Friday 8^th January 2010

I must just fit in this little Christmas narration. I know I’ve been promising that miraculous fashion lady all week.

Elsa Hodgeman,  the Gertrude Stein de nos jours, huge in the Art World, was shopping for Christmas in a mart, possibly Sainsbury’s, with her sister. The Multis were to dine with them at their mother, Lady Newell’s, Elizabethan manor house in the country on Christmas Eve. Elsa said, ‘We must have cheese,’ for a cheese course. Her sister was appalled: ‘The expense. The hole in the roof. However are we to mend it if we squander on cheese?’ I’m not sure quite which hole in which roof she referred to. But I do sympathise. I too have often been crushed by the cost of cheese.

Elsa said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ You know what sisters are like. They quickly became over-heated. Elsa was sobbing by ‘World Cuisine’. Later, she said, Mark Wallinger himself remarked that a piece of cheese would be hard to fit into a hole in the roof, which was rather horrid of him. With no grace her sister finally picked out a shrink-wrapped piece of Edam: cost £3.54. Elsa flung it back, grabbed the £7.89 slab and as good as rammed the check-out with the trolley. Sister left speechless.

So it was, on Christmas Eve, that Elsa faced entertaining the Multis with the grim lump of Edam.  The headlamps of their Mercedes approached. They crunched at a halt at the door. Out they came from the car with an enormous box. ‘It’s for you,’ they said. A present.  A whole Stilton from Neal’s Yard.

Wednesday 6^th January 2010

I can’t quite begin my narration (but I really do promise not to digress forever) because certain readers have been suggesting that clothes shopping is a waste of time.

Are they quite well? Simon Limpney might say.

I won’t have it. Do you remember that awful banking crisis in September 2008? How little we’ve mentioned that here and its after-effects! Last Spring, the first fine day, after months and months of reining in, I sprang forth myself like the first blossom and surged across the park to The Library to look at the new season’s frockage. Then on to Harrods where I had three or four assistants trotting up and down the stairs and out into the street, all various astonishing species of forward queen in thrilling outfits, looking for a white shirt with black edging which was in the window. It was found and cost £294, by Neil Barrett, and I was going to buy it, so much had I blossomed, but, in the changing suite, it turned out to be baggy and sacky, which I can’t bear.

Clothes go deep. That’s why that TV prog where Trinny and Susannah boosted depressed housewives through frockage was so true and good. Shopping the same. For some, such as Lord Arrowby and myself, it is solitude (How Lord Arrowby does shop, and so boldly, for one so governmental and stern!), but there are always characters and adventures. Yesterday I had marvellous confidential banter with staff at Harrods: one, short with remarkably round, shiny, bald head, at first obsequious in the Eastern manner, but soon total bitch about the poverty of the season (I mean the clothes, which are poor, as we shall see).  That young man at The Library with the shoulder length hair (partly Asian, I should say) and a slow fizzing smile is a living work of art.

Then, between the shops, are the buildings. Our London is full of buildings, some, even after 30 years, you feel you have never seen before. Yesterday, coming away from The Library in the gloaming, the Brompton Oratory (do you know it? Extraordinary 17^th century Italian Baroque style facade, quite alien in London) looked for some reason flat as if it were a drawing that had been shaded in.

Shopping is salutary and bracing and like life. There are the moments of unexpected inspiration, boldness, joy and rightness, the more frequent passages of quavering uncertainty fading into exhaustion and defeat.

I hope that when I am gone they will put up a little plaque in Basil Street, which forms a Via Dolorosa, Beata et Spem between Harrods and H Nicks: ‘Here Toiled, at Sale Time for Fifty (or however many I am given) Years, Adrian Edge, Shopper and Queen.’

It is enough.

Back to my narration. These January Sales (by no means over yet)… If you are yet to shop, be warned. Very little on offer. Black, black, black, then, huge excitement, grey. Even brown banished for fear of too much variety. It’s the recession. Chronic caution, very small stock, all aimed at boring Euro market which has already picked clean, it would appear.

But the January Sales are often less rewarding than the Summer. Too many people snapping up.

But you never know. Never give up. Never let go.

