Friday 22^nd July 2011

You won’t believe who Val’s been working for! I like to think that since the Poor Little Rich Gays were first recognised and brought into words (they’ve existed throughout time of course but were only first correctly identified and described two years ago) Val’s had longer and better dry runs, free from a drop. Such is the power of Poor Little Rich Gays.com which he has heard of but doesn’t read, owing to a computer’s lack.

Val spent 43 hours making a masterly slate-blue jacket as well as some white canvas upper garments with frogging for lesser staff. They were proto-types, perhaps to be copied and worn by employees at a forthcoming night-club. You’ve heard of Annabel’s? Well, this is to do with. Robin Birley, son of Mark Birley, founder of Annabel’s, is now launching a new venture. He unfortunately in childhood was mauled by a lion at that wretched John Aspinall’s private zoo.

Val’s there, at this height! Annabel herself became Goldsmith and her daughter Jemina was a friend of Diana’s. As so often, a direct link to the throne!

The next thing that happened was that Val looked at the side of bus. He saw a former intimate plastered, an authoress with massive sales volume and a Hollywood contract. Not liked by Val now, sadly, but once she was his fag hag. ‘I have a picture of her in the bath! Quite glam actually. Do you think I could sell it?’ ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘What about the News of the World?’ Val: ‘Where is Rupert Murdoch when you need him?’

Thursday 21^st July 2011

I’m now at the Gay Mother’s but it was last Friday actually: the Photo Multi messaged ‘What are you doing this evening?’ I said: ‘Come round.’  As he always says, ‘The truly powerful are always free. Only the weak are fully diarised.’ Ironic in view of our later intimate conversation.

But every room of my home was upside down; the workings were revealed: remember, Poor Little Rich Gays go up a step ladder when no-one’s looking.  I had 40 mins to: finish weeding the garden, tie up plants, clear away equipment including step-ladder, vac out my ‘conservatoire’ (well, a small area with glass roof beside the garden, although glass roof cost £5000, paid for by the Gay Mother, selected by Bruce MacBain), remove drying clothes, screw coat pegs to wall, rub up dining table, rub up kitchen floor, tidy drawing room, conceive a 3-course menu, shop at Waitrose, shower and outfit. In stock I had breakfast radishes, padron peppers, Duchy sausages, beetroot so only mackerel fillets, red onion and strawberries to acquire. I whirled as in a classic chase scene from Tom and Jerry with the scurrying music.

The Photo provided fayne waynes.

We picked over Poor Little Rich Gays recently seen, all in their way impossible. The loathsome Limpney/Smallmeals – do you remember them? Very much forgotten but not forgiven by me. Some years ago I challenged their hysterical diarisation. I said I didn’t care to be invited to Massivebury, their country estate, six months in advance.  They responded by tearing down that house (if you recall we tried to save it, without success) and throwing it into a pit as well as refusing ever to speak to me again.

It’s said that if you’re trying to therapise the disturbed you must not breach their defences (not quite clear how to therapise in that case, but never mind). The full diary, of course, provides a wonderful vista of occupation and belonging. Best to keep it up.

The Photo Multi became confidential. His glory is that he allows himself to be completely known. He has no guile and accepts no confinement. A day or two later, Sebastian Archer, who was hiss and spit with the Photo for some years (if only the News of the World had hacked in there) by e-mail said: ‘You’re quite bossy but…’ Some, either lesser or themselves unruled, can only see a barrage of money and an uncompromising love of market forces. But the full sweep of extreme extremes is remarkable and fully displayed – bouncy, affectionate, welcoming, gleeful and delighted by colour and shape, hence graphing non-stop; also shrewd and insightful, as well as bold and self-knowing. Of course, Poor Little Rich Gays should not expect an easy life. The Photo confided that he went a bit far with Fergus Strachan in the affair of the 7 euros for the packet of fags. Sometimes the underlying vulnerabilities of PLRGs occasion a locking of horns. But Poor Little Rich Gays are not bitches. They do not mercilessly blame others. In the end there is reconciliation without loss of grandeur or only small loss of grandeur.

