Tuesday 4^th January 2011

Reggie, the World Class Ghanaian ceramicist, who is unveiling a miraculous new life-size piece in July, has acres of champagne carpet as well as acres of champagne.  Poor Little Rich Gays had to take their shoes off and range them on the lower steps to his apartment before ascending for the New Year celebration.

Too bad if shoes were your central statement.

Reggie was wearing the gilded Levis, one of only 100 pairs ever made, given him by the company in recognition of his last sumptuous, many scene-ed ceramic. I don’t think Harry Rollo, internationally-known performance artist and impresario, also present, had brought his own limited edition purple tweed Nikes, awarded in similar circs.

Extraordinary, the things you get for being world class.

No seething mass, no more than twenty in the vast flat, created by Poor Little Rich Gay architect, Bruce MacBain, of course, who was there. So peaceful and unshattering, perfect for Lord Arrowby, that top Governmental figure and my part-time love interest, who had been re-directed from another failed party at the last minute. He can’t bear crowds. I was completely absorbed for five hours which, as I’m sure you know, is almost a record for me. Thrilling to see Bruno-France Bruno again. He’s been living in a palace in Paris for the last five years. Complete mystery person. But always in the know.  If there’s been a big fire, he was in it, if there’s a Duchess, he knows her. Once he told Rufus Pitman, the novelist and critic, that he’d befriended Barry Manilow in Old Compton Street that morning. Rufus was like ‘Oh yeah.’ But then a huge limo passed by and there was Barry Manilow leaning out and waving manically at Bruno-France.

And darling little Roscoe Charles, always so friendly, not seen for years owing to absence in Los Angeles, either high-end car dealing or movies or both ! Once rather intimate with Reggie, although, I think I’m right in saying, not the sort to take much interest in ceramics.

That’s the thing about Reggie – Harry Rollo’s the same – these absolutely talented people are Poor Little Rich Gay in many ways, but they completely lack arse and side about their work. No, ‘Is my car at the door? Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am?’ They live for art and suffer.

Reggie had made four excellent dishes to go with the champagne. He’s vegetarian, you know. My pheasant story (see previous posting) must have been awful for him. Lord Arrowby throughout travelled a perfect Poor Little Rich Gay arc. First of all he wanted to know what our New Year goals were. ‘You must be ever onwards and upwards.’ I could only think that once I had resolved at New Year never to eat an Iceberg lettuce again. Then he was worried about his future. It could all come crashing down apparently. No more work for Lord Arrowby in the highest corridors of power (not very likely, I think). Finally he was overwrought and missing his friend, Rufus Pitman, who has gone to Calcutta.

On the whole, I think my New Year’s resolution should be to find more time for Lord Arrowby.

We ended by looking at pictures of mutual acquaintances on Gay dating websites, where they show rather more of themselves than would be usual even on a beach. But Valèry Duplessis was looking forward to next year’s food.  ‘Last year,’ he said, ‘was Ottolenghi.’ Now it’s to be  radical favour combinations. There’s a book coming: mushroom and blueberry.

Reggie Cresswell's Famous Gilded Levi's

Sunday 2^nd January 2011

Happy New Year to Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the world.

I know you’re longing to hear how I celebrated. I was at Reggie Cresswell’s.

But it’ll have to wait. Do you remember those pheasants?  All over Christmas, the Gay Mother and I were harbouring this terrible secret – two complete dead pheasants hanging in the larder, a lovely surprise gift from the local shoot, brought to the door conveniently on 23^rd December.

‘What a treat!’ we said to the bearer. Or rather I did, because the Gay Mother would have been quite capable of ordering them away.

We managed to suspend the creatures from a shelf. Couldn’t bear to touch them.  Their heads and horrid sharp feet swayed menacingly. Then we played Pass the Parcel. ‘You must take them,’ the Gay Mother said. Me: ‘I couldn’t possibly.’ In the end I gave in. Luckily it was so cold in the larder, they weren’t going to go bad, although they’re supposed to ‘hang’ for a week or more to gain flavour and succulence.