So at Harrods, I got a white shirt by Balenciaga – exquisite thing. £100. Half price. Now here’s a pearl: the sizes had come out too small in the manufacture, hence in the sale. So the 16 was quite slim. I normally have 15 and 3/4. Don’t be put off if the sizes are too big in the sale. If you’re me, you can tell at a glance if a garment is likely to fit. Acquire this genius.

At Prada concession in Harrods, it was bitter and barren. Common little black trousers. ‘I’ve already got these,’ I shrieked. Well, not the common ones, of course. Got a lilac shirt. Soft, slightly shiny, thick material – hope to love it. Hope it won’t be dull. £100.Half price.

Then on to Prada itself in Sloane Street, where struck lucky. Shoes, just right. Billions, but half price. You must have Prada shoes. I bought some cheaper in the summer, Pied a Terre. Already falling to bits.

AND, another pearl, I made an unexpected purchase and smashed my budget.

As we know, Poor Little Rich Gays must have Designer Goods (come back for the next twenty years to find out why). How to get them, with no money? Theft? It has been known. The greatest hope is the sales – but even so you must smash forth from your budget.

I was lucky. There was a space-age Spring mini coat in the Prada Red line. Very mysterious grey sheen. Not quite silk, not quite techno fabric. Also lightly padded but shapely. But only 46 left. The assistant said ‘No more’ but just at that moment a pert, pinched middle-aged woman came by with side-of-beef man in tow she was obviously trying to do something about and picked out coat in bigger size. It was there all the time! Agonising moments while side-of-beef contemplates it, then at last it is abandoned and I swoop. While I am trying it on and swanning in front of the mirror, hot, rough, male sex couple express admiration – for coat, not me.

So I was blessed in the sales this January.

Now, I really am going on too long but quickly, another pearl. I rather came adrift with a cream cardy at Zara but only £40. The trouble:  I’m in mourning for a cream jumper by Johann Christian Bach (not really but German designer with three names. Yellow label. Got ‘Powell’ or ‘Poel’ in it) I had from The Library three years ago which was destroyed by washing. PEARL: never try to replace lost garments. They will never come again. That’s that.

FINAL PEARL: there are some interesting shirts by Jil Sander at H Nicks on the ground floor – white with black, grey or blue edging. Might be reduced further. Worth lurking. Quite slim. Not usual Jil Sander middle-aged horror sacks. Also decorative shirts by D and G (I don’t know whether you can take D and G) which might come down more – they’re in the basement.

Keep rifling through the racks of reduced goods, tense, fraught, thorough, nit-picking but heart still somehow open for a revelation of frockage. I mean, you never know what you might find.

Tuesday 5th January 2010

Sorry – no time for my sales pearls as promised.  Had to dash to Harrods, Nicks, Joseph and The Library. Snow threatened. Could be trapped indoors for days. Late sales sweep couldn’t wait.

With interesting results – saw Lord Arrowby’s hot outdoor jacket in Nicks. He was wearing it at Borough Market before Christmas. Total hunkarama. Well, it’s by Dolce and Gabbana! Reduced to £202, or even £193. I took a picture of it but I don’t quite dare to use it.

Which just goes to show – thinking of the burning question I was asking yesterday and which we shall return to many times before the grave, Why Designer? – even the sternest of Poor Little Rich Gays succumbs.

And Designer is best. It is, isn’t it? Or innit? Really, it is. Don’t you think? Anthony Mottram considers it madness, but, excuse me, his best suit ever was Prada and he stood in the middle of the shop in Rome trying it on, proclaiming: ‘It’s only 4 days’ earnings for me.’

Enough of that.  There’s been a jaw-dropping development. Requiring an up-date or rather a back-date.  You won’t believe it, but the Blond Multi wasn’t in a suit on Christmas Day!

I’m hoping to get a picture. Otherwise you really won’t believe it.

What’s more we can learn from his outfit. It was possibly suit trousers in blue or blue-grey, a very good high-necked cable-knit navy jumper and – this is the lifting detail – a bright red item somewhere between a kercheif and a scarf, tied at the neck.

Next Christmas I really must remember to get you all to plan and divulge your Christmas Day ensembles for inspection well in advance.

With this example to follow we all have heights to scale next year.

