Sunday 25th September 2011

I haven’t got much time. I’m using illegitimately the only computer in Viscri.

It’s so simple. I was bidden here for Angus Willis’s 50th birthday. Two flights over two days, 1400 miles

Thursday 22nd September 2011

I’ve applied to Nopi; I’ve begged a Finnish pop-up in an industrial area near the canal;  I’ve e-mailed Joshua Baring, currently in New York on ‘business’. He knows all the restaurants – in other words the rarest and the newest. Which are Trullo and Medlar. This he conveyed  at 4 this morning, direct from New York.

But all booked, choked to the rafters.

It’s for my birthday, you see.

What can people be thinking of? Don’t they realise? I’ve had private information. By this time next week it’ll be the Dark Ages. If Greece defaults, Italy could follow, then Spain, then Portugal and why not Ireland. This morning I’ve moved every last drop out of Santander. I advise you to do the same. Clear out of anything to do with those countries.

But where else to go? Under the bed? Gold bars?

As for my birthday, it’s going to be quietly at home. I’ll do Simon Hopkinson. Then poke the left-overs through the letter boxes of Trullo, Medlar, Nopi and Finnish Pop-up

If they’re still standing…

And maybe I’ll still be in Romania, whence I board tomorrow. Obliged to remain for good.

Apparently it’s superbly backward and unchanged since the Middle Ages.

Could be ideal for the current circs

Wednesday 21^st September 2011

In Tuscany I said to Laura Malcolm I need more words for alcoholic drink. She said, ‘What about “sauce”?’ Then, Sandi Toksvig, presiding over Antiques Master, accused an old doll of having overdone ‘the cordial’.

It had a flushed appearance, you see.

So poor old Val toppled in a fit of enthusiasm for cordial and broke his hip. He is now pinned and back in the flat with a zimmer, unable to apply weight for five weeks. For his invalid spell he is wearing self-made pyjamas in a Zimbabwean craft fabric. Oh yes! Val has travelled.

He commands from a chair; superb household management, absolute control of every detail. ‘There’s an article about Kate’s hair!’ he shrieked, picking up the Guardian. He read out the entire recipe (it’s the Duchess of Cambridge, if you’re a bit backward). ‘Apply serum for gleam and movement as well as volumising root booster.’ ‘It’s all in the Guardian,’ Val remarked, ‘it must be true.’

The total cost of ‘The Kate’ is £137.94 apparently, not including cost of actual hair if you haven’t got it on head already. But, as Val rightly pointed out, it’s an investment.

The Guardian went on with a fearless expose of the hair arrangements for the Royal Wedding day. Hairdressers worked  an 18-hour shift. We couldn’t quite picture it. ‘Just imagine if you were first under the drier,’ said Val. ‘Stuck there for 18 hours having fatuous banter with Mr Snippy or his equivalent.’

Later Val said, ‘Let’s move to Great Missenden!’ I had to remind him that  Marcia Forkbender hailed from there. Then we watched an entire TV programme about Hilary Mantel who was once graphed in person by the Photo Multi. ‘I don’t think she needs the Kate,’ Val said. Finally Val observed that it would be easy to clad a boring Sixties estate house in the manner of Strawberry Hill.

He wanted a third pillow fetching down from a high cupboard. To reach it I had to pitch out several bales of fabric onto the floor below. As I was leaving, he said, ‘You couldn’t, could you? Put them back, I mean.’ I recalled Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? ‘Yes,’ Val said, ‘you could go all round the flat pulling my things out of drawers and then leave me here quite helpless.’

But I didn’t.

Val in Important Self-Made Pyjamas in Craft Fabric from Zim

Monday 19^th September 2011

Actually I’ve been watching TV. As well as visiting the Palace. On Friday I failed to gain Margate. So did Prince Dmitri Hersov. He was detained at his blue-chip accountancy outfit. I was choked by the M25. Beatrice Cantor, much bought and loved by the Multis, was showing at the new Turner Gallery there. It was an art opening, rather than of the building, which occurred in April.

In our absence, inexplicably.

I was used at the opening of the one in Eastbourne, as was Grayson Perry and Virgil Grayson. Bruce MacBain, my private architect, took me and I re-figured the dead, sour streets of that town in a tiny suitlette by Miu Miu. We ran into Lord Hoffman in a cafe.

On Saturday the Multis were in a marquee in Wiltshire for a catered 150-piece sit-down . Whether also slap-up, I couldn’t say. It was Beria Myrtle’s 50^th Birthday. She is fab. So finished and blissful husband, jolly but with substance. Both rich, thank God.  I took a table quiz with them in Wanny last winter.

