Wednesday 24th August 2022

Despite the advancing years, functions did take place in Normandy this year. In fact one of the greatest manifestations of the Poor Little Rich Gays in all of time occurred in the Drawing Room there. The Laird’s equipment is fantastic and vast. But it’s what he does with it that makes all the difference. You would not believe the range and the detail. Everything has been thought of in advance.

The luncheon party was for Beamish O’Halloran’s 70th Birthday. It was decided that the Laird’s performance would take place beforehand for fear that the guests would be too exhausted otherwise. So, in rows we were arranged before the full display. The Laird had chosen a theme of local interest. He said there was 3 penises in the Bayeaux Tapestry which is of enormous length but narrow girth. It’s not a tapestry but an embroidery. Who made it and why and where? King Harold was not penetrated through the eye with an arrow. That was added in later. Stitch marks suggesting a sword have been found. How the Laird performed and manipulated his equipment! The screen, the moving parts, the sound effects, the endless visual pleasure but greatest of all were the surprises. Suddenly a photo of Omelette Arnold Bennet … what had that got to do with the Bayeaux Tapestry? It was worked in somehow, I can assure you. But that was only a pale shadow of what was to come, one of the greatest glaring irrelevancies of all time, but carefully stitched in, somehow connected to the topic in hand. Yes, the Laird sang the Pea Song, the one about Grandad grading the peas on his pea farm. I thought it was familiar. Then I remembered it featured in the Laird’s last talk, possibly about the D-Day landings. So now it is clear.. the Pea Song is to be included, whatever the supposed subject.

This is so right and absolutely how things should be.

I should explain about the Pea Song. It appears to be a simple ditty about grading the peas A, B, C and D on a pea farm with a banjo twanging – all very folksy and countryified. Until the chorus, when it goes ‘So you get the A-ess of the peas, you get the P-ness of the peas.’ It’s a double entendre, you see. Rude. So end of the pier. It appears to be saying, ‘Anus’ and ‘Penis’. Do you get it? Those are rude words. Actually the song goes, ‘A-ness’ and ‘P-ness’ but everybody thinks it’s ‘Anus’ and ‘Penis’ So they roar.

The great thing is you can sing the song on television because really it’s only saying ‘A-ness’ and ‘P-ness’.

I should mention that from his equipment the Laird gave me a device that allows me to charge my phone in my Official Car which lacks its own USB port (as I believe they are called). This has transformed my life.

No more low battery car journey worry agony.

The Laird’s Equipment

Thursday 18th August 2022

Despite all the wrong, all the criminality of the last three years, Normandy has never failed. Rogue forms, random bandit confinements, criminal assaults by the state on the throats of Poor Little Rich Gays  – nothing has deterred us.

Normandy has gone on as always. This year the Lairds gained and, being severely anti-Brexit, carried no meat products, in particular the Laird’s terrine special which used to be nearly a meter in length, studded with juniper berries and sent out from the kitchen to every repast of the Norman sojourn with enough remaining at the end for freezing and other destinations.

Let it not be said that the Wrong has worn us down. We have not aged. It was the heat and natural causes. True to say, two of our party are temporarily compromised between the legs. Their functions have given up for the time being. As I remarked to Laura Malcolm just before Beamish O’Halloran’s birthday-party-with-pre-lecture-by-the-Laird-on the Bayeux-Tapestry -‘the endless flushing lavatories of the elderly.’

But that’s not us! We’re still fresh, we’re still lively. Hall, an English Norman friend living nearby, is confined to a wheelchair. She’s broken her ankle so there’s hope she’ll get out. Even so – the look!  There was a chance to make off with her as she sat, in the wheeled chair, in a cafe in Bernay. But her son said, ‘The brake’s on.’ But what if it had not been?

Moira McMatron herself was questionable as to whether even alive each morning.  At 11 her suite was still shrouded and unstirring. No hint of life. But it’s her daintiness that keeps her from rising. And when she does she’s so fairy-like and floaty, for sure were you to release her hair clip she would at once disintegrate, like a dandelion blown by a kiddie.

We developed a routine of rosé at luncheon followed by conked out in the chairs – see below. Plans were made then yawned off. What a mercy, though, we couldn’t be bothered with the cheese-eating competition at Liverot. I fear I would not have remained poised. In fact I would have vom-ed.