The alarming thing is that the Multi Riverside Penthouse has been back-syllable lopped: it’s down from a Pent to a Pen. Yes, a pen, such as contains sheep. The howling wind on the twelfth floor is a drawback. I sense it won’t be long…

Come back tomorrow – masses to tell: what Val saw on a bus’s side, Bruce MacBain’s curtain agony, the Gay Mother, 87, and her rocky walk in the riverbed – not to mention my sales purchases, their display here long, long overdue; next week and the week after that after that we have massive boardings for abroad.

Last-Minute PLRG-Style: Both Items in Stock

How Things are Done Last Minute PLRG-Style

A Decorative and Nutritious Last Minute 1st Course

The Back-Drop for the Last-Minute Dinner at the Home of Me, Adrian Edge

Wednesday 20th July 2011

To tell the truth, I was glued yesterday to those hearings. The Gay Mother, with whom I’m resident, absolutely refused to believe in Rebekah Brooks’ hair.

Awful, since there’s so much to engrave and emblazon: the Photo Multi’s last minute visit, the Bulgarian Orphans’ Chinese Gala, Bruce MacBain’s curtain agony, Val’s ascent to the top despite everything, not to mention my sales shopping and the ducklings – did I mention the Multis hatched another batch of fluffy squeakies which hurled themselves from the wraparound penthouse terrace straight into the national river below with great success? There was a second (or third now)  fleet of Poor Little Rich Gay terrace ducklings which were going to be kept and treasured and lavished with expensive equipment by the Gays after the duck rescue service said they were the wrong breed and would be put down if removed. But they are nolonger  en-terraced. I can’t remember why. Possibly they went to a care home. The Gays in question are in the care-home line. I must ask Peter Acharya but he’s got the death of Princess Anne’s hairdresser on his hands. She will attend the memorial service apparently – in which case so will I. Princess Anne’s hairdresser was completely impossible; could not be contained by the London Clinic, even when lashed by every kind of illness, would always escape and clatter into Scotts with a cohort of  champagne-friendly nurses managing the drip gantry.  No-one could create such chignons… the same might be said of Val after he’s gone (dread the day) re: cutting on the bias.

So in the meantime, here are some graphs: the first shows Robert Nevil as the Tree of Heaven at the Bulgarian Orphanage gala. He accompanied Anthony Mottram, of Mottram Corp Inc, at the Bulgarian Orphanage this year. Mottram Corp shows the nicer face of capitalism by sponsoring a drama festival for the orphans every summer, culminating in a gala.  This year it was a Chinese theme. I, still kept in Abu Ghraib by Mottram after falling out over the rich, complex web of Poor Little Rich Gay relationships in which we were arranged, was left behind. This year, the Western patrons, or white European ladies, in a departure from tradition, participated in the gala. Mottram played Madame Mao, who, like many Poor Little Rich Gays, was perfectly charming once you really got to know and understand her.

Robert Nevil as The Tree of Heaven at the Bulgarian Orphanage Chinese Show

The Multi-Terrace-Born Ducklings: Born at the Top

Born on the Multi Wraparound, This Second Batch of Multi-Born Ducklings Establish Themselves in Our National River

The Second Batch of Multi-Born Ducklings Sail Away to the Future on Our National River - The Foam Curicues that Decorate are Unfortunately Pollution Most Likely

Saturday 16^th July 2011

Glyndebourniana, Glyndebourne desmesne is both our home and our hell. (If you don’t know it’s England’s finest country-house opera, impossible to get in, madly expensive, seething with huff and puff English middle to upper classes adhering to the dress code, and a few grand gays)  Loathed Robin Smallmeal, head of landfill in this country or whatever, always steamed in in the Bentley, drawing up illegally at the garden door to ease the conveyance of his 15 picnic baskets (bare minimum of a party of four) to his preferred lawn spot which was the front row by the ha-ha. Now they’ve put up signs by that garden door saying ‘No Stopping’, just to keep him away.

In all other ways, Smallmeal was the worst sort of stickler for Glyndebourne correctness and dinner jacket mania as only one from the lesser quarters of Stevenage could be. Cruel and snobbish, I know, but true. Do admit.