For me, the formal season has not quite begun. Maybe it never will. I’ve been dining privately, last minute, and watching TV.

Last Thursday Bruce MacBain and I were under pressure to gain East Finchley for the live relay of One Man, Two Masters (I quite liked it. Rather tiring though). But Bruce had gone up in folding that day and was worried about glars shimmying up and in. No window locks apparently. ‘Well, get some,’ I said, down the phone. It was already 4.30. Then my Official Car, with Xenon driving lights, always on, just so happened to be near a famous lock-shop. I got two such for Bruce’s windows. Not cheap. ‘But I haven’t got a screw-driver,’ he said.

Oh hopeless! For a private architect.

So we applied to the scaffolding petroleum jelly, which I had in stock for greasing metal curtain poles to enable ease of drawing.

There are many useful household tips embedded in this tale – have you the wit to extract them.

Meanwhile, the Multis’ new car arrived, went thirty miles and conked. A message came up on a screen, announcing engine failure to some extent. I wonder if the Photo Multi, whose driving style is Mr Toad with extra gas and air (there’s a phrase from the straight world), so thrust the machine that it somehow snapped.

As a courtesy car, BMW Romford have provided a 7-Series. We rode in it last night before dinner and Downton Abbey. It’s absolutely car and driver. In the boot is discarded a laminated sign which says: ‘BMW Approved Used Car £47,850’.

Bruce MacBain, by the way, has achieved the right pleating for his door curtain – at last!

Bruce MacBain: Pole and Ring-Holes in Curtain Replaced Thus

Bruce MacBain Curtain: Corner Detail: Pole and Ring-Holes in Fabric Gone

In Boot of Multis' 7-Series Courtesy Car

The 7 Series Courtesy Car Leaving

Saturday 17^th September 2011

What a marvellous London September, we must concede! I mean the sunshine and warmth in the daytime. I’m still in creams and whites, worn together, thought a suit, but not.

Thank you for your kitchen comments, Harry Rollo, Blanche Spain and the Comtesse de Cambridge.

Poor Little Rich Gays must not be narrow. Morality does not become us. It would be wrong to condemn the Kitchen phenomenon outright. Kitchens is all right but, on the other hand, Poor Little Rich Gays possessing Kitchens must not go too far.

En fin and au fond, Poor Little Rich Gays do not fear themselves. Unlike the Earls’ Court Gays.  We know that relationships are the furnace in which we come to know ourselves, not a dreamy pasture where we skip like lambs.

If your Kitchen grows idle, or fat, or directionless or unhappy in dependency, you must take action.  Do not be sentimental nor lacking in courage. Remember you are a Poor Little Rich Gay.

Poor Little Rich Gays do rather like to have their own way, are rather fabulous and uncompromising and hellish. Otherwise they wouldn’t be Poor Little Rich Gays, would they, they’d be ordinary members of the public?  There’s no getting away from it, the high incidence of Kitchens in Poor Little Rich Gay circles has something to do with this. So, you mustn’t bully or blame your Kitchen.  Now and again you might have to listen to the massive litany of your faults, especially as your Kitchen grows beyond the age of 23 and could  begin to have money of his own. In the end you will get your way better if you show temporary humility in these circs. Or real humility, according to preference.

Don’t be surprised if your Kitchen turns out to be not especially dynamic and just a wheeny bit sulky.

But always hope, of course, that early money will induce blossoming in unexpected areas, that your Kitchen will write novels or open an Art Gallery or a Garden Design business.

Thursday 15th September 2011

Monday 12^th September 2011

The Multis dined in Rome at a restaurant visited by the Pope and completely un-womaned. Not a single woman diner.

So – the kitchen question. The term was coined by my oldest and closest friend, now estranged, Anthony Mottram, ‘Consultant’, of Mottram Corp Inc, Prague to describe the delicious, fully funded, smooth-limbed, youthful lover (max age 29) to whom many Poor Little Rich Gays tend. As you know, I’m myself thinking of moving into the kitchen department, if I can afford it, just as Anthony Mottram moves out. He is now in a different kind of relationship and my role in his life through the long kitchen years is now ended.

In Tuscany, in the apartemento, there was much picking over. Both Sonny Hammond and Peter Ainger have tried kitchens: Peter said he had never been more bored nor more thrilled. We lunched with an ‘older’ man whose kitchen, having gained the age of 30 and an excessive fondness for his partner’s prostate medication, had had to be returned to his place of origin. Arjan Bose, the fabulous Indian mini doc, himself a pseudo-kitchen (more later), had to fight hard at that lunch not to be turned into replacement kitchen meat on the spot.