Moira McMatron – Her Suite Still Shrouded at 11a.m. Possibly She Had Not come Through the Night

The Loungers Lined Up in Normandy

Sunday 14th August 2022

Val says he can’t recognise me, Adrian Edge, when I appear on TV as I do quite often. Not for nothing do I work for Dainty Lady TV, requiring many arduous hours of in-depth pieces to camera, and even more gruelling hours of laborious investigation beforehand. But Val says he always fails to know me at first sighting. Only after a while does it dawn: ‘That’s my loved one.’ Val says you can have a Loved Ones size KFC bucket and he’s thinking of ordering one this Xmas as part of his Yuletide journey but must get through his Sunburn’n’Calomine Lotion journey first.

Sunday 7th August 2022

Val’s zapper went on the blink. His telly was stuck on ITV2. Luckily by the time I arrived at Moscova, a nice neighbour had re-programmed the machine. But for days Val was trapped, as in Waiting for Godot. ‘I turned the sound down in the hope of making it more interesting,’ he said. But in vain. ‘ Z list American actors are still Z list American actors.  “Acting” seems to involve looking like you’ve got serious indigestion and we can all do that.’

He is worried by Liz Truss’s hair. It’s very small but not as bad as Margaret Beckett.  ‘You know the ineluctable theory of power and women’s hair.’ Nobody seems to like Liz Truss. The Gay Mother said, ‘Have you seen this Liz Truss? Wretched little girl. Miserable little thing.’ But I never have seen her, or only in pictures, never moving or speaking. What is to be done? Maybe at the last minute they’ll announce that it’s all been a bad dream and it’s not Liz Truss but Lynne, the other Truss (how many can there be?). Nobody could object to her… surely. And it’s so nearly the same name, would anybody notice?

Tuesday 2nd August 2022

I’m only just beginning to recover. Last Tuesday bed linen was presented to the ironing board. Every single piece – often near the completion of ironing – found to be in error. Mysterious black marks, quite faint. Back to the laundry room for the Vanish bar, back to the board, apparently corrected. But then more faint black marks… like a curse, forever appearing. Not to mention much larger patches like scorch marks. For years, my maid has been complaining about the drying racks from Lakeland. Heritage style, wooden. Have to match the home. But accused of staining the bed linen because of the raw wood. I did not sustain her judgement. The racks went on. There was a good run of several years with no seepage.

But now the loathsome orange stains could have no other sources. The racks are leeching of a sudden.

In the middle of all this, the letter from the Gas Board arrived.

The black marks though… the whole morning back and forth, getting nowhere. Only through length of life knowing that somehow, one day, this would be over. Then, fallen to the floor in agony, my eye was caught by the ironing board’s edge. In a way it was a vision. A black dust mark all along the edge of the ironing board cover which must have been the source of all the trouble.

So relief – and hope. New drying racks but must be heritage wooden. Ordered from Dunelm. £119.67. New ironing board cover.

Slowly, slowly working towards pure linen. Very like Job, tormented by the Lord.

What about the price of Gas though? The Gas company announced a 2000% increase, from 2p per kilowat hour to 20p. Hours on the phone to ‘brokers’. Finally settled on Opus to supply delicious gas at 14p per kilowat hour. So costs of gas and leccie will rise to £4000 per annum from the present £1500.

Or rather the heating won’t be on next winter. I’ll have to get the coal fires going again. And adopt good furs, as the Queen solved the problem of the 3-day week and power cuts in the 1970s – with a mink coat.

Mercifully with the death of Aunt Verline, I’ll be able to fetch a bit more out of the fund to cover the increase – t0 some extent.

Aunt Verline will not require to be heated this coming winter.

Monday 25th July 2022

…than the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace to be quietly bickering with Royston King and Genevieve Suzy. ‘Can’t we just linger here a moment?‘ Royston protested. But Genevieve was rearing for afternoon tea on the terrace. In a superb fitted afternoon dress by Roland Mouret, with bag and difficult ice-blue satin shoes, she was not to be argued with.

Buckingham Palace is such a cozy house and at the Press Preview for the Summer Opening one has it to oneself.

We were back, for the Press Preview of the Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace, a fixture in my calendar if not in anybody else’s.

The scale is tiny – you can see straight through from the back to the front. Access to one room is through another as in a humble cott. Thus the intimate feel, although the rooms themselves tower with gilt and glass and pillars. I think, if Airbnb-ing at Buckingham Palace, as one well might be, one would have the Green Drawing Room for the mornings. Lunch in the State Dining Room, of course, followed by coffee in the Blue Drawing Room, then the Garden, the Music Room for tea, saving the White Drawing Room for a TV supper. The Throne Room for games, such as sitting on the thrones, and the Picture Gallery for exercise on wet days. That would only leave the Ballroom and Ball Supper Room as possibilities. I suppose one could give a ball, but it would be expensive.

