The Joyous Agony of Christmas Cards

Saturday 19th December 2009

Lord Arrowby’s party in two hours! I hear he is to be very lithe and fitted. Anthony Mottram, the Multis, Rufus Pitman, Reginald Cresswell, the Ghanaian ceramicist, will be present. Come back tomorrow to hear all about it.

At last, at last, my cards are almost done, the car is back from the car valet, all ready to go forth on Wednesday to the Gay Mother’s. Hair and teeth have been re-thought. There is a gleam of hope. My tasks are almost at an end.

What about cards? Are you still battling with them?  I expect you are. My pearls probably come too late, but no better time to review this year’s performance and aim to improve next.

Poor Little Rich Gays either send no cards at all (very arse and grand) or they hurl out millions. Robert Nevil always used to score eighty, the Limpney/Smallmeals, of course, are unassailable at well over three hundred.

Nevertheless it’s certainly not too late to promote your volume of production, if you are a sender. Lack of truth will only hurt the baby Jesus, who has already suffered so much.

Why send? There must be virtue in a task so grinding. And melancholy too; your Christmas card list is your life, friends and relations past and present. There is nothing more. This year I thought to strike off those never seen but in the end I hadn’t the heart. The annual exchange of stiffened pictures is one small gesture against oblivion, better than nothing.

Also, since quantity is a priority, it makes no sense to reduce your list.

The immediate reward of sending is the massive snowfall on the doormat, a day or two later, of cards from people who’ve shrieked and scrabbled on getting yours: ‘We’d better send one back.’

Messages within give certain openings. ‘Forgotten but not forgiven’ can be useful. I’ve considered it for the Smallmeals but decided to be dignified. ‘Never seen but not forgotten’ might suit in other, happier circs.

The card itself?  Oh, I’ve such a confession! I got 20 for £2.99 in a box: theme, ‘Victorian Christmas’. They smelt, the card had a poverty-stricken yellow tone and there was no printed message: had to self-write. My other cards were safe and tasteful National Gallery.

Not good enough.

The Photographer Multi used to produce his own; they were a grand size with his own graphs – sensational. See example below. Sadly now the demands of 180 tenants mean the Multi can no longer manage…

There’s nothing for it. Shop-bought cards of any kind are completely out. Next year we must all self-make or have them self-made. Unique cards only.

Which means manoeuvres must start in August at the latest.

The Photographer Multi's Card for the Year 2000. It shows a House always lit thus at Christmas near the Multi Penthouse

The Photographer Multi's Card for the Year 2000. It shows a House always lit thus at Christmas near the Multi Penthouse

Get those Muffs - nasty 'Victorian Christmas' card sent by me this year

Get those Muffs - nasty 'Victorian Christmas' card sent by me this year

17 comments so far, add yours ▶

Sensational Stop-Press: Lord Arrowby and the BA Strike

Thursday 17th December 2009

I’ve just heard from Rufus Pitman. Just this afternoon the BA strike has been declared illegal.  Is it a coincidence that Lord Arrowby is to fly (with bronzer) to Rufus’ Swiss home for Christmas – by British Airways? His Lordship has the ear, naturally, of all the top judges. Do you think a little judicious, not to say judical, telephoning went on? With the desired result?

I do hope so.

2 comments so far, add yours ▶

Edging Towards the Ideal Form of the Pre-Christmas Dinner – but I am Horrid to the Photographer Multi

Thursday 17th December 2009

Do you know, my Pre-Christmas Dinner on Tuesday was all right, say it myself as shouldn’t?

Which is extraordinary because I mixed up the cake in the wrong order and had no table mats four hours before the opening shot was fired.

Somehow – this is major news – I’ve ended up renouncing matching sets, but that’ll have to wait.

Will I live long enough to collect oddments?

Lady Newell’s hostess gift was a plastic headscarf for ‘Keeping Bouffants Boucy and Perms Perky’ while the Photographer Multi appeared in a sensational fox fur hat with side-flaps (£598) from Moncler. He has always loved shoes and hats. This one is about the size of that dish thing that used to be at Goon Hilly. Maybe still is.  A statement hat – and I should hope so to at that price. Ed Jasper, the bed linen expert, created another sensation with his dangerous conversation. Do follow his example. He said to Elsa Hodgeman, whom he’d never met before, and who had come directly from the funeral of an ex-boyfriend, ‘Forget about him. Let’s find you a living man or would you prefer a woman?’