I do hope we get a picture. (13th January 2010: we never got a picture but the divine Lord Arrowby supplied the below)

The Blond Multi's Christmas Day outfit: picture courtesy of a playful Lord Arrowby

Monday 4^th January 2010

I’ve been bending and straining with Sales thoughts for a week now, ever since I hurled forth from the Gay Mother’s at the crack on the 28^th and roared straight to Harrods – 240 miles without stopping.

It was supposed to be the first day of the Sale but it wasn’t.

For a while it looked as if I was going to be too dazed and road-blind to shop.

Why the Sales?  I forgot to tell you. Where’s all my money? You’ve lain awake at night in torment, I know. I must have Designer, you see. I spend about £4000 a year on frockage. Without sconti (that’s the Italian for discount) it would be £10,000.

Can’t afford it.

Besides I like to think it’s immoral to spend £450 on a knit. What about the Poor?

Why Designer?  Are you really asking that? Oh dear! Huge subject.

On the other hand, the Multis have developed a look and stuck to it. They wear their tailor-made suits even on Saturdays.  As you know, I’d already bought a suit by Nicolo Ceschi Berrini at The Library before Christmas. Only 30 per cent off.  Hideous price and now not sure if it fits. Also, it’s black, which I’ve already got. The Blond Multi was quite severe: ‘That’s why most of us spend hours at our tailors, you know.’

But I just couldn’t. Can’t bear it if it’s not Designer – or from Topshop or Zara.

The other night at Prince Dmitri’s it emerged that these hand-made suits cost seventeen hundred pounds each.  The Blond Multi has a new one built every month. Let me tell you something else. Saturday night I was at the Multis (fabulous: a truly rich, not poor or little, but rich, fashion lady there. I’ve remembered everything to tell you). The BM was wearing his bright-blue corduroy Little Lord Fauntleroy suit. On leaving I went into his dressing room to fetch my coat. Odd. The blue suit was there, on a hanger, hitched face on to the front of a chest of drawers. But he’s wearing it, I was thinking. How can it also be here?  Is it magic? Does he have other supernatural powers?

Then it dawned – he must have two made. This was the back-up, waiting in case of stains.

The cost, the cost!

But the Multis will go to Heaven, whereas I won’t. I must have it new, new, the latest look, don’t care how unsuitable – like the little dolly get-ups I’m raging for at the moment. You may remember, when Grace Monaco died tragically in 1982 there was some talk of her becoming a Saint. But the Vatican said that she’d changed her look too often, followed fashion too slavishly. On the other hand, if Her Present Majesty of England were to apply….

I was going to tell you what happened at Harrods, and Prada, and H Nicks and Joseph and Browns and Selfridges – and it’s not over yet. There are always those surprise late sale bargains, those few extra pieces there can’t be any harm in, the budget can somehow accommodate.

Or rather the credit card.

But I got derailed. Shall we try to salvage a moral? How about: you can either get a look and stick to it or follow fashion. Both ways, it will be hugely expensive, but sticking probably costs more.

Tomorrow I will try to be more organised and share my pearls re: the Sales as I should.

Saturday 2^nd January 2010

The Sales growl on underneath everything at this time of year, rather like those double-basses in old music. I expect you’re wondering what a Poor Little Rich Gay is amongst the reduced goods in the first place.

Well, I’m bursting and seething and slightly anguished but now we’ve had New Year and I went to a marvellous party. It really was. You might have noticed I don’t always enjoy things as I should. It’s a crippledom I have to bear. A large gathering, so many people, one foot wrong, one harsh word – collapse, totally destroyed, days to recover. And New Year – it can be grim, compulsory hilarity etc. One year in Prague with Mottram we went to the creepy dark mansion of the German military attaché (big-time gay in Prague ex-pat circles): loathsome yellow water soup with surprise fish taste; guests actively hostile.

But this party was bliss. Covent Garden, absolutely London’s central, big art on the walls, big names on the floor. Therefore even more remarkable that I, Adrian Edge, who am nobody very much, not crushed underfoot. The hosts: Ariel (known by this name alone), who makes sculptures out of water, string, holograms and occasionally bits of disused council estates, and his partner, Harry Rollo, the impresario, collector and performance artist: star turn – playing Liszt’s piano reduction of The Ring upside down in an artificial snow-storm at the same time trying to get through on the telephone to Zsa Zsa Gabor’s hairdresser. Very alternative, very new, but, make no mistake, very Poor Little Rich Gay. Their house in Los Angeles (yes, I do hope to visit, readers) was recently put in a bag and smoked against the termites. Harry jetted over before Christmas just to see about the curtains.