Every time I went into that larder I feared that they would have committed some outrage before  resuming a sinister pose of being dead. The night before I returned to London, the corpses penetrated my sleep. Would they somehow infiltrate my frockage when stowed in the boot of the car next to my suitcase? In London, they might be a source of embarrassment or a cause for arrest.

Gingerly, at arm’s length, we got them into a bag of death for the journey. Horrible imaginings: what if their necks had rotted where they were tied and their heads came off?

In London the bag sat on the kitchen floor being avoided by me. It couldn’t have looked more normal, but when you knew...At last I took a running leap, got them out and re-hung, the feathers brushing my hand in the process. Astonishingly, soft, like luxury goods.

At least all that remained was to get them to a butcher to be plucked and drawn. Next morning I bowled into Theobald’s in Theobald’s Road. ‘Wouldn’t touch them.’ ‘You must be joking.’ But no. Tried another. Health and Safety. Then a third: ‘Haven’t got a licence.’

Hysterics, then had to face it. Would have to pluck and draw myself. Invited Joshua Baring and Robert Nevil, who comes from a pheasant background, to dine. In the afternoon, awfully brave, sat in the garden with a bin bag and got on with it.

Well, you can see how people become killers. You get used to it. Pull the bird to bits. Lop its head off. Scoop out its vital organs. Awful job. Took hours and unrewarding: very hard not to tear the skin.

By the time, Joshua and Robert arrived I was a shadow of former and with a new murderous streak. But the birds made lovely eating.

Some graphs are too horrific ever to be shown.

The Pheasants in the Gay Mother's Larder

Dunked in Hot Water to Aid Plucking

The Plucking Fields: Note Tell-tale Feathers on the Ground

Thursday 30^th December 2010

There’s so much to pack in, today we’re going to have sub-headings

In the Run-up to Christmas Poor Little Rich Gays were whirling so fast they were invisible –  but what of Christmas itself ?

Yes, all that running up, but during the actual Festive, Poor Little Rich Gays are absorbed into the bosom of their families. In effect they are dismantled and laid out in pieces on the garage floor. For some, it is the only time of year when they get any sleep.

Robert Nevil, author of The History of the Pony Club among other works, was collected in the Subaru pick-up from the station by his brother-in-law; this gleaming, wicked Poor Little Rich Gay, swathed in finest silk cashmere from Calcutta, was laid in straw and conveyed to the homestead, where the brother-in-law knocked up a Rose Marie sauce; then there was a showing of hiking holiday snaps. Anthony Mottram, my oldest friend, currently estranged but not for much longer, was closeted in a sheltered housing complex with his ancient mother. The Multis, Prince Dmitri Hersov, Harry Rollo, Lord Arrowby and Reggie Creswell, these outstanding figures on the world stage,  were with their mothers, watching telly. Val, keen on a drop but having an astonishing dry run, was happily alone with an organic chicken leg. Only a tiny minority were at Phuket, acquiring the winter bronzed look.

Christmas TV – What Did We Think?

Reggie Creswell, the Ghanaian ceramicist and one of our world-class Poor Little Rich Gays, reported that his mother’s TV was showing ‘Top Gear’ solely.

Christmas is the only time when Poor Little Rich Gays watch TV with any concentration.

But what about ‘Up Down’? Oh we were thrilled. Infinitely superior to ghastly ‘Downton’. The menu talk: ‘Cod a la Suede’ which was just cod and mash but piped lovely. A canapé crisis! Anchovy pin-wheels! I couldn’t have identified more. Esmé Manning, Laura Malcolm and I watch old episodes every summer in Normandy. We were brimming with excitement at the revival and not disappointed.

The Gay Mother at Christmas

The Gay Mother ordered wild smoked salmon. But she only once took any notice of my outfits. ‘It’s Prada,’ I said. ‘St Francis had a lot of clothes,’ she said darkly.  What was she talking about? I thought St Francis had the Jean Muir approach, just a different colour. JM took two important decisions early in life: one was always to be driven, never to drive, the other was always to wear navy-blue. With St Francis it was brown and feed the birds.  But the Gay Mother referred to the early St Francis, who was richly born and well-frocked but gave it all up.