I do commend my menu. Now this is quite something because usually I loathe, loathe, loathe my own food.   At this time of year, just remember one thing: your dishes must be light and refreshing. You’re addressing appetites wiped out by mince pies and mulled wine and Terry’s All Gold (or the Poor Little Rich Gay equivalents, whatever they are). Think Invalid, or even Hospital.

My first course was Nigella’s ‘Green Beans in Herbed Yoghurt’ on page 315 of her book Feast. ‘Herbed’ is a horrible expression. She means ‘with herbs’. But this Georgian dish (as in Russia) is always much liked. I’ve done it many times. My main was Pan-fried sea bream with green tahini and pomegranate seeds, page 145 of the Ottolenghi book. Now, this, apart from the ridic ‘pan-fried’ (what else would you fry in?) is really is outstanding and , thrilling unexpected gift, has a Christmas look – red pomegranate seeds standing in for holly berries, green herbs and white fish for snow. My pudding was the Orange Polenta Cake on page 195 of the Ottolenghi book but I left out the orange flower water. If you wanted you could substitute a little Fairy Liquid or Head and Shoulders to get the same effect.

So there you are! And cheap too! Whole thing brought in for under £100, not including wine which was largely provided by the Multis.

Now I want to hear how you are painting with food this Christmas and giving your dishes true Christmas colour. Don’t be shy. Step forward with your recipes.

But sadly last night, at Marcus Cargill’s pre-Christmas nerves got the better of me. I’m just not getting on with my cards. E-mails keep coming from John Lewis saying ‘Not too late for a bit of last minute present buying’ – but I haven’t started yet.  The Photographer Multi does have rather strong opinions. He was talking about the banking crisis: all those banks should have been swilled down the sink, regulator to blame, outrageous waste of taxpaper’s money, no need for a bail out, anyone thinking otherwise off their heads etc. I was overcome. He’s awfully brainy and well-informed but opposition just not allowed. Suddenly I was raving and being rather beastly, words whirling from mouth, flying everywhere.

In the end, the subject had to be changed.

Plastic Post-Hairdressers Scarf Given by Lady Newell

Plastic Post-Hairdressers Scarf Given by Lady Newell

6 comments so far, add yours ▶

The Multis’ Christmas Entertaining – But Even You Could Do It!

Tuesday 15th December 2009

The Multis’ Pub Lunch on Sunday for friends and family – you can’t wait to hear. They reveal a new vista in Christmas gatherings. We all must follow.

But my own dinner is in two and a half hours. Ed Jasper, the bed linen expert, is coming and Lady Newell,  mahogany-voiced mother of Elsa Hodgeman, the Gertrude Stein de nos jours, as well as Elsa herself – and I haven’t swept the front area. What will they think?

But I did get a pomegranate – will it be nice with sea bream and green tahini sauce? Sea bream might be a way forward – one fillet per person, only £20.07 for eight. Not too sure about the Ottolenghi orange cake though. I got into a total muddle with the Magimix. Which one is the cake-making paddle?  Ended up hysterical putting the flour in before the eggs and the caramel top hasn’t worked and the man came round from Standard Life.

Now Elsa’s party is on Friday. Just a few of her intimate friends – names, names. Grayson and Mark and Lord Clue, the Law Lord, Paddy McPherson, the QC… then on Saturday it’s Lord Arrowby’s party.

And I haven’t got near my cards. What am I to do?  At least a hundred to go out.

But Sunday – the Multis took over a pub for a lunch for 40 family and friends of the Photographer Multi, who live in the Midlands, near Lichfield. Listen carefully because next year you must do the same. I drove up with Val, who, as you know, is not unknown to a drop but still can blaze forth with the old glory and did on that day. We fetched Lady Newell from her Elizabethan manor house near Oxford. At Lichfield she complained that the cathedral was dirty and enquired of the guides what they were going to do about it. Nothing apparently. It’s built of sandstone and washing would wash it away.

We gained the pub. Slight Multi-fication had taken place in the form of welcoming glasses of champagne. The mother of the Photographer Multi told me that the Blond Multi had been often on the phone to the pub re: colour of napkins, condiments to be placed on the table etc. Condiments – now there’s a word. Not very sure what it means.

