Saturday 29th October 2022

My Nigella ‘Cook, Eat, Sleep, Repeat’ (or some such title) fell open one lunchtime at a recipe for frozen artichoke bottoms. That’s to say leaf artichoke. I was seized. Had to have it. None of the marts had them though, a drawback not mentioned by Nigella. She says her freezer is never without this item. In the end I had to go all the way to Panzer at St John’s Wood. A whole afternoon. The bottoms are baked with oyster mushrooms, chilli, garlic, lemon and thyme.  Thirty-five minutes of baking. Nigella’s slogan claims ‘crisp and creamy’ rather than ‘revolting’ which it was.  Tastes of nothing, despite all those additions, with the further advantage of being indigestible. There were acres of it left over which occasioned dread. As you know, after two world wars, a banking crisis, my mine going bust, a pandemic (or rather, as we now know, a pandemic response), a run on the pound and bombast in the gilt markets threatening everything, I never throw away food. But this time …. forcing it down might have finished me off. None of us can forget when Robert Nevil was kept in at Prep to finish his Curried Egg.

At least I’m spared the burden of forever going over to Panzer in St John’s Wood to get Frozen Artichoke Bottoms.

Thursday 20th October 2022

I’ve been weeks on Raine. Huge piece to camera required, almost the size of her supreme coiffure.

And now Rishi’s outfits… I’m so used. But menswear in Downing Street! At last. This has to be a new beginning.

Charlie Hurling (he who thinks of the worst thing to say and says it) and Mr Blue Bluelove have been going for 100 years.  At 17, Mr Blue met Charlie. The first thing he said was, ‘I love you.’ And he did. That was 40 years ago. Recently Charlie took 60 years. 40 plus 60 is 100. So 100 years of Charlie Hurling and Mr Blue.

An event was spoken of for 18 months or more. So many WhatsApp groups came and went. A date seemed to emerge. And a venue. A manor in Sussex with extensive extra guest accommodation for sleeping. But I couldn’t see how all the millions in the WhatsApp group could ever fit in. That faded away until a few months ago, Merle Barr told me that some people had paid £200 in advance to stay at a manor. How had they known to do that?  Then only a week beforehand, another WhatsApp group was formed, asking who was coming.  The feeling of improvisation was terrifying.  Wicked Angus Willis was putting it about that Archie and Mr Blue had made off with the £8000 paid in advance and squandered it on foreign holidays.  Incriminating was that only a few days before the supposed event they were on a beach in Crete; no question of finalising placement, checking toilets and table decorations.

It was hard to have faith in a serious function. Nevertheless I boarded in my classic vintage suede jacket from Japan (reduced to £700 15 years ago: how did one ever have the money?) and came into the lawn of the manor. Well, everybody was there. What a miracle! Merle Barr, Olive Wildish, Fergus Strachan, Angus Willis, Cilla Pencil Pleat, James Dean, Dr Whipper, Little Miss Miracle plus numberless others assembled from the dressing up box, whirled together with pink hair, possible clothes, novel eyewear, never-seen-before lengths and widths. Incredible. The design world, the roaring core of enterprise in this country, unstoppable, unplanned, undiarised but falling inevitably into place exactly.

Risk. So important. Charlie put lunch back 40 minutes or maybe an hour. Who cared? I was attacked by Dr Whipper for being common. Olive Wildish loved my suede and suggested a different buttoning. Then there was a surge toward the marquee and luncheon. No placement. Just hurl yourself in and hope for the best. Some were not so lucky. Nowhere to sit at all. Mr Blue had to conjure extra furniture. More had come than hoped for or had said they would come. It was like the bond market on a good day. A great surge of Yes! Yes! Yes! for Charlie Hurling and Mr Blue’s function.

I struck gold with my placing: I had a carpet man who’d fitted at Buckingham Palace. Endlessly we discussed florals. Next to him was the owner of an event company. I’d been to several of his events, it turned out, including Anne Glenconner’s at the Richmond Theatre. These people are the engine house of our Nation.

Then there were the speeches: Mr Blue said he’d been very worried. Would anyone come to the function? Would it rain? They’d spent minutes planning it, he said. Literally. It was all so worrying. Charlie said it was strange that Mr Blue was worried. ‘Often I tell him at 11pm that we’ve got no money left. Then he wakes up in the middle of the night, worrying. So strange. Luckily a tenant paid twice this month by mistake. So that covers the function. We’ll have to give the tenant his money back – but that’s next week’s problem. ‘ So it went on. The roguishness.