Well, I’m not having it. You may like to know that the Gay Mother once shopped at H Nicks. And she used to get the offers in Vogue recommended by Prudence Glynn or whoever. She actually used to buy Vogue. Now, just because she’s a billion years old, she thinks she can take this superior attitude.

All the same, I do wonder – are Poor Little Rich Gays bad?

With the Gay Mother, I Visit Mrs Dinner in her Nursing Home

Mrs Dinner was our retainer: properly trained, in service from the age of 14, knew how to rake out a bread oven. After she’d done out the Gay Mother’s drawing room, you never knew the bliss.

Now she is 85, fades in and out, dementia, but far from total. Last winter she was found in her cottage with hypothermia, taken to hospital, nearly died, broke her hip but, miraculous recovery, soon well enough to be removed to this nursing home. Never has she had such a grand coiffure, so much jewellery, such clothes, as well as ensuite and central heating. Otherwise it’s: ‘Sometimes I sit in this chair, sometimes I sit in that one.’  ‘They ought to fill up those bird-feeders,’ the Gay Mother says desperately, pointing out of the window. ‘If the birds came, it would be an interest.’

Bye-bye Christmas 2010 – in Graphs

Now we say goodbye to Christmas 2010. But store up in your hearts for next year. Christmas, like everything else, must get better and better. Note Aunt Lavinia’s outdoor Christmas tree concept, or the Multis’ double trees, or Elsa Hodgeman’s baubled twigs.

Aunt Lavinia's Outdoor Tree Concept

The Multis' Tree-Top with Small Flip-top Bin

The Multis' Second Tree

The Multis' First Tree

The Multis' Special Christmas Card

Cake by the Blond Multi

Presents given by the Multis

Christmas Decorations by Leading Contemporary Artists at Elsa Hodgeman's

Elsa Hodgeman's Unique Twig Tree

Christmas Eve Table as Styled by the Gay Mother

Christmas Eve Table as Re-styled by Me, Adrian Edge

The Gay Mother's Christmas Tree

Thursday 29^th December 2010

• Diarising for January – although Dhiren Dutta stylishly diarised a dinner for the 8^th on Boxing Day and the weekend in Paris for the Monet Exhibition is booked and paid for
• Sales Reconnaissance and Attendance – desperate situation: surveillance should have been carried out for three weeks before Christmas, but wasn’t. And I’m still to report for duty at the actual Sales. I’m looking for good brown wool trousers. Joshua Baring reports incompetent county ladies without lists in Peter Jones and agony in Oxford Street. As we speak, the shelves are being picked clean by vultures
• Moisturising and Facial Matters Generally – I’ve actually run out of moisturiser. This should never have happened. Luckily I’ve got a back-up but it’s not the same. I’ve been wondering for weeks whether to go in for serum and toner. Still haven’t really grasped the nettle, let alone settled on a brand. Just couldn’t face my face.

Saturday 25th December 2010

This morning it was -7 degrees. The Gay Mother wore a Calvin Klein coat at church with a velvet scarf. I was in Niccolo Ceschi Berrini with a silk cashmere scarf brought me from Calcutta by Robert Nevil who is experiencing -16 degrees in his part of the country.

In the Gay Mother’s larder is a brace of pheasants, with their feathers on. I’m scared to go in there. A man brought them to the door. Odd offering but normal in the country apparently.

This is the meaning of Christmas. The humble manger, then the glamour of the Three Wise Men. Poor Little Rich Gays do not forget although far from their whirling lives of achievement, shopping, styling and complication over the Christmas period.

Friday 24th December 2010

Parties: Conrad Matheson and Valery Duplessis, Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowski, Elsa Hodgeman, the Mail on Sunday, Cousin Zia,Me, Adrian Edge

Lunches: the Multis Champagne lunch for family and friends, one other lunch

Three operas

Two concerts

One ballet and buffet

Dinner at Bocca di Lupo with Ralph Kitto and Jose Matilla: Ralph wore fur-lined gumboots which he took off and left by the table

Friday 24th December 2010

Those travelling any distance by car are advised by the authorities to have on board food blankets and a torch. For my journey of 250 miles to the Gay Mother I had no torch but a choice of Parma ham,gruyere and sage on brick de feuille (recipe by Delia but don’t tell Angus Willis), burnt aubergine and tahini on pitta (recipe by Ottolenghi) with a half pomegranate on hand for the garnish or smoked salmon,sour cream and dill on chicory leaf. Also available were neat Parma ham, cave-aged gruyere, and supplementary smoked salmon.