I think it was Peter’s kitchen who progressed to another relationship not on a strictly kitchen basis. The new boyf then said they were to be in a threesome and in the end the former kitchen and the third party grew wild for each other and the boyf who’d insisted on the arrangement in the first place was left with egg on his …

But it might have been another of his lovers.

Arjan is virulently anti-kitchen. I wouldn’t go that far myself.

That’s it – for the time being. I’ve got you started. I’ve a feeling there’s more to say.

Sunday 11^th September 2011

We remember 9/11 where many Poor Little Rich Gays died.

Our calling is hard; we must drive ever upwards (merely onwards isn’t enough) and the edge grows narrower the higher we go and the more mercilessly we are exposed. The Photo Multi, who allows himself to be completely known and knows no boundaries, suffered intermittently at the Tuscan villa, which closed yesterday. Someone interfered with the place names at dinner. Who was it?  Another took it upon themselves to style the chandelier with rosemary branches. Was the PM’s own styling for the dinner not enough? Captain Blond Multi had to soothe the PM in the bedroom as best he could.

Always, always, for the Poor Little Rich Gay, the dread of extinction.

At least the adorable Romanian cleaner was adequately tipped in the end. I had no cash on leaving the villa. The Photo Multi launched a hoax, insisting that cleared funds were in his account before any guaranteed transfer to Tatiana could take place. He supplied bank details. I held out for some days before moving £200 in, £50 for the tip and £150 for the darling Multis to buy something nice for themselves.

Now we are all friends with Tatiana on Facebook.

Yesterday I went to Great Dixter with Robert Nevil. It’s one of the most famous gardens in the world, if you’ve not heard of it. Thrilling to be reunited with RN after almost two months. He was so encouraging and sympathetic as always. Thundering down to Sussex in my official car, emblazoned with Xenon driving lights, we picked over the kitchen question (see glossary) and all the glories and horrors of the Poor Little Rich Gays. What excitements! What earthquakes! Poor Little Rich Gays play with fire, night and day.

I’ve not forgotten the kitchen question – my great meditation must be forthcoming tomorrow. But today is Bruce MacBain’s birthday function. I’m not taking the brunch, but I am taking the lunch.

Oh Great Dixter! I’m always uplifted and I’m always there with Robert Nevil. And yesterday there was the sudden gift of sunshine and warmth, when my iPhone had only promised autumn and rain. I love this time of year, the rich, deep light. The garden was a magical Poor Little Rich Gay chaos, all the rules broken, bitty planting, terrifying colour clashes, some of the worst plants in the world, messy self-seeded scraps everywhere. But what a whole! The whole thing so absolutely fuck-off and revelling in it all and I thought: I’ll re-think my garden for next year at once.

I was renewed, for £9.57.

The Multis gained their suite at the Hotel Hassler Villa Medici, Rome, yesterday, and achieved an exclusive parking space right outside.

All the Wrong Colours: the Long Border at Great Dixter Yesterday. These are Actually Pink Petunias!

Spotted Laurel in the Long Border at Great Dixter - One of the Worst Plants in the World

Jerusalem Sage in the Long Border at Great Dixter: Another Horror

But as a Whole It Works! The Long Border at Great Dixter Yesterday

Horrid Elements, Especially the Silver-Variegated Euonymus, Make a Superb Whole in the Barn Garden at Great Dixter Yesterday

The Multis' Room at the Hotel Hassler Villa Medici, Rome

The Multis' Hire Car in Exclusive Parking Space, Hotel Hassler Villa Medici, Rome

Tuesday 6^th September 2011

I’m plagued by laziness which is not a Poor Little Rich Gay trait (pronounced ‘tray’). It was promised for yesterday and now it’s today. But I’ve been reading The Woman in Black. Do you know it? She’s one of the judges of the Man Booker Prize. Susan Hill, I mean, who wrote it.

Great wrong has been done to Poor Little Rich Gays in ways you don’t know about in the matter of this now silly prize. Today a mistaken shortlist has appeared.

I’m rather developing my own theories as to who the Woman in Black actually is, overlooking the especially malevolent ghost of the book who’s got it in for babies.

Stella Rimington is the head judge: I suppose in the dreary afternoons of spying she dipped into a novelette.

But Harry Rollo yachted: we must cheer ourselves up. We’ll have it in ses mots lui-meme: yes, readers, these are the actual words of Harry Rollo, world figure, perf artist and impressario. See how they shimmer! He often has words, self-done, in his perfs. And informative too: several recipes slipped in and really all you need to know re: setting up your own yacht:

‘My new goal is a yacht. I have never quite liked total stability. From the moment one sets sail, forging through dolphins and whales, all trouble falls away. No crowds, no problèmes.