Then people erupted from the floor to tell their tales of Charlie and Mr Blue. It was like a gospel meeting; those possessed of the glory of the Lord speaking in tongues to bear witness. The godchildren: one had got into trouble for repeating at school one of Charlie’s limericks about an exploding arse. Some others had had Charlie and Mr Blue living with them when they were small. But they never saw them. They were in bed when they left for school. When they came back, they’d gone out for the evening, not to be seen again that day. The climax was a woman compelled late to testimony, ‘Charlie asked me how big my husband’s penis was,’ she microphoned through the marquee. ‘ I thought: what kind of a question is that? I don’t know why but I answered. Maybe I hoped it would keep him quiet. “Moderate”, I said.  Well, it was hopeless. Now every time Charlie sees my husband he shrieks, “How’s Mr Moderate Penis?”. The husband in question was at home with cancer but recovering.

Later I toured the accommodation blocks outlying the manor. Reassuring: dormitories like a girls’ boarding school.

This function erupted into our universe like one of those comets that come around every million years. It was supreme.

The Venue

The Guests Fore-gather

The Setting

Outfits

Wednesday 5th October 2022

Anthony Mottram points out: if Prince Charles has become the King, and Prince William moved up to Prince of Wales, what about the rest of us? How have we been elevated? Because we have, for sure.

Day by day, we inch nearer the Throne.

Did I mention that the Gay Mother’s new cleaner served the King? Oh yes! The provenance… she saw to it that his ice cream was nut-less, having learned from his valet that he didn’t like nuts. This was years ago. He was visiting old Lord and Lady after they moved to the farmhouse but Lord was possibly still Lord Lieutenant.

The connections!

Anthony Mottram offered to annex a territory for me for my birthday, in the manner of Putin who adores to annex. Do you know I couldn’t think of anywhere I wanted.  Monaco? San Marino? The Suisse Normande? All with their pluses, but also minuses. And the strain and worry of trying to run them. What I’d really like annexed would be £150 million and a staff of 8. Then one really could begin to scratch the surface of everything that needs to be done in the home.

I went on the Elizabeth Line to New Rainbow Fabrics at Southall, which is a slab of South Asia put down near the railway line in west London. One was conspicuous there. I was only trying to boost hope by continuing with purchasing. A merchant enquired why I was taking photos. I said I had a friend in India and did he know where I could buy cushions? It’s so riotous and shabby and fabulous. Whole shops full of nothing but necklaces. Cloth of gold menswear abounds. I got exactly what I wanted – a length of orange silk organza to adorn my bed. But it will have to be edged.

Meanwhile Val is probably still standing to attention before his TV in his WRVS uniform. Has anybody told him the funeral is over? Dame Barbara did the same when Diana was married. She wasn’t invited to the wedding but absorbed the blow by saying she was too old to go. Instead she was shown on TV standing in front of her set in her WRVS uniform. Volunteering and loyal to the last.

Harry Rollo dined. Mercury Mr Kitten was knocked out by some vaccinations required by the Americans. He couldn’t even join by video link. Harry said the French Revolution should never have happened. Earlier there had been a debacle when he played Russian roulette with his calendar – and lost. He put all his chips on the Freud Opening at the National Gallery. Then the wheel spun. If he’d gone to the other event, there’d have been dinner with Tilda. Disaster.

If people say they’re Republican, Harry says, ‘No, you’re not.’ This is so profound. Do these people think Our Nation can have a different history, all of a sudden? Countries writhe to life from a terrible crucible of strife and devastation. We were fortunate that in the case of England, later the United Kingdom, that catastrophe occurred in the 17th century. We’ve had a Constitutional Monarchy ever since. So how would the new Republic of Great Britain be born? Not out of arid ideological theory, for sure. Really these people should move beyond the level of not even undergraduate debate. Do you remember the School Debating Society? Idly proposing the abolition of this, that and the other without a thought as to whether one could actually do those things.

Come to think of it, the ideal territory to be annexed to me would be one already set up with Harry as King-Emperor. It would be a benign absolute monarchy, which is really the best. So much less for everybody else to worry about.

Southall – Another World

Southall – Necklace Shop. Important

My Purchase from New Rainbow Fabrics, Southall

Friday 23rd September 2022

Last week I said that by now the tide would have washed over these days. It hasn’t. One is left shattered, trembling and afraid. Monday’s ceremonies carried Her Late Majesty into myth but there was nothing misty, nostalgic or evasive about the funeral service lasting the best part of six hours, culminating in the devastating Committal at Windsor. ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended/The Darkness falls at Thy Behest.’  Quite so. Death, its solemn thunder. Final and unavoidable. This was Queen Elizabeth 11’s last note to her people, a strange one. She planned it like this. At the heart of the life of the Nation were placed the profundities of existence, the stark reminder of what we all come to. So the Crown, Orb and Sceptre were removed from the coffin (‘How dare they!’ Royston said) which was then lowered into the vault, to lie nearby confined through all eternity.