By the long border this year, a spluttering dinner-jacket-victim with normal wife made way for Val and I (yes, Val gained Glyndebourne; he’s having a dry run, or at least only fancying the tiniest little drop – another little drop won’t do any harm! But nowhere near the orthopaedic ward as before after that splintering gin-soaked fall) in the following manner: ‘Feel free, chaps!’ It was a way of saying, ‘I can just about tolerate two gays.’

Val was in a light grey suit, self-pimped with best green edging to give a Tyrolean look. At the neck hung a rock crystal whose butch pewter mount was attached to a matching green ribbon. I had my Zara white jacket and black nylon slacks by Prada, with my Dries summer scarf. I conceded a tie which wrecked the outfit, in my view.

Val was describing loudly the ideal recipe for a marquis au chocolat. He’s been building on the original from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Thus does he spend the long afternoons of dry existence. Marmalade and ground almond are his latest additions.

We had Glydnebourne lawn to ourselves. It was raining, you see. The uppers and middles could be heard ra-ing away on the loggias around the theatre. But moving a garden bench a foot or so back under a tree provided excellent shelter. We were quite dry, in fact enthroned, I thought, in full view of the odd enemy audience member who observed narrowly, only to be knocked downt by triumphant missiles of Poor Little Rich Gay ingenuity and superiority.

Val produced an aggressive German herring concoction, loathed by Robert Nevil, for our first course. Superbly un-Glyndebourne. For our main, we had cold veal and sauce vert, then Ottolenghi tarties. We visited the spot in the ha-ha where Robin Smallmeal chucked a substantial quantity of foie gras, only, as he might have said, doing his job which was landfill after all. No long afterwards, mad cow disease or perhaps foot and mouth ravaged the nation.

In the interval, Bruno-France Bruno texted to say that one of the singers had a sore throat. The only person we met was a household name – Tristan Pasco. So inside information and in at the top combined. Perfect. Tristan would have liked a lift back in my new important car, in fact.

There was an opera, as usual at Glyndebourne. It was Don Giovanni. He’s quite Poor Little Rich Gay and in some ways to be preferred to all the shrieking harpies and delusionists who disapprove of him.

Departing Glyndebourne there was a traffic jam as always. Val said, ‘They want to sweep away that village. They want to put in a dual carriageway.’

I’m not quite sure which village he meant.

Val's Self-Created Tyrolean Look for Glyndebourne. See Also the Glimpsed Heraldic Badge Run Up from Different Tie-Fabrics Acquired by Val in a Sell-Off at a Tie-Fabric Warehouse

Our Glyndebourne Picnic Throne

Glyndebourne Lawn, Ruled By Poor Little Rich Gays

The Enemy, Stalking Glyndebourne Lawn

Glyndebourne Ha-Ha Where Robin Smallmeal Hurled Foie Gras

The Uncompromising German Herring Dish

Friday 15th July 2011

Rufus Pitman has revealed his fumes: see comment on previous posting (Lord Arrowby’s Summer Party). Joshua Baring ran into him in Balhams (pronounced ‘Baylan’) earlier in the week.

We really must dream up the headlines that will never now appear in the News of the World blazoning the deeper scandals of Poor Little Rich Gay life.

Meanwhile more graphs for no good reason:

Guy Bostock: Massive Pecs as Seen at Lord Arrowby's Party

Shirt by Costume National, with Beading, Worn at Lord Arrowby's Party

Tuesday 12th July 2011

There’s no doubt – this is the third Summer Party by Lord Arrowby, that formidable governmental figure with a wild side, since this blog began and the Poor Little Rich Gays began to take shape in the world.

There have been developments, new extremes have been thought of and realised. You’ll be astonished. Mercifully the News of the World did not undertake one final reckless hack-in.

As you know, Lord A has been my love-interest for 15 years. In that time he has grown in champagne, 3/4 wrap-around terraces, flooring, lighting, designer clothes and above all artworks.

But that’s not the whole story.