I adore Buckingham Palace. The suite of rooms on the Garden Front are amongst the finest known, truly important interiors by Nash in their own right but also, gloriously, living State Rooms as no other. It’s a devastatingly grand architectural scheme of cornices and pediments and pilasters but the colours are simply afternoon tea. Such delight. Each room has been lightly rolled in Royal history, moving forward from Regency origins. In the White Drawing Room is an Edwardian powdering, while the hand of Queen Mary is seen in the Blue Drawing Room with the blue velour flock on the walls, now faded like ink. The State Dining Room is where Prince Albert exerted some pressure.

We went into the Ball Supper Room for the exhibition which changes each year. In the gloom, blazing in a glass case – I couldn’t believe it – the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland. To gaze actually upon it, this crucial tiara. She wore it for banknotes and coins. Early in the reign, it was the tiara, at the core of her majesty. You can see right inside it, its secret structure and the piece of elastic across the back to hold it in place.

Other incredible jewels in the Ball Supper Room – the Vladimir Tiara with the emerald drops, the Cambridge Emeralds, the State Diadem and the Nizam of Hyderabad necklace, among others. You must go. Genevieve said she doesn’t think as much of emeralds as she does of sapphires. The Cambridge emeralds are smooth and you can see confusion inside them as with a boiled sweet. They don’t have the allure and mystery of diamonds.

I hear that Rishi Sunak has been criticised for wearing a suit costing £3500. But Grannie’s Chips (i.e. Cullinan III and IV) are worth £50 million.

The White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace – So Cosy

….then the Green Drawing Room for the Mornings

The Green Drawing Room – a Quiet Corner

The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland…. Within

The Vladimir – also with Elastic

The State Diadem

The Platinum Jubilee Celebration Victoria Sponge, as Offered at Buckingham Palace

Tuesday 19th July 2022

The Metrological Office may have decided to colour the entire map of the country in catastrophic red but for those of us concerned with laundry this is Heaven. Everything dry within seconds of emergence from the machine, including dainty tea napkins offered at my formal seated teas, for sure

Not so good for ironing.

Years ago, in the 90s, during the high phase of the Poor Little Rich Gays having villa holidays, we took Northern Cyprus. It was a brain-wave of Anthony Mottram’s. We had the best villa in Northern Cyprus which normally is seen as a non-country where package holidays cost £44.68. But the maid never turned up and it was covered in dust from the building site all around where they were building more villas for the British market at £40,000 with pool and air con (except the elec supply had been left out of the plans rather). It was 40 degrees day and night but I vac-ed that drawing room, I can tell you. In the afternoons, at the height of the temperature, we went on improving expeditions to abandoned Greek churches and so on. Winding down on foot around interminable hair-pin bends with the abandoned Greek church in view, Robert Nevil, near liquefaction, said, ‘We must be mad.’ The next day he was confined to bed.

The other thing to do in Northern Cyprus was try and get a glimpse of where that Polly Peck man was hiding in plain view.

Today at lunch I determined on panzanella. I was one of the few running errands this morning but forgot basil. So out I surged to the local mini-mart at 1.30 to get it. No panzanella without basil. Unthinkable. But no basil in the mini-mart. In fact shelves stripped bare by vultures throughout the shop. Pecked clean. So nothing for it but to venture further to a new organic middle-class shop that’s opened. It was deeply worth it for who should in the queue behind me but Dominic Cummings, the worst man in the world. He was buying what I believe are called ‘beers’. You say to your ‘mates’, ‘Come over and we’ll have a few “beers”.’ I suppose there’s not much point in assassinating him now. In truth I was gripped by fear. All I could manage was what I hope was a dirty look. To think that that man destroyed our country for good.

That missing white sock though – it had become lodged inside a duvet cover during the cycle. No wonder I couldn’t find it.

But now that which was lost is found.

Monday 18th July 2022

Anthony Mottram of Prague was over the other day. He had symptoms but wasn’t getting a line for that thing. Anyway he was too weak to receive Robert Nevil, myself and the Maharajah on the Wednesday but by the Friday was well enough to dine for a birthday (not mine or his). I went over in the boiling heat and felt near death. We discussed our Elderly and how they pass a point of no return in their decline. Anthony Mottram declared as a matter of policy, ‘I think I might start to fail in a few years.’ He made it sound like an interesting new adventure.

Her Late Majesty the Queen Mother, in her 90s, used to come down in the lift at Clarence House to give a luncheon. Attendants wondered if she were even alive. But the moment her guests loomed, she revived and her failure was reversed.