They’d been to Ottolenghi!  I couldn’t believe it would all fit together so beautifully. A full buffet from Ottolenghi! Can you imagine anything more absolutely new – and expensive? Those bags of meringues alone cost £7.50, I happen to know. And champagne, of course, in waves, every ten seconds or so.

The guests: so talented, so well-known, hardly any employees, but first and foremost clients of Bruce MacBain, all poised to extend and refurbish the home. Stephan Jäger, the international organist and DJ, in Alexander McQueen, has already begun. He returned from a tour before Christmas to find – no stairs. Cut off from his frockage! Had to go out and buy the A McQueen from scratch.

There was nothing wrong with the stairs, you understand; he just didn’t like the look of them.

So it was Out! Out!

Ned Boule, the timpanist, outer garments Uniqlo but a solid foundation of vintage Helmut Lang, has jaws wide open over a property in the City: Bruce MacBain an inevitability, I would have thought. Reggie Cresswell, the Ghanaian ceramicist, just back from Christmas with his Gay Mother, the only black resident of the Cotswolds over eighty, has already had him, though. Rufus Pitman, novelist and critic as we know, wearing Black Orchid by Tom Ford, likewise.

But we were not narrow. There was a range beyond building works – a hot skinhead, for instance, about to go off and study German in that country. I discussed most thoroughly with a woman quite up to the topic, the mania, in California, for pink minges (I’ll explain one day). A Bond girl was, reportedly, bought in under police escort. I never saw her. She might have been kept in a room below (it was an upstairs party, you see), her presence radiating through the floorboards. This is how these things are done in Los Angeles, I believe. But the Very Great Actress, as opposed to the Bond girl, supposedly coming on after her show, was apparently waiting for me, Adrian Edge, to leave before sweeping in.

Unexplained.

Lord Arrowby was elsewhere – either at Lambeth Palace, Downing Street, Sandringham or all three.

But Poor Little Rich Gays couldn’t have been more benign and, although I shouldn’t say it, really awfully flattering to me. You do wonder whether contact with normal people over Christmas hadn’t been rather cleansing. But it couldn’t go on, of course. Or perhaps it was relief, over the holiday, from ghastly work. Work is such a drawback, on the whole.

Vers la fin, some halves slipped away for adventures in clubs, leaving other halves behind. Rufus Pitman said that he has 394 friends on Facebook, but occasionally it drops to 393.

As I was leaving Harry Rollo explained that his perfume smells of the dawn. This party was the dawn. What a year ahead for Poor Little Rich Gays if this is the beginning!

Wednesday 30^th December 2009

..before the whole subject goes dead. But you’ll want to know what Poor Little Rich Gays got and gave and how we managed amongst normal people, whom we tend to meet most at Christmas, and with our Gay Mothers.

Anthony Mottram suffered the raging bickering of his mother Vera and her wartime friend June, 91, in the dining room of the sheltered accommodation but June’s present, usually re-re-gifted from the charity shop, was a quiz (beginnings and endings of novels: guess which one) which gave an excellent fifteen minutes of amusement. Later the ladies watched an obscene film provided by Mottram’s brother. It was probably supposed to be high-minded. They took to reading out the sub-titles with careering gusto. ‘Fucking this’ and ‘fucking that,’ they went. Shocking.

The Multis were with the Photographer Multi’s mother (see her tree below). They gave wooden meat boards from Divertimenti at £345 each and crates of wine. Regrettably, they say, they had to cut back on presents this year. The Photographer Multi, though, took care to tear all the wrapping paper so it could not be re-used. He draws the line at…Bruce McBain received a tan brief case. He comments ‘It’s always good to try out new colours.’ Lord Arrowby has a pair of tan shoes, but he can get away with anything. Speaking of whom, he was given an entire original painting by Rufus Pitman – for his collection. This has to be the winning Poor Little Rich Gay present for this year, also with the merit of being given by one PLRG to another. I’ve no idea what it is or what it cost, but just the notion …. Robert Nevil got a pair of brandy glasses (Edinburgh Crystal: the Orrin range) from his brother-in-law who sells agricultural machinery.