Mine will be registered in a tax haven, St Kitts probably. But all the world will be my home. (Except Somalia.)

You need a full-time staff of four. They live on board, permanently, at the front, down below. Your apartments are at the back. (Prow and stern.)

The whole thing is varnished teak and chrome polished to a blinding sheen every morning by a handsome blond Israeli First Mate, in shorts.

All meals and drinks brought to you by the Stewardess. Immaculate martinis, fayne waynes of Fornia, pagne from pagne.

The chef, tiny, barely seen, spends all day below in the galley and almost never emerges on deck. Six guests, apart from myself gay Californians, therefore all have impossible diets: two pescatarian (fish-only), one no fish; two gluten-free. Chef dealt with all this in his teeny space with one good hob. Meals were refinements of American classiques. I learned a new American dish, always served before steak: wedge. Wedge is a surprising salad, iceberg lettuce with blue cheese, onions, toes, dressing and bacon. Completely delicious, unknown beyond these shores.

Breakfasts were berries, berries, berries, melons, nectarines, granola (gluten-free), bacon and eggs, proper machine coffee and le climaxe smoked salmon with bagels, with cream cheese, diced red onion and capers served in their tiny individual bowls. By the time one had finished all that the bed was made, clothes laundered and folded and room tidied.

I shared with the host a large double room with two beds and individual bathrooms. A double en-suite. Two bathrooms off one room. I think never before seen by me.

Emerge to the Pacific Ocean on one side and a deserted island cove on the other. Handsome boys wave from their kayaks.

I wish I could find a flaw with this weekend but I’ve searched and there was none. Please no pity for me.
Perhaps I got slightly too burnt – or nero as they say in Italy.’

Yachting off the Coast of Californication

Sunday 4^th September 2011

Yes, in Poor Little Rich Gay speak, it’s Californication.

Childish! I don’t care.

I’ve never been there, have you? I’m hoping that one day I’ll visit with Harry Rollo, who is semi-resident.

It was Harry Rollo, the impresario and perf artist (he’s flooding the Hollywood Bowl), who yachted.

Otherwise Poor Little Rich Gays are mostly back in, re-hutched.  Lord Arrowby, Robert Nevil, Joshua Baring, Prince Dmitri Hersov, Laura Malcolm, Frankie-Doreen May, Giles Ullerston, Sonny Hammond, Connor Cadoux, Peter Ainger, Elsa Hodgeman, Adelaide Hodgeman, Lady Newell, Marcus Cargill, Hamish McCory, Matt Driver, Carol Earle have all regained. Only the Multis are detained in Tuscany at the villa for another week. Just look at the cleaner’s bill! See graph below. 115.32 euros for a shopping list. It doesn’t say what the shopping cost.

There’s some drama re: the tip for the cleaner. Rich Bruce MacBain left 50 euros after 4 nights at the villa. I think that’s the absolute max for any length of stay. It’s not the cleaner who needs tipping, it’s the Multis.

I shall arrange a big charity gala for them in October to raise further funds. You may remember that such an event was staged at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for Margot Fonteyn after her gun-running husband had bled her dry.

Apparently in Panama her roof was tin.

The Multis are alone at the villa (which accommodates a max of 18) but still dressing for dinner in baby-blue or shell pink linen suits; another development is that breakfast is no longer served in the Stonehenge by the kitchen (table so vast you had to get up every time you wanted anything) but is laid intimately for two by the pool. But Captain Blond Multi breakfasts actually in the pool just as he reads waterborne.

I’m sure they are incredibly intimate.

The Photo Multi has switched those po-cupboards round in my old room at the villa so both door-knobs abut (right word?) the bed. Selfless, since the room will next be occupied by other renters.

Oh, look! I’ve no space left for Harry Rollo’s yachting. It’ll have to wait for tomorrow.

And there’s my great meditation on kitchen love, forthcoming for so long I’ve quite forgotten what I was going to say. I intend to move into the kitchen department myself, you know. There were such revelations at the Tuscan apartemento, but I wouldn’t quite take Arjan Bose’s hard line. He’s strongly anti-kitchen, you see.  I’m determined that every baroque contortion of the love lives of Poor Little Rich Gays shall be memorialised. We must know what lies beneath any touching and costly wedding ceremony.

Val, by the way, is at the Charing, apparently to acquire yet more skeletal jewellery, i.e. pinning of bones. I must call him.

Villa Running Costs: the Multis Stung: What Will European Central Bank Do?

Bedside Po-Cupboard in My Room at the Tuscan Villa: At Last the Right Way Round