Tuesday 21^st December 2010

Just absolutely dashing: Debenhams, Oxford Street – awful –  slippers for the Gay Mother by Isatona – got a Dalmatian print. Then on this eve to the Multis. Prince Dmitri’s coming to pick me up in the Porsche.

So – my party! It was last night. Every half hour yesterday, cancellations. People ill, even in a time of national emergency. Val, who has been more or less sober for four months, claimed a chest infection but I had hysterics and he showed up. Six or seven cigarettes seemed to do him wonders.

But it was all right. I was not destroyed by my own function. Poor Little Rich Gays poured in. All the worlds were covered: books, food, fashion, art, the Royal Household, performance art, clocks, government, private money, business, doctoring, accounting, the law, music. Maybe you could try it. Take 30 or 40 Poor Little Rich Gays, all of them world shapers in their field, absolute leading lights, fingers in top pies, cram them into a fairly small drawing room where the decor whirls and could be thought puzzling, push in champagne and fourteen different canapés –  and they’ll roar away, apparently thrilled. The Multis, who don’t always take a party, were delirious.

Poor Little Rich Gays all know each other, but not always so well. So there is the right level of familiarity, still some curiosity left.  Despite tremendous arse, they give and give; they love to show and be seen.  Poor Little Rich Gays are warm but not gloopy, of course. There’s a thrilling harsh edge and just a  hint of derangement, although Robert Nevil, the biographer of the Pony Club and my second oldest friend, who was unhinged by not drinking, claimed to find quite high levels of insanity – surely erroneous.

I had a few outsiders.  You should too. New people are an enticement, like a boost of bubbles, and PLRGs love them.  In time some of them will become Poor Little Rich Gays too, such as Professor Sir Lewis Buller and his partner, Roland Jackson, the fabricist. Aunt Lavinia, whose voice once ran England and who had been at Bayreuth in the 50s, was a big hit.

‘We’ve never met such interesting people,’ the outsiders said.

No indeed nor ever likely to again.

Fergus Strachan was triumphant after Dermarolla. A spiked roller has been rolled all over his face to jerk the youth cells back into action. Bruce MacBain, my architect, came on from the party of a very famous film actress. Her canapés were laid out to resemble a map. Lord Arrowby bounced in in his alpaca bear coat, no hint of exhaustion, only glamour. He’d jettisoned an important government buffet to be here. He was less intimate than at the other recent party but now he is securely restored as my part-time love-interest, there’s no need. Rufus Pitman, the novelist and critic, in Mitsouko, and dressed in bright red cord trousers as living children’s toy, accused Lord A of having black shoes. Joshua Baring only just escaped the clutches of Mackintosh Baring Gould, his lady boss, to get here. There was a bit of an upset when Angus Willis found out that one of the canapés was by Delia. You know there was all that trouble. It now turns out that he was once entertained by that lady on a Thames riverboat. Very poor baked potato and chilli con carni, not even made by her. Harry Rollo (yes, there is to be synchronised swimming as well as sanding and banging together of bricks in the new ‘performance’ piece to be given in Los Angeles in January) said that Loelia, Duchess of Westminster once declared anyone over 40 on a bus to be a failure. He regrets he can’t rid himself of the notion.

Ivo and Kelm Driver, the sons of Matt Driver, the media specialist whose salary exceeds Robin Smallmeal’s, loathed head of landfill in this country or whatever, and Laura Malcolm, the novelist, were the waiters. Completely thrilling and adept at tunnelling through the guests in the crammed drawing room with the canapés, recalling the chimney boys of William Blake.