The challenge of Christmas for the Poor Little Rich Gay is that at no other time of year are you so likely to meet normal people.

Can you imagine? And in normal surroundings too.

So the pub lunch preceded. Excellent roasts, bread and butter pudding etc. We were delightfully crammed in, Val marvellous when a waitress dropped a knife down his back. ‘Oh, your knives have got round handles. That’s why they roll off the plates. Mine are the same.’ Now if it had been the Ivy or La Pont de la Tour, where Val and I have often been guests of the Multis…Then we heard the landlord had fallen over and banged his head. A marvellous lady from the village who later turned out to have daughters said she had once been to a restaurant in Birmingham and everything was going beautifully when the chef came out with half his finger chopped off.  She was planning to do some cheesecakes to give round the village for Christmas. Much discussion of who had what plates to put them on – and grease-proof doilies.

These daughters were the only Poor Little Rich Gay element. Their Christmas lists are completely out of control. They can’t rein in their budgets for required presents to anything below £1000. They submit lists to their parents with little pictures of the necessary items downloaded from the Internet – an Apple book (£600), a grey top by Vivienne Westwood (£550).

We did love it. Just couldn’t believe the friendliness and warmth of normal people. Have never seen anything like it.

What’s more, the blond Multi tells me it was all brought in for approx. cost of dinner for 4 at La Pont i.e. one thousand pounds.

So surely well within sight even for non-Multis. Surely! Surely!  We must all get booking for next year.  Every pub in the country on the Sundays before Christmas must feature Poor Little Rich Gays receiving their family and friends in this manner.

Thank you, Multis, for  your boldness and newness.

I took Val back to his flat in Hammersmith and barked my shins on a prie dieux he’s got parked behind his front door.

2 comments so far, add yours ▶

Robert Nevil makes an Appearance at Gay’s the Word Bookshop, London

Monday 14th December 2009

I’m struggling for breath after lunch. It’s Christmas. The Smallmeal/Limpney cards have already gone out, I hear – computer-generated address labels. Terribly efficient. Val has had one. So has Robert Nevil. None for me, course. Delete button pressed. They usually send 400. Does quantity of cards compensate for quality of actual cards? That is the burning question. And what should the card be? I’m just going out to buy some. No idea what to do.

Cards, presents, menus, frockage. At last my menu has come for my dinner tomorrow. Ottolenghi again!  I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s new, you see. I just hope pomegranates are still in.

Part of the trouble is that Poor Little Rich Gays keep staging non-Christmas events – although the Multis yesterday took over a pub and gave a phenomenal pre-Christmas gathering for friends and family of the Photographer Multi. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

But back to Friday – Robert Nevil at Gay’s the Word bookshop. Do you know it? It’s in the intellectual quarter of London. Anything less Poor Little Rich Gay would be hard to imagine. No frocks, all evidence of money ruthlessly stamped out. Shop has been going for years. Sells books called ‘Is the Rectum a Grave?’ and earnest studies of gay muscle culture with pie charts. But was terribly important, part of movement that that freed all gays, we should be eternally grateful etc.

But aren’t.

Joshua Baring, very young friend of Robert Nevil’s, even younger than Arjan Bose, also present, both the only beacons of hope. Joshua said, ‘There’s no-one attractive here…. oh dear, how loud was that.’

But people never think it’s them, do they?

It’s terrible though. But I must show it to you as it is. Joshua was wearing a unique red coat, (fitted bodice and sweeping skirts) only available from a special selection at Topman during London Fashion Week. Arjan was in a tiny jacketlette, also from Topman, in Blackwatch tartan.

The other thing is Joshua told me the sales have already started. I nearly bolted out of the door. But there wouldn’t have been much point, since it was eight in the evening.

You may remember Robert Nevil is connected with the world of books. His new published History of the Pony Club is flying out of the shops. At Gay’s the Word, various personages were talking about their favourite gay books. Robert Nevil was one of them. A publication has been prepared – it’s out now, you must buy it. We don’t need to know much about Robert Nevil’s choice except that it’s completely and utterly out of print. There are hardly any copies left in the world. Should you find one it will cost £175.

Perfect, but also Poor Little Rich Gays love the obscure, forgotten and minor.