I can’t believe She’s gone. Already in the tomb. Royston briefed me on Tuesday morning. We must look to the new reign. We must fight for the Crown. People like us can do much. Sophisticated arguments are called for, he said. Well, I can only think of a simple one: why do people care? How do you argue with that, unless to say that people are fools or deluded which would be outrageously patronising?

Sunday 18th September 2022

Even in these days when we know for sure as never before that the Monarchy sits absolutely at our Nation’s heart, after many years sometimes of prancing anxiety. Were tiaras and outfits perhaps the extent of it? .. . Of embarrassment. Even now, when we know for sure, there can be moments of exhaustion, of collapse. The wonder and mystery, the power, so strong yet elusive, fades to nothing, dust runs through the fingers.

This is as it should be. There is a craving for it to be over, for our ordeal to be ended. Even Royston King welcomed a day of respite on Thursday when we went to Hatfield for a private tour of the gardens, partially in the dark. It can only be a stony upward path, as those undergoing the martyrdom of that queue know full well. How many funerals can a person have? So far there seem to have been about 4, all with dull moments. Between you and me, I only really like the hymns. But when the organ swells and one is caught and felled…

On Wednesday evening we stood – Royston King, Anthony Mottram and myself – at the foot of the slipway coming down off the Westway. I like to think this is the entrance to London. Eventually some 3oo people accumulated in that gritty spot. Once I lived near the Westway. The so-called terrace of that residence was unusable if the wind was in a certain direction. Val said, ‘I’m so glad you’ve decided to make the Westway a part of your life.’ The Late Queen too was plagued by traffic noise at Buckingham Palace and by aircraft directly overhead at Windsor.

In the throng was Skippy Lancaster, of all people, with a party of hard-core old-school Earl’s Court Gays, one of whom was holding forth about financial futures or some such topic. Until, that is, the moment came – suddenly, in the dark and rain, the blue flashing lights and the terror of ranked headlights bearing down. The hearse itself, illuminated from within, slid by, propelled, it seemed, by some power of its own. But shrouded in darkness, quite sinister even, was the tremendous suite that followed. Some twenty cars, containing upright unknown figures, a series of unmoving silhouettes passing by, like the hearse itself, not concerned with the applause offered by the bystanders in the rain.

This was history. We know now that the little coffin in its high-street hearse was on a journey quite frankly to myth, the next day, transformed and elevated by ceremony, passing irrevocably away to a bejewelled heraldic realm where only dead Sovereigns dwell.

Waiting in the Rain

The Cortège Approaching

At Last the Glimpse…

Gone Forever…

Tuesday 13th September 2022

Tears come at odd moments… when the pedal notes sounded in St Paul’s Cathedral on Thursday evening to mark the tune of the first hymn, ‘All My Hope on God is founded…’ Hymns, not of any kind, they must be the right hymns and so far have been… but hymns cause the eyes to pick. Why? It’s mumbo jumbo, of course. At the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, on Friday night, a small man appeared before the performance began (which was Salomé, of all things) and said there would be a minute’s silence, then the orch would play the National Anthem, whereupon without being asking the audience rose in its entirety and sang ‘God Save the King.’ Few believe that God will save the King. He didn’t save the Queen, in the end. But recounting this event to friends, I am on the verge of tears.

It was so wrong to cancel the Last Night of the Proms. But brings people together more at times like this than music? They could have sung Land of Hope and Glory over and over again and everybody in floods.

Already diminished in death, Queen Elizabeth now, no more The Queen. Queen Elizabeth was also her mother. Her ordinary high street hearse, the only exception being its glass roof, left Balmoral but the Royal Standard now flies elsewhere. Poignant are the photographs of her in childhood and youth; ‘lovely’ I think is the right word, or the much used ‘radiant’. Then she grew old but battled on until in the end Death got her. It’s what happens to all of us. So a human story is placed at the heart of National Life. What we contemplate in the Monarchy are the profundities of existence. These are not my words but the words of the Reverend Richard Coles who adds that he used to think it was all reactionary mumbo-jumbo but not any more. It is mumbo-jumbo though but it is important that it should be. I would add that while there is humanity there is also defiance of that humanity –  in heraldry, ceremony and splendour as well as succession. All families hope to continue in their various ways. So, as one reign ends, another immediately but tentatively begins.