I’m sorry to say that there was much subsequent clattering on the Internet to find out what had been paid for presents received. Thank God for modern tech!

The Multis and Prince Dmitri Hersov are tremendous present-givers almost all the time – how they lavish hard-back books you actually want to read (i.e. Nicky Haslam’s memoirs), beautiful bowls and vases, grand gadgets!  I had my wine-pull thing from the Multis years ago before they were Multi. It cost £70 which was more then. And I’m still using it.

In the days before my friendship was terminated, Robin Smallmeal, head of Landfill in this country (or whatever), and his partner, Simon Limpney, gave 150 presents at Christmas and employed somebody to wrap them. Average cost per pres: £100. I got a pair of very grand hand-painted French coffee cups among other things, which still ornament my home. I wonder if they’ve thrown away all the rather nice pieces of glass and so on I gave them.

What can we conclude about Poor Little Rich Gay present-giving? The unique objects, the antiques, paintings, one-off textiles and rugs are best. And cost, it must be admitted, cost. I gave the Gay Mother, along with a packet of dried figs from Planet Organic and a tin of  McCann’s Irish oatmeal, a very beautiful antique shawl which I got from Graham and Greene in Primrose Hill for £60. She astonishingly described it as a throw – I didn’t know such words were known in the country – and hurled it over the back of her sofa, where it will probably remain.

Now, my setting for Boxing Day was, by tradition, a sea-side bungalow built in 1965. Friends of the Gay Mother’s Mother, you see. Just absolutely no decor at all. I mean, there was furniture and carpets, but no decor, of any kind. I talked to an elderly gentleman about the construction of children’s buggies and his family’s former properties in Edgbaston. I felt almost good.

The Gay Mother's Christmas Tree

The Photographer Multi's Mother's Christmas Tree

Interesting Double-ended Bag given to the Gay Mother

The Multis' Christmas Wine Gifts

Sunday 27th December 2009

News yet to come in of what Poor Little Rich Gays got and gave for Christmas but so much to tell otherwise but it’ll have to wait. I had the duck Christmas Dinner with the cherry jam and it was quite excellent. Mostly we have been with our Gay Mothers and their Christmas trees – huge subject of great fascination but will I be able to fit it in because, tomorrow, I dash back to London for the sales.

By rights I should be in the field now, but the Gay Mother required another day so I’m sitting here while vultures pick the shelves clean.

Awful, awful!

The sales call for mental as well as emotional preparation; disappointment is inevitable and unexpected opportunities must be seized.

First of all, review your possessions and make a list of what you need. It’s out of the question that you don’t need anything. I have never missed the sales, summer and winter, in thirty years. Clothes should be the priority: you’ve got to move fast or unique pieces will be snatched by others. Towels, bed linen etc will be heaped up in Harrods for weeks and can wait.

Remember a few new pieces will revive your wardrobe and keep it going until the summer sales.

The winter sales are more challenging than the summer. More people clawing up…

Then select the shops you will visit: in my case it’s Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Joseph (Sloane Avenue), Selfridges (good for shoes), Browns (South Molton Street), Prada (in Harrods, and Sloane Street and Bond Street) Diverse and Sefton in Upper Street, Islington.  Ideally acquire a bicycle so you can nip between all of these.

Now there’s something I’ve not told you: I already got Matches and The Library covered before Christmas.

Ideally you should have done several recces in the three weeks before the sales, so you know the terrain and your golden vision of your wardrobe has had time to form in your sleep. But they do move everything round for the sales, so you can’t be sure of finding your choosen items where they were before.

Then of course you have your list of stuck-off designers, just as you have your stuck-off artists for museum visits.  In my case it’s Dolce e Gabbana, Versace (common and ghastly), Gucci (not what it was), Paul Smith (dreary or for straight men on Saturday nights). So, once on the sale premises, your activities will be more concise and precise.You slice in to your favoured houses.

My list is as follows: one pair of shoes, jeans in a steel-blue hue I’ve not yet seen anywhere, knits (fine and heavy), shirts (Prada ideal), possibly some smart-casual (awful exp) trousers.

