought: you can huff and puff but where would you be without the Poor Little Rich Gays?
Minus the Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries for a start. It was a Poor Little Rich Gay and his band of whippy young assistants with very particular glasses that only seem to be worn by architects who whirled up those galleries.
Can you imagine the scenes? The slamming of doors and ripping up of plans, the spiked calls to suppliers (some of whom were cowed into a corner at the opening), the agonizing late into the night – it must be absolutely right, right, right; no compromise, none whatsoever.
Smoke and steam curling under the door.
Poor Little Rich Gays did all that. Nobody else could.
At the Opening, I took to snoop graphing first of all one outstandingly tiny jackette, then I found another and then a third. That was only three out of about three hundred. All the other jackets ought to have been hacked down with shearing scissors on the spot.
The mini-jackies, it turned out, were worn by persons in the architectural party from London and the designer of the place mats on sale in the museum shop.
I did not have conversation.
Afterwards, with Bruce McBain, my private architect, of course present, and his partner, Tancredo Viamare, who is actually Italian, I went to a Loch Fyne chain restaurant (everywhere else booked) where the display kitchen offered a fine view to the chefs. On the stairs returning from the loo I encountered a modern Egyptian youth in cook’s whites who whispered in chronically broken English… ‘You frien with thes glasses…’ and was then engulfed by giggles.
He referred to Bruce McBain, who is indeed rugged, handsome and beaming and who had no idea of the rapture he induced.
Coming soon: Ancient Egyptian décor tips.
Tomorrow I am at a Table Quiz in a Church Hall in Wanny. Saturday I board for Venice.
I've Got This Picture the Right Way Up! Ed Vaizey with the V-C
Tiny Jacket at the Ashmolean Opening No 1
Tiny Jacket at the Ashmolean Opening No 2: This Man Also Had Hair 'Up'
Tiny Jacket at the Ashmolean Opening No 3
Sunday 27th November 2011
Robert Nevil and I are just about to board for Sandringham St Kil.
Fen country – odd. Joshua Baring’s giving a lunch at his daring new weekend home there.
Twice this week my official car with Xenon driving lights gained Oxford – with me in it.
On Wednesday Robert Nevil and I took a student production of the play ‘Posh’, about the Bullingdon Club in all but name, given in the Debating Chamber of the Oxford Union. On Friday, the new galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia at the Ashmolean, after re-modelling by an internationally-known PLRG architect, were opened by Ed Vaizey, the Culture Minster.
The Multis also took ‘Posh’ on Friday. Its theme is how the frightful evil of money and class poisons every corner of society: rather hysterical and over-stated but bravura student production.
The exact placing of Oxford in Poor Little Rich Gay life is not yet known: many were ‘up’, of course. Val got friendly with a woman don, lodged with, and roasted, boned then boiled down the bones of, seventeen ducks for galantine de canard for 90. Our then friend, Paul ‘Honey’ Collingwood, who later married and became a theatre critic, said that the vapour of duck in the don’s flat was so strong he was sure the birds were about to re-materialise from the air.
Anthony Mottram, my oldest and closest friend, daily visited the covered market to look at the displays of travelling trunks and dog food.
Laura Malcolm still imitates the small talk of the lady dons at St Hugh’s: ‘You come from Essex, I believe. You must know Maldon. Of course The Battle of Maldon is one of the greatest works in Old English still extant.’
The Blond Multi took a degree in Latin at Oxford, a language of which he appears to have no knowledge whatsoever.
On the whole, university life is not for Poor Little Rich Gays – too much detail of the wrong kind.
Oh look! I’ve not finished. I’ve simply got to get some plants indoors before surging out for St Kil. There’s a frost expected tonight.
Come back later! So much more – my behavior at the Ashmolean – not the best. Décor tips from Ancient Egypt. But an Egyptian chef got twinkly over Bruce McBain, my private architect, in a Loch Fyne Restaurant after the Ashmolean– it was all we could find.
The Galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia at the Ashmolean, Refurbished by a Poor Little Rich Gay, Opened on Friday
Ed Vaizey, Non-Poor Little Rich Gay, Opening the Poor-Little-Rich-Gay-Re-Modelled Galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia at the Ashmolean on Friday
Wednesday 22nd November 2011
Monday night to Kentish Town. Miss Lamore Cellina, formerly la dame au cello, as seen on TV, to launch unexpectedly into revue at the age of 34.