Sunday 17th July 2022

I’ve been with the Gay Mother. It seems that a wrenched back in a matter of life or death at her age. Her strength has declined. She claims a loss of appetite but refers frequently to Things to do with Beetroot. There’s an urge to continue sowing lettuce. The blackcurrants are in and the Gay Mother did Delia’s blackcurrant shortbread which is always sandy even if you get the recipe wrong. Also two jars of blackcurrant puree as usual. Five lunched on Thursday. I did a cold collation. The men came in shorts. Men’s legs are a challenge at a luncheon. On Tuesday we went over to the mansion where Aunt Lavinia was staying one night with Cousin Barley. Her taxi in London had refused her dog so she had to take the Underground to the station. Fortunately another grandchild was on hand to help her. But really what a way to treat a person of 90. She only just got the train to the mansion.

In London I’ve given two seated teas. Tea constantly has to be renewed in the pot. But is this catering challenge more severe than Glyndebourniana? Last Saturday I did salmon trout. £68 for an entire bird but it did go in twice at the Gay Mother’s as well. The guests at my second seated tea yesterday had been at Glyndebourniana on Friday and described an incredible adventure with topside of beef. Their hosts were Gays and had done everything. They have a special trolley for the baskets and the chairs and table go on it as well. But topside of beef. Surely hard and not costly enough? But no. Superb apparently, very thinly sliced.

If this is a cost-cutting corner to be cut and got away with, we need to know about it.

I spent £16.42 on Season One of The Gilded Age (it’s the American Downton Abbé by that man – Julian Fellowes, whom the Queen told Harry Rollo has written an opera, but where is it?). The Gay Mother didn’t like it. The only alternative was ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: the Making of a Monster’ but she thought she’d already seen that possibly.

La Boheme at Glyndebourniana was absolutely thrilling. Honestly one was in floods. Funny, because the last time I saw it it left me cold. Its glory is that passion ebbs and flows just as in real life. There’s a strong undercurrent of hard-headed unromanticism which you might not notice ordinarily. Puccini’s mu is so sophisticated not a lot of gush as we were brought up to believe.

Earlier at Glyndebourniana I took The Wreckers with Aunt Lavinia. We thought well of it. Admirable failure to condemn wrecking as a pursuit … I’m sure I’ve said all this already. The Gay Mother was telling Aunt Lavinia that she’d heard that Ethel was a terrific dog-lover – like Aunt Lav, of course.

Now this heat. Well, it is quite hot and might be hotter. But why do the authorities need to crank up a crisis at every turn? Answer obvs – so they can alarm the population and get control over us. In this case, it’s: fearsome danger of death so wear a hat, apply suncream and drink water. Then you won’t die. How many experts did it take to dream up that essential ‘advice’.

I’m glad I haven’t got too much longer to go. Better, now, to be at the back end of one’s life than the front. It’s the young I feel sorry for with nothing to look forward to but more and more of this rubbish with accompanying virtue-signalling from a compliant population.

Royston’s sister in the late eighties was in hospital when last heard of where she also managed to contract that thing. The Gay Mother a bit criked and poor Laura Malcolm’s father completely took. Was alive in the morning but didn’t live to take luncheon, which would unfortunately have been spoon-fed and very minimal so he was spared that at least.

My Chances of Survival in the ‘Heat Wave’ Increased

But Could be Slipping: No Strength to Re-Style the Oven Glove

Wednesday 6th July 2022

There has been concern that I, Adrian Edge, might say the wrong thing re: the Garden Museum Literary Festival at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. How could I? I never thought I’d attend a State Dinner in the State Dining Room and Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth. I never thought I’d see the 12th Duke of Devonshire arrive, self-driven, in an official Chatsworth buggy, the same as used for conveying the less abled tourists there, or queuing for an ice-cream at an ice-cream caravette outside his own home. I never thought I’d even see a Duke, let alone speak to one.

I never spoke to Debo, as Royston reminded me in our Airbnb in Bakewell. But Debo and Chatsworth have been at the core of my life, although, as a house, it is not entirely me. What Debo gave was that the home could be one’s entire life, the mending of carpets, the re-weaving of fabrics and braids, the hunting in attics for William Kent pieces saved from Devonshire House in London. Royston wouldn’t have Debo mentioned though. I wasn’t allowed to mention Debo. He said she was past. At her grave, also Andrew Devonshire’s, which he did not prevent visiting despite no speaking of Debo, Royston received a call from the highest corridors of power (Lord Flingin’ Sauce) to say that the Handel Concert in Hyde Park had been cancelled. The Handel Concert was cancelled owing to those who normally promote pop concerts not understanding that if you put tickets on sale for a classical concert only ten days in advance you won’t get many takers.