We started on the streaming wrap-around: Rufus Pitman, one of our leading novelists, was in a gold-embroidered Indian coat, with black shawl and a stunning complex floral fume (name to be supplied). The day before, he said, in the newsagents, another customer had commented on the shopkeeper’s agreeable choice of disinfectant: ‘That was my …. (name to be supplied) at £119 a bottle!’ Rufus bore it though.  Raj Zoraster was over from Geneva, accompanying Rufus. ‘Duchamp!’ he said correctly and at once of my second summer scarf.  Reggie Cresswell complained that he’d been ordered not to get ill by the organiser of a publicity event for his new ceramic – which, by the way, has been declared the number one most talked-about item in Britain. Extraordinary when you think how few have seen it or ever will see it. He even outstrips Alan Hollinghurst, whose new novel (we’re all reading it), bestrides the bestseller lists.

They were asking about Anthony Mottram, my old boon companion of 40 years. Robert Nevil, I said, is to be with him in Bulgaria for the Orphans (he’s there now in fact). It’s been a raw time. We fell out 18 months ago over the kitchen question and my role in his life in the light of…there were developments back in the spring. There was a function. Minimal morse-code exchanges have passed between us.  But neither of us knows morse-code. Poor Little Rich Gays may be more human than the Earls Court gays, they may be tinged with greatness, but they have their hellish, impossible side .

There were young people at the party! Finn Magnus, the hot boy doc, announced a last-minute boarding for New York. Well, he’s not really a boy; he must be all of 25 ( wasp waist and clinging pink jumper with nothing underneath!); known to Arjan Bose of course. All PLRGs know each other in the end. I don’t think he’s hugely interested in hotels but Harry Rollo and I certainly were: ‘The Pierre, the Pierre,’ we went. But Finn showed a PLRG tendency all the same: I can’t remember what it was.

A stunning finished beauty of well under thirty rose out of the floor, with a lovely sheen to the clothes, superb silhouette (everyone’s got a silhouette, of course, but so few are any good), and two rows of black jet beading on the shirt. He was not for every day and clearly thought I was over-keen. Another young man was talkative and friendly:  we had Topman and Prada in common. ‘This summer scarf I’m wearing – what is it?’ he said.  I was mystified. ‘Lord Arrowby put it on me. It’s not mine.’

So it was: Lord Arrowby was whirling in and out of his bedroom. ‘Summer scarves, summer scarves,’ he was going, hurling priceless swathes, plunging ever deeper towards the Poor Little Rich Gay core. Summer scarves, as we know, have been at the heart of Poor Little Rich Gay life this summer. ‘It is a Dries, this is Etro…’ His own outfit was a plain white shirt, highly flimsy, highly patterned shorts and an Indian pendant showing Krishna. Then without warning it was spray-on stretch tapestry trousers by Paul and Joe, no shoes, and a different necklace.

I ran into Bruno-France Bruno, the great mystery PLRG, last seen in apparent command of a massive hotel particular in Paris. Now he’s in London. Thrilling to have him back. He said a huge name had just left the party, but I can’t remember who: not Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It was some artist. On the other hand, he said, ‘That person over there is a stripper and porn star’. Guy Bostock, Lord Arrowby’s ‘mate’, said he’d been offered porn work but had not taken it up, despite massive pecs. I should mention that his employment is normally elsewhere. This was a freak offer, not through official channels.

Then Ildebrando di Bianchi came in, radiant with new love and intimate with his lover. I had a small collapse. Maybe I should have taken that path. Had Anthony Mottram been there, as he once was at one of Lord Arrowby’s parties, I would not have felt so exposed. It’s enough to have one person in the world who knows everything about you. On the other hand, perhaps it’s not too late, maybe it’s time to venture down new thrilling avenues – and take a youthful lover.

Finn Magnus's Pink Jumper: A Summer Scarf Can be Seen Going By on Crutches in the Bottom Right Corner

Lord Arrowby's Second Outfit - Paul and Joe Slacks

Lord Arrowby with Summer Scarves

Monday 11th July 2011

Nothing unusual about that. Lord Arrowby’s party, the account thereof, is delayed. I sank to ashes on Saturday and could not pen. Glyndebournia tomorrow: Val is to offer an aggressive German herring dish loathed by Robert Nevil. The wracking demands of the Glyndebourne picnic! I’m also riven as to frockage – the Topman tuxedo suit in its entirety? Or the Zara white jacket with black nylon Prada slacks, possibly marked, in need of maiding? 