In addition: towels, a large saucepan (mine has developed a leak).

So modest, don’t you think?

A warning: follow all my advice but don’t be fooled. Be prepared to suffer all the same. Expect trauma. In the sales you must fight crowds, barge and shove at the racks. Above all, you must be quick, quick, quick. Tell at a glance if it is the right size or horrid. Then, do not fear to strip off in the middle of the shop if there’s a queue for the changing room. Try on, try on (so vital in clothes’ buying. Don’t shop in lace-up shoes). If possible, get an assistant to fetch and carry for you. At Prada they sometimes have things round the back.

Even so you’ll be making snap decisions, you might have to abandon your list altogether and re-think on the spot – will it be useful? How and when will I wear it?

I already bought a black suit at The Library. It is by Nicolo Ceschi Berrini – rare designer. Frightful price and only 30 per cent off but I had to have it because it is tiny, tiny and tight, tight. But  I fear I was over-hasty.  On Christmas Day (which I’ve not yet told you about) it was difficult to wear. Oh no, is it too small?

It may yet come right but you can’t be sure.

May God bless Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the world as they go forth for the Sales.

25^th December 2009

I am with the Gay Mother, 85, in the country’s depths for Christmas. She is in lilac tweed for warmth and complaining that no butcher’s now has its own bacon-slicer.

The organist could not get down the icy hill so Church was curtailed and only two carols sung unaccompanied as if we were early settlers in some far-flung place.

The Vicar said that Jesus is knocking at our hearts, craving admission but also he has four mansions. Not sure why he is so desperate for accommodation elsewhere. What’s wrong with his own place?

I am led to ponder deeply the message of Christmas for Poor Little Rich Gays. At a glance it is repulsive. The frightful stable, the eschewing of Heaven’s luxury, the coming down to Earth – not what we want to hear at all. But I recall when I go to the Lahore Kebab House (London’s cheapest restaurant) with the Multis or those times on our Tuscan summer holiday when we dined in simple trats. Or those little pieces I have bought from Topshop or Zara. We are closer to Jesus than might appear. The lowly stable would have been rather a different matter without all God’s lovely stocks and shares and Heaven’s marble halls to ascend to at the finish. So, for PLRGs, it is an adventure and a scream to descend provided you can get back to the Vola taps and the Bruce McBain-designed kitchen sooner or later. On the whole, sooner.

24th December 2009

My Christmas was nearly cancelled by Aunt Smidge and her daughter Smurry. Mother and daughter team. Live together. Mother 83, dau 60. They always do Christmas lunch. But now they’ve got a puppy. Can’t shut it up, can’t farm it out, can’t manage sprouts, bird, sauces, mash, roast therefore.

Only elevating aspect is that the puppy cost £400.

For a while it looked as if it would be just the Gay Mother and me. But in the end we’re going to the big house where Cousin Phoebe is planning duck – with a cherry sauce if she can get a really good quality cherry jam.

I’ve said it before: at Christmas the Poor Little Rich Gay is most likely to encounter normal people.

Not least as a result of being returned to their origins. Anthony Mottram and Vladimir Alexov have left the Museum/Palace Apartment in Prague. Vladimir has gained the utter simplicity of the Ukraine and Mottram is now installed in the guest room of his mother’s sheltered accommodation at Shepton Mallet. Not quite what he is used to. Tomorrow there will be a daring glass of sherry in the residents’ lounge before lunch. His mother’s war-time friend June (90) will appear with her superbly mean charity shop presents, for instance set of hankies with someone else’s initials. Often, such is her re-gifting, her offerings have been offered and rejected in previous years. Mottram mere will have a sharp word.

Speaking of gifts, I feel awful. I intended to tip and tip. I mean advise, advise. Now it’s too late. We’ll have to content ourselves this year with a full catalogue, only forthcoming after tomorrow of course,  of what Poor Little Rich Gays got and gave – which had better be enthralling. I wonder if there will be any animals, or an entire couture collection.

If you are really still shopping, I suggest: voucher for eight full-time staff for a year, photograph of tiara not yet arrived … you’ll just have to go into a shop and buy everything.

By the way, Prince Dmitri Hersov’s Porsche has a flat tyre: no replacement to be had until 29th. He goes to his Gay Mother by train.