Can I say? – The Garden Museum Literary Festival at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire was COMPLETELY FANTASTIC. It was a summer camp for the greatest in the land. How we bonded! The glory and utter greatness. The agony of parting. Crocus’s Head had to buy us two bottles of champagne to soothe the pain.

Chatsworth garden and park must be the most spectacular surviving such place in the world. As far as the eye can see, which is miles, a created landscape evolving over 350 years, so vast, with ‘features’ beyond belief, yet enclosed by a wood to one side, giving a feeling of mystery as to what, if anything, might be beyond. Yet, oddly, Chatsworth is the opposite of the usual country house arrangement, it is so public, so on display. It’s on a bus route. You could pop in to Sheffield from just outside the front door.

The same with the house. The state rooms have been open to the public for centuries. So what one craves are the private apartments. Debo allowed a few photos to appear. Selected guests at the Literary Festival were accommodated on the private side. You could tell them by the red badge hung round their necks saying ‘House Guest’, causing Royston to comment that it is very hard to separate a person from any lanyard they might be given, even Alan Titchmarsh or Crocus’s Head. But none of them, when grilled, had any idea that they ought to be remembering everything to tell me. You couldn’t even work out where the private apartments are. Stoker, as we were to call him ( in his speech of welcome he said, ‘I’m Stoker Devonshire’) parked his buggy by an unremarkable entrance on the east side. As far as I can tell none of the first floor is open to the public, not much of the ground floor and only about half of the second floor.

What is going on?

My only glimpse was of The Baths, shown by Lord Burlington who had a key. These are at the far end, beyond the shop in the Orangery. Now empty of water, this creepy indoor pool was heaped up with rubbish. Who knew that even at Chatsworth there is a room where people just open the door and fling in whatever they can’t bear to think about. When Royston told Stoker about the Baths viewing the next day, he said, ‘Oh is he going to do something with them?’ Lord B takes over next year. Abdication now a feature of the aristocratic houses, but not of the Royal one, of course.

It’s an odd house to tour round on the public tour because you can never tell where you are.  The famous Painted Hall  – I suppose it’s a Hall but it’s not an Entrance Hall. It’s got stairs but there are so many other stairs, it’s confusing. How you would live in such a house?  You could get stranded in a remote drawing room and never be heard of again.

A feature of functions in these places is No lingering. The person I sat next to at the State Banquet in the Sculpture Gallery said she’d dined on the private side the night before. Stoker had said to her, ‘I’m leaving’ (when the courses had been served). She said, ‘Lovely. See you around.’ He said, ‘No, you don’t understand. That means you’re leaving too.’ All very charming, of course. It’s servants, you see, or staff as they are called nowadays. They can’t be keep waiting to get on with clearing up. Luncheon at Buckingham Palace in the days of King George and Queen Mary lasted for 20 minutes. In her book of etiquette Lady Troubridge suggests 45 minutes for a wedding reception.

The Literary Festival was first class. So many interesting talks. Royston compered Alan Titchmarsh whom he addressed as ‘Andrew’ at one point. But superb riffing… ‘I don’t think I can recover from this… you can call me Winston.’ Brilliant. We had a walk with Tom Stuart Smith through the five glades he’s planted at Chatsworth plus jigging up the Rockery (which is several acres with massive rocky pinnacles). Alan Titchmarsh and I had to keep at the front because we didn’t have microphones. ‘I’m not sucking up,’ I said. ‘I just want to be able to hear.’ Tom Stuart Smith even referred to me, Adrian Edge, at one point as to whether a certain campanula was Prichard’s Variety or not. It wasn’t. But he’d wanted it to be.

Stoker and Amanda Welcome Guests to the Literary Festival

Stoker queuing for an Ice Cream along with the General

A Trio

Stoker’s Coronation Get-Up, when he was Nine

Dinner Laid in the Sculpture Gallery

The Emperor Fountain after Closing Time

So Grand but Natural

Could be an Entire London Street and Several Public Buildings

The Cascade: Unchanged in 320 years. Now Needing Repair

Everything Created

Rockery by Paxton or Possibly his Wife

The Oak Room at Chatsworth. The 6th Duke bought all this carving from Germany. Bit of a horror. I think Debo thought so too

The Library: My Favourite Room on the Public Route. But I fear I would Love the Private Rooms