What that woman hasn’t given to the ‘cello! It she lives by, for and with.
By tradition her programme includes a goodly range of works by Eastern European composers who committed suicide in the 60s and require the instrument played with the back of the bow.
But now – a show! A One Woman Show!
What would it be?
Let me tell you, it was suffused, wreathed, perfumed with ‘cello. And was un gloire absolut, completely new, you’ll never have seen anything like it, an astonishing tour de force of different radical footwear and metamorphosis only partly through costume change. One minute, Miss Cellini was a pathologically polite concert goer, the next, a floral, elderly ‘cello lady from the 3rd desk of the Woking Philharmonic, giving a highly variable and intermittent Dying Swan. She also sang, blew into bottles to suggest a recorder (this was her early musical life, just the single, stolid notes with random gaps in between), and, in the form of Madame Sosostris, got through to the beyond, where she received two notes from Pierre Boulez before a catastrophic intervention by Stockhausen; an Application for Arts Funding was rendered in the manner of Steve Reich, possibly, as different faces and voices rotating in complex series, all self-done on the spot. As I recall, ‘Applic…’ was a soaring soprano, while ‘ca’ was a grunt and ‘tion’ was an electronic hiss. There were other faces and voices for ‘educational confluence’ (something like that), ‘community’ (especially self-loving) and ‘evaluation’ (like a dalek).
But it wasn’t a sketch show. It was a piece of music. Always there was the rhythm and rigour of music underpinning, regardless of whether any actually being played.
Astonishing and brilliant and marvellous.
Miss Lamore Cellina Getting Through to the Beyond: Boulez on the Verge of Transmission
Miss Lamore Cellina Receiving After Music from Dead Boulez
Miss Lamore Cellina: Stockhausen Ousts Boulez Unexpectedly
Miss Lamore Cellina: Exceptionally Diaphanous Phase
Miss Lamore Cellina as Third Desk of Woking Phil About to Give Private Perf of the Dying Swan at an Am Dram Meeting: Such Feeling, Very Few Notes
Miss Lamore Cellina: Standing Up to Men in a Rubber Dress, 'Cello Bow to Assist
Monday 21st November 2011
I’m sure the Leonardo Exhibition brought it on. He’s showing in London at the moment and I was there with Aunt Lavinia.
Somehow Leonardo fused an idealising tendency with a habit of minute observation. He even went in for anatomy. His paintings are astonishing visions of perfection but utterly real at the same time. That is their strange power.
They are visions of love with roots of some kind in science, measurements, the painstaking recording of facts about muscle structure, the behaviour of skin and the layout of bones.
So what is love? Often have I said, ‘Love is knowledge.’ As you know, Poor Little Rich Gays tend to Jane Austen. It is most attractive that, in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth reverses into love with Mr Darcy through knowledge of everything that’s wrong with him. Although his humiliation and recognition of his errors is a turning point in the love-story, it is a mistake to think he is changed for good. He will always be on the haughty side, inclined to judgement, heavy going at parties, in a word, shy. Elizabeth will furnish all the liveliness and sociability. Mercifully, like my own love-interest, Lord Arrowby, he can be teased. From time to time his more sober outlook will save Elizabeth from some excess or other.
On the other hand, there is Byron. Have you ever read Don Juan? I don’t expect so. There’s a very trying bit when the eponymous protagonist (hardly hero, in fact just a boy) gets ship-wrecked and embarks on a dreamy affair with a maid of Turkey. They can’t speak of course, owing to barriers of language, but we’re given to understand words would only have ruined their glorious communing with the sea-shore.
At least the Romantics had the decency to admit that their vision of love was completely impossible in the real world, would be ruined by marriage and was ideally realised through the death of both parties.
Poor Little Rich Gays have little time for any of this. In love, their hearts are engaged but their heads are not lost.
Love is knowledge. Well, it must be more than detailed observation or mugging for the accountancy exams, however much knowledge engenders love. Perhaps love is the opposite of boredom, a marvellous freedom in which what is already known is forever discovered anew but also added to.
So love shows horror as well as beauty. Poor Little Rich Gays, supremely, know this.
Whatever love is, it reveals the truth, it does not build illusion.
Leonardo: Lady with an Ermine. Conveyed to London from Krakow for the Leonardo Exhibition of a Lifetime
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