For posterity, I record the canapés:

Mini-Pizzas from Food Lab

Mini-Foccacias from Food Lab

Crab Spoons from Food Lab (Blond Multi no like)

Aubergine on Puff Pastry Disc from Food Lab

Quail Eggs and Celery Salt

Smoked Salmon, Salmon Egg and Cucumber Wraps (an Angus Willis concept, executed with poor grace by Robert Nevil )

Heston’s Smoked Salmon Terrine Blinis

Delia’s Brick de Feuille with Parma, Gruyere and Sage

Crostini with Avocado and Tabasco (Angus Willis design)

Tomato, Thyme and Mustard Crostini

Cocktail Sausages (bought by Val from high butcher)

Burnt Aubergine and Tahini on Pitta with Pomegranate Seeds

Parma Ham Bundles (didn’t get pushed out)

Smoked Salmon Cream on Chicory Leaves

Manchego and Quince on Sticks (yes, I got it at Harrods: this was the gesture to the 70s. Val said, ‘Why don’t you get a grapefruit half and have a sputnik?’)

Ottolenghi mini-cakes and tarts

Angus Willis's Smoked Salmon Wrapped in Cucumber Topped with Salmon Egg, Executed by Robert Nevil

The 70s Feel: Manchego and Quince on Sticks

Heston's Smoked Salmon Terrine Blinis: Executed by Val

Sunday 19^th December 2010

Tomorrow is my party. Forty are coming, snow and ice depending. Before breakfast I cleaned my papier mâché cornucopia, loathed by my architect, Bruce MacBain.

Well, I’ve got to have something more traditional.

There are to be fourteen different canapés for my party. Were I Angus Willis, leading Poor Little Rich Gay and world-famous food stylist and writer, I would be curing a salmon, making a ginger jelly, cutting each into cubes and mounting on sticks, while preparing individual self-made boxes with a selection of oriental delicacies, finished off with a raffia bow.

I’m less thrilling and utterly unique, I’m afraid. Val is bringing the cocktail sausages, provided he doesn’t re-bottle or get snowed in, from a special butcher in Chiswick. I’ve had to compromise (for the first time ever) owing to the weather conditions. Waitrose have run out of Heston Blumenthal’s Lapsang Souchong Smoked Salmon. No chance of covering all the branches. But I did very nearly forge by car to Borough Market yesterday during the actual blizzard to get manchego and quince paste. I fancy a 1970s cheese and wine party element.

This is the only canapé not yet bought. I don’t quite see how it will be. There will just have to be a rather luminous absence where manchego and quince on sticks, descended from cheddar and pineapple chunks on sticks, might have been.

I won’t list all my canapés because it will spoil the surprise. But I have made the Parma ham bundles. Very annoying the way the pig doesn’t offer itself in exact squares of paper-thin flesh.

My Cornucopia, Loathed by My Architect, Bruce MacBain

Saturday 18^th December 2010

You must too – make your own cards. Nothing else will do. This year I’ve gone National Gallery. Dreary. In childhood I self-carded. Lino-cut of the nativity with a frame of silver. But not since.

Too late now, tragically. Unless you sit up all night, as Anthony Mottram, my present estranged oldest friend, once did because the Bulgarian Orphans had got behind colouring in their self-designed cards for the Mottram Corp Inc. So he did it himself.

Every year I say it – remember for next year. But really getting Christmas right would leave no time for anything else ever. Nevertheless, I’ll repeat. By November 2011 you must have your self-designed card in production.

Somebody will manage it.

Here is a selection of glorious cards produced some years ago by the Photo Multi. Pressure of wealth now calls him elsewhere. The tenants, you know. They are superb examples of his sumptuous, baroque style of graphy. Also Miss Lallian Lark, of the Titlark Tours, is another fabulous self-cardist. Here are some of hers.

Edward Sedgewick and Angus Willis are also prominent Poor Little Rich Gay own card producers.

Photo Multi Christmas Card 1997

Christmas Card by the Photo Multi: Globe From Collection of the Blond Multi

SE House as Finally Appeared on Card: Photo Multi

Jesus as Seen by the Photo Multi: Christmas Card by the Photo Multi

Lincolnshire Fountain: Christmas Card by the Photo Multi

Lightly Christmas-ed: Christmas Card by Miss Lallian Lark