Monday 21^st December 2009

8pm. Saturday. Lord Arrowby’s party. We end as we began in a gleaming London warehouse apartment that murmurs ‘finish, finish, finish.’ Or rather screams. Two weeks ago at Ned Czernowski and Peter Acharya’s the smooth ascent to Christmas began; now in Lord Arrowby’s ballroom-sized living space, we dock peacefully but ecstatically on the upper slopes.

Not for nothing does Lord Arrowby run the country! He’s in government circles, you know; breakfast meetings with the Home Sec, shaping long-term policy, identity cards possibly. Nobody really knows.

And looking radiant for his party. No hint of party nerves. Blazing blue eyes, rich bronzed glow, tight, whippy trousers and a bold shirt stopping short of Hawaiian. Lord A loves a party shirt. Rufus Pitman, the critic and novelist, said, ‘Is that cerulean?’ I think it was. Cerulean quite a theme. The Blond Multi was astonishing and stunning in a three-piece suit in corduroy of that colour. The Photographer Multi and Rufus Pitman were sumptuous in velvet smoking jackets, the Multi’s from Brighton market, Rufus’s from a specialist and very rare shop.

What arrangements!  What administration! Two waitresses, but that’s the wrong word. One was ash blonde, elfin, tiny, the other black-haired, statuesque, could have been a Spanish donna –  both entirely artificial, excellently contrasting and very efficient. Cascades of canapés, pastries ordered specially from Borough Market, champagne glass never empty –

With the result, you know how it is at parties…  conversation careered rather with the tiniest tinge of paranoia. I just hope I didn’t say anything wrong.

Finally reunited with Reginald Cresswell, the Ghanaian ceramicist, not seen for six months. He has been slaving over a very complicated ceramic with human figures in it and possibly moving parts and chandeliers. In and out the kiln. To be unveiled in 2011.  Our topic: Althorp. It’s a stately home. Google if you’ve never heard… He has a ceramic there – in the private apartments.  Me: ‘Rather dreary facade.’ Reggie: ‘I don’t think so.’ Me: ‘Rows of windows.’ No idea what that was supposed to mean. Not been there for years. Reggie: ‘It’s an important house. Do you want to see a picture of my bedroom there?’ (produces phone). Me: ‘View from the windows rather dreary.’

Something had to be dreary.

There’s no escape, Poor Little Rich Gays do cover a range.  Rufus Pitman and the Photographer Multi: art and perfume. Rufus is to be a judge of a very famous modern art prize next year. The winner is usually a video or Grayson Perry. He is going to nominate some quiet water-colourists. Meanwhile he has at least 15 different fumes in stock. Shamefully I can’t recall which he was wearing. It might have been the one he formerly described as ‘clever but odd.’

Someone else, said to be Mexican, was delving into gay and straight sex, compare and contrast. Had met a straight couple; the man in a ‘Scottish skirt’ and nothing else (now hands over ears if you’re dainty) expressed an enthusiasm for dildoes. Maybe more to straights than we had thought.

Anthony Mottram (yes, over from Prague!) and the Blond Multi were absolute head in papers: takeover bids, exit strategy, multiples to be paid or not paid – both businessmen, you see. Mottram Corp soon to be up for sale, the Blond Multi having already sold, hence a Multi, although, in fact, a Multi in all sorts of other ways.

Intriguing tit-bit re: Smallmeal wends its way. Massivebury running costs £10,000 a week, frightful drain on the Smallmeal wage-packet – he’s an employee, if you remember.

It’s no wonder he has to go to Waitrose.

But you’d think his side-line in the Central of Europe where he appears often as avuncular figure in roadside ads for processed cheese would bring in a bit.

For a while I study Lord Arrowby’s enormous cooker. Six rings. Huge oven. It must have come with the apartment for he doesn’t cook. Just pies from Borough Market heated up for the occasional solitary supper with head in papers.

Will I ever preside at that stove, offering something appetising, refreshing and decorative to a lordship shattered by a frantic day running the country?

It’s probably the wrong approach. If Lord A is not interested in food, he is not interested in food.

But on the other hand, he is! I’ve heard him being frightfully discriminating about restaurants.

You just never know, do you? Especially with Poor Little Rich Gays.