Robert Nevil has boarded for Bulgaria this morning to visit the Orphans with Anthony Mottram; I’ve been kept by him for eighteen months now in Abu’ Graib, but before that he was my boon companion for 40 years, although quite definitely separate beds. I’ve been unhappy.

Yesterday I raved with Bruce MacBain and Tancredo Viamare round various queer-created (it’s all right to say that of non-out gays of yesteryear) statelies in the Hampshire neighbourhood now belonging to the National Trust. Poor Little Rich Gays have made a massive contribution in this area – Strawberry Hill, Hidcote and yesterday Hinton Amptner.   We were accompanied by Professor Sir Lewis Buller,  huge in botany, and Roland Jackson, huge in fabric reweaving for restoration purposes. Massive company. They board shortly for Australia for five years, where Sir Lewis is to do vital work. Massive company.

Friday 8th July 2011

I’m just back from a Photo Shoot at Bruce MacBain’s, my personal architect. So much to tell about his curtain over the door; it’s been years and still not right; now  the Poor Little Rich Gays of Belsize Park are  piling in, wanting everything torn down for a complete re-build , he, Bruce MacBain, to arrange just like that.

He was just able, between breaths, to graph me in my outfits.

Yesterday Connor Cadoux, of the Australian Poor Little Rich Gays, boarded for Bodrum where he and Sonny Hammond are to join a gullet and cruise. I took a gullet some years ago with Laura Malcolm, Matt Driver, Frankie-Doreen May, Giles Ullerston and the children. It was complete heaven but we did think next time we’d have flushing toilets not pump-action. I don’t know what the Australian Poor Little Rich Gays will make of it. It is unlikely that any enchanting likelinesses will make themselves known from the shore. There’s simply nobody there. On the whole, the gullet experience is not front line Poor Little Rich Gay. It’s quite outdoor. Sonny is looking forward to wearing his Lanvin summer scarf  on board (it was he who made the summer scarf new for this summer; don’t let that be forgotten). He’s already tried it on the motorino in Rome and, owing to its fine lightness, it nearly blew away.  He must have stopped off in Istanbul before going on to Bodrum. At the Blue Mosque he refused to leave  his Bottega Veneta slip-ons on the public rack and had to be given a plastic bag to carry them in. I said: ‘Leave out the Blue Mosque altogether; there’s an awful smell of feet within’.

Also dreary, etre frank.

Meanwhile, back in our sacred homeland, Poor Little Rich Gays are racking their brains to think of the headlines that will now never appear in the News of the World depicting their plentiful scandals.

If only they’d hacked into our phones…. we wouldn’t have minded…

Come back tomorrow for more sales shopping and Lord Arrowby’s party. I think I’m going to wear the Prada stone slacks, so immaculately tooled.

The Bath Abbey Wedding Outfit Live - with the Metal Trousers

The Bath Abbey Wedding Outfit - 'Tuxedo' by Topman, Metal Trousers by Niccolo Ceschi Berrini, Summer Scarf by Dries

The Bath Abbey Wedding Outfit: I Went Off this Topman Jacket and Bought a Substitute by Marc Jacobs Reduced from £900. Now I'm Back On It Again

My White and Cream Dream - All by Zara with Dries Summer Scarf

My White and Cream Dream with Summer Scarf by Dries

Thursday 7^th July 2011

Only 23 hours and 58 minutes to go to Lord Arrowby’s party.

Rain is given. But maybe in the evening there’ll be a reprieve.

What will I wear? There’s one thing you can be sure of – it’ll be separates, with a summer scarf.

My great omission is that I never told you about the great moment of glory in the Brompton Road from which my white and cream outfit for the Reggie Cresswell ceramic launch sprang.

Taking you back, if I may, a few weeks, you might recall that my first day of sales shopping was agony. I was hurled in, unprepared, without vision. Every year the starting date is earlier and earlier and I never learn. Crushed in the Knightsbridge vicinity, I was trailing home from The Library (it’s a frock shop) after looking at nothing there except madder and madder shirts in medical colours when, sudden flash, unspeakable revelation, in the Brompton Road, despite the rain – white and cream.

That was it! All I needed was a white jacket and cream trousers. Thus would the separates idea go to the wire and beyond. Lord Arrowby would be fume; in fact did. People would think it was an unfortunate mis-match.