Whoever invented Constitutional Monarchy was a genius. Ours is 250 years old or so. Above politics, the Monarch, although powerless, is above politicians. This matters.  The Monarchy retains its place by popular consent. If that is lost, it goes. Every day is election day for the Sovereign and his family.

Admiration for the late Queen is almost universal – as a person, some say, perhaps surprised or even annoyed at their own shock and dismay, as if her position as Head of State could somehow be regarded separately. But this is not possible. A constitutional monarch can only serve, can only ‘always be there’, can only embody some higher purified essence of their country’s history. The difference is only in how effectively, with what sincerity and constancy, the individual sovereign bears these responsibilities.

All nations have their story which is their history. Much in British history was wrong or not what we would do now but it is our history and we arrived here today only by that route. We can still be moved to recall it and see that it is a part of us without necessarily approving or admiring. What is powerful is the sheer passage of time and that we are, in some elusive way which is hard to put into words, a part of something.

Other nations have appeared to re-invent themselves, usually after devastating trauma and upheaval. But have they really? Does any nation ever entirely escape its past?

By this time next week, when Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 will have reached her final resting place, the Stock market will not respectfully rise nor will energy prices graciously decline. Normal life will resume and the tide will appear to wash over these days. But we will all know that in some other key our passage through this life has been sounded and we will never forget.

Thursday 8th September 2022

I had to take immediately to the airwaves, of course… Only last week, Royston was saying, as we toured Frogmore by Gracious Permission of Her Majesty, Will she ever come here again?

I said, Of course, she will.

We passed the place where she used to feed the dogs. One time, in a previous year, there were bowls there, I’m sure. None last week. Royston thought the garden suffering, even neglected, because her spirit had left already in advance. Her prolonged absence (she can’t have been there for months) had caused the gardeners to lose heart. She used to drive down every day to Frogmore. It’s a major garden. Her trees and Edinburgh’s. So much activity… there were 170 years of Frogmore or so, then 70 years of them. Their trees… but recent plantings of banks had not been watered. All the little plants were dead. Why had nobody watered?

I thought on Tuesday she didn’t look too bad. Joshua Baring thought otherwise: ‘The poor poor Queen,’ he texted. All the same, I don’t see how she could be standing and receiving Prime Ministers on Tuesday and dead on Thursday.

Cousin Barley phoned this afternoon. She needed to draft an Instagram post for the leading London department store where she is Head of Marketing. This was before the deadly announcement had been made. ‘What to do in the social media age?’ she asked. I said, ‘What people like about the monarchy is continuity and tradition.’  Her final text was: ‘…… is deeply saddened by the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 and grateful for her long life of service and dedication.’ I had wanted to add ‘Long live the King and Queen Consort’ but that part was dropped.

Only the Gay Mother has both feet planted firmly on the ground: ‘From her point of view,’ she pronounced, ‘it was the perfect ending.’

Another funny thing: on Wednesday after Frogmore last week we took the Dream of Gerontius at the Royal Hall. It’s all about someone dying.  Royston’s sister had been re-admitted to hospital. But now she’s out. Her Majesty did not get out. But lives on. As the King.

Never to Come Again: Her Beloved Dog-Feeding Station at Frogmore

Where is She? On this Bench she Would Have Sat to Feed the Dogs

Her Sanctuary of Frogmore, one third of Whose History was Hers

Monday 5th September 2022

So, for the second time in a row, Poor Little Rich Gays are at the core. The former Prime Minister’s brother-in-law often occupied the platform with me at Dainty Lady TV. His sister helped herself from the same canapé plate more than once and drove with Val and Genevieve Suzy from Chelsea Harbour to Notting Hill after a fabric-sample-gathering exercise.

Now we have Sir Lynneland Truss. Can you think of anyone more suitable? She has said that she’ll be glad of the time in Downing Street to write plays for the afternoon radio about goings-on in Brighton in the inter-war years as well as caring for her dog, of course. I never knew she had any interest in politics. It turns out she doesn’t. So ideal for Ning Street surely.

Just after she’d switched from cats to dogs for devotion, she lunched with Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock-mender, bringing her dog with her. On another occasion she lunched at a launch-lunch for a production of mine and afterwards wore dark glasses and took a taxi. Eddie Sedgewick is incredibly intimate with Sir Lynneland and once relayed to me how she had told Eddie that Christmas with her mother was very quiet and as well as immensely over-heated.