But always, through all my life in frockage, I have yoked by will power impossible combinations.

So there I was, in the Brompton Road, like St Paul on the Damascus Road, with my path blazing clear before me, no longer lost amongst the racks.

I could acquire a white jacket, to replace the one by Theory wrecked by the cleaner (I haven’t told you that I won the case! I sued the cleaner. But got told off by the judge for writing aggressive letters – fab booming lady, tremendously upper class. So reassuring). There was just a little dip at the thought of hunting down cream trousers and almost I began to trail and wander again and fragment, when, for the second time, an amazing strike to the brain – I’d already got cream trousers. What a gift! They were already in stock. From Zara last year and maided and modelled by me in the privacy of my bedroom only the other day and not found despicable.

Here’s a temporary graph. Tomorrow morning my architect, Bruce MacBain is going to graph me actually in the outfit and also in the Bath Abbey wedding ensemble.

Then you must come back to hear about all my other sales purchases. All goals were fulfilled. And there’ll be Lord Arrowby’s party!

My White and Cream Dream - the Jacket Also by Zara But That's Another Story

My Purchases Heaped Before Graphing. Note the Young Pants, Not New. Is This Equiv of Tracey Emin Bed ?

Tuesday 5^th July 2011

Saturday I wore my new baby-blue summer jeans by Lindberg and a polo-shirt by Joseph adored in previous years, for my visit to Debo.

Oh it was rare! But I went off the polo-shirt half way there. This often happens with frockage got out of the cupboard for the first time in a season.

Few knew that you could visit Debo. It was only 157 miles each way. I mean Debo Devonshire, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, the last of the Mitfords, now 91. But I received private information. But Rufus Pitman poo-pooed. He said he sees her all the time, on visits to Chatsworth from his parents’ home. Harry Rollo has also encountered her in the grounds there. Poor Little Rich Gays love Debo – dripping with money and titles, Velázquez in her private sitting room, but absolute uproar and thrill when she applies the pen. Always doing up houses, putting in bathrooms, but taken with the idea that she might get away with not changing the sheets after Alec Douglas-Home only spent one night – because of  a diversion from Row to Manchester on the way back from the funeral of President Kennedy. Princess Margaret, next in the bed, would never notice.

What a story that is! Royalty, the Prime Ministerial aeroplane, the Prime Minister of the day,  President Kennedy (the present mini-series the only thing PLRGs are watching on TV) pinned around  a domestic aspect of bed linen.

Now, after the death of her husband, Andrew Devonshire, Debo lives in a small mansion, called The Old Vicarage. And this is the thing, you see. It’s a big premises but it’s butted right up against all the other houses in the village of Edensor, on the Chatsworth estate. Every July they have Edensor Gardens Open Day. O! the radiant simplicity of it! Debo joins in. Other gardens are open, so why not hers? Even her house, I was told by top sources, is accessible; you can find her in the kitchen requiring the butler to dispense eggs from her upmarket chickens to passing members of the public.

So absolutely nothing for it but to pound forth, 157 miles and arrive in my big black car with Xenon driving lights, in an outfit for a village event of cream teas, brass band and tombola, as well as toilets, not resembling, it is fair to say, any other get-up present.

But Debo had gone in. In the summer house she’d been signing books.  I missed her. And the house wasn’t open. There was a notice saying: ‘House not open. Sorry’. I do hope Debo’s not breaking up. I do hope there’ll be another chance next year.

The Late Queen Mother dipped in her early nineties then revived for another ten years.

All the same, by straining just a little, I glimpsed a coiffure in what appeared to be the kitchen. Maybe it was hers. On the other hand, the view of her fabric conditioners was excellent.

Debo's Fabric Conditioners and Washing Liquids

Debo's Premises

Debo's Summerhouse, Where She Signed Books Earlier, Missed by Me

Debo's Sculptural Detail

Andrew Devonshire's Tombstone

Kick's Grave: She Sister of Pres Kennedy, Married to Andrew's Older Brother Killed in the War. She Died 1948. Stone Below Marks Visit to Grave of Pres Kennedy Months Before His own Death