So only one conclusion is possible: Poor Little Rich Gays are closer to Ning Street now than ever before, much closer than to the previous regime.

The next step surely is the full assumption of Ning Street itself. To me, it is inevitable.

Friday 2nd September 2022

The Gay Mother put the runner beans and courgettes first. Hydrangea Quercifolia got burnt up, even its flowers. Now it’s rained a bit but washing up water was lugged by me to the courgettes and runner beans in the parched time. The Gay Mother directs since she hurt her back. She doesn’t lug, We also threw washing up water out of the kitchen window but the Gay Mother believes in previous times of doing this the window sill got damaged but I don’t see that it did.

It’s amazing how you can redirect operations in times of emergency. I worked on courgette fritter art as well as the usual plum and apple work for this season of year. We’re going to have to forage in the coming times, for sure. Luckily Poor Little Rich Gays tend to have fruit trees on the premises. Otherwise I would make sure you’ve located your mink coat before the winter. I propose to beat the system with log fires – but what state are my chimneys in?

Jilly Cooper attended Beamish O’Halloran’s 70th birthday. The Gay Mother said, ‘I’m blowed if I’ve got to be vegan.’

My Courgette Fritter Art Before it Had become Art

Courgette Fritter Art Looking More Like Art

Norman Quetsches – Cost Nothing

Laura Malcolm – Vital Pastilles Self-Made with Own Produce Against the Winter. One of these a Day will Ward off Death for a While at Least 

Monday August 29th 2022

As you know, my view of foreign Statelies is dim, with some exceptions. Our visit to that mansion near Deuville racecourse some years ago – no wonder Rollup de Malbuoys leapt over the rope and occupied the German General’s massive concrete bath, left over from the War. There was nothing else to do.

But in Normandy this year we paid an intensely charming visit to Chateau Boutemont. Minimal interior touring on offer but the drawing room certainly had life. Not the usual dessication brought on by the Revolutionaries having burnt all the furniture in the C18th. But the walks and vistas, the features and choice trees and shrubs – well done, for not being the usual foreign idea of a garden, which is dusty paths, urns and uniform conifers in rows. Here every tree was an unusual specimen and choice. There were Brugmansia by the pool which used to be called Datura and are supremely poisonous, therefore not often grown.

Otherwise the Laird was intensely informative at all times. Only once did the Lairdess have to say nobody was listening. I never knew that the Plimsoll Line was the inspiration of the insignia of London Transport, nor that a corkscrew must be made of wire not foil. A foil corkscrew will be less secure if the cork is weak. Here is a man with connections as well as qualifications. The Laird is a Qualified Chain Saw User. In addition  he has completed an Asbestos Awareness Course. He solved the creaking door hinge problem by inserting lead from a pencil. This is something you too could try at home. Meanwhile, in his address book is the leading valuer of caravan parks in the UK. Don’t mock. How do you know that you’re not going to need your caravan park valued one day – or better still, your fields assessed for caravan-park potential? Matt Driver on the other hand was preoccupied with wasp control. ‘Get the scout wasp,’ was his approach, the theory being that wasps send out a scouting party. Once stickiness has been discovered, the others follow. So he was stamping down upturned glasses at the luncheon table with intensity then glaring at the considerable number accumulating. Concentration of this quality is how Matt Driver became one of the world’s leading taste-shapers of all time, with a salary to match Robin Smallmeal’s i.e. one of the highest, far exceeding the Prime Minister’s.

In the restaurant, Matt Driver rejected the Prix Fixe menu on the grounds that the chef needed to work harder. His other furrow was the aggrandisement of the chateau fragment. Another wing is now contemplated at the opposite end to the drawing room wing completed six or seven years ago. I said, ‘Why not pull it down completely and build it fourteen times bigger and on a mound while you’re about it, so you can have terraces and a water cascade, as at Chatsworth?’

A visit was also paid to the small town of Cambremer and lunch taken at Beuvron-en-Auge. Both were beamy, ancient and boutique and greatly enjoyed by the party. On the Saturday we visited Bernay, which is Paris-in-Normandy. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife – the iron chic.

So although often asleep in the afternoon, Poor Little Rich Gays did carry out engagements in Normandy.

The Drawing Room at Chateau Boutemont near Lisieux: A Modern Family live Here, not the Medieval One But Better than Nothing

Chateau Boutemont: True Charme and Ancientness with a Later Boost of Design and Gardening

Chateau Boutemont: Medieval but with None of the Drawbacks: Moat here as Styling. So much Better

Topiary Exceptionelle:

The Private Parterre

The Pool – with Poison Plants

Shapes and Interest