2 comments so far, add yours ▶

Anthony Mottram’s Unwanted Small Change: Are there Christmas Opportunties?

Saturday 12th December 2009

Only one week to go to Lord Arrowby’s party – but has he found staff?  My own tiny pre-Christmas dinner is on Tuesday.

And I haven’t menu-ed.

In the meantime, while buffing and honing my home to Christmas perfection, I came across a carrier bag full of Anthony Mottram’s unwanted small change. See graph below. You remember him. My oldest friend, known since 1970, head of Mottram Corp, a ‘consultancy’ business in the Central of Europe, lives in a museum-sized apartment in Prague with Vladimir Alexov, from the Ukraine, who, incidentally celebrates his 24th birthday today.

Happy Birthday, Vladimir Alexov.

But what is Mottram’s unwanted change doing in my house?

It’s very strange because Prince Dmitri Hersov (who boards, as it happens, for the Central of Europe tomorrow to carry out hush-hush forensic money work) pointed out an article in the newspaper about how Royalty never carry cash or even credit cards and have to get their policemen to buy air tickets for them.

So they miss all the sweep and highness of Chip and Pin, especially when you’re spending £60,000, as the Multis did this month on their Grayson Perry vase. I forgot to tell you about the Grayson Perry vase. It arrived on Monday. The Photographer Multi dragged it over himself by taxi from Trenton’s gallery. We can’t show a graph of it, of course, for security reasons.

Mottram and I raved all over Brighton the other day after Marcus Cargill’s party, drawing attention to ourselves. It was quite a scene. ‘We’re near married,’ I shrieked. ‘No, we’re not. Grow up,’ Mottram boomed. Anyway, we’re not near married now. Vladimir Alexov is Anthony Mottram’s companion. They understand each other perfectly. Let’s wish them a very happy future together.

For Mottram and I, the future will be very different.  So it is that Poor Little Rich Gay life crumbles away, reforming as something else constantly.

But I wander. The main thing: Anthony Mottram will not be involved with small change. All over his homes and here where he stays with me in London are bowls and drawers that would break if you lifted them under the weight of Mottram’s disgorged and discarded coinage.

A month or two ago, we gathered together all the heaps and hordes he has made here over the past few months and put them in this carrier bag.

And forgot about it. But what next?  Pricey to post, it’s true, but why not despatch to the Smallmeal/Limpneys as part repayment for all the Tuscan villas, Glyndebourne tickets and dinners at the Ivy they so kindly bestowed before terminating our friendship?

Do you also have excess small change you could use in a similar manner this Christmas?

Anthony Mottram's Unwanted Change

Anthony Mottram's Unwanted Change

Leave the first comment ▶

Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowksi Open the Christmas Season: a Fascinating Straight Interior is Shown

Thursday 10th December 2009

Christmas! What a subject! Daunting , yet thrilling. So much to get right!

Do keep looking to see how I card, present, menu, frock, hair and teeth, as well as go to and create functions. Not to mention the sales, which we must mentally prepare for at the same time.

Break-down is a risk.

Who better to launch Christmas than Peter and Ned. They are new and international. Their early blast-off, last Saturday, was because, of course, they jet out on the 16th. Peter is actually an employee, of some huge glossy company in London’s West End, but he works on the same floor as the CEO and often encounters him in the lav (no, not like that). Ned is also an employee, but travels extensively on business in business class and has air miles.

So that’s all right.

The night before Peter brought HR’s Head and various other Heads from his office back for what he called a career-boosting dinner. They encountered Ned still in his underpants (it’s a warehouse apartment, you see, the single vast space lightly divided) but this was a better start than might appear. In fact the grandeur of the start could not have been surpassed; you can be absolutely sure these people had never before seen such glamour, such table settings, such a warehouse apartment, such cupboard finishes, such flooring.

Peter needn’t have worried. Poor Little Rich Gays are always one up on any boss figure by definition – in the home setting.

So the next day  – last Saturday  – was their Christmas Party. Parties are what warehouse apartments are for, especially one as superbly sleek and honed and utterly finished as this. Actual living is a side-line going on in cupboards and drawers that slide away. There’s space, space, space and no stairs.

It couldn’t have been more comfortable and airy and lavish. I sat on a sofa (I won’t stand now I’m 50) with an older gentleman who has never been an employee; we discussed the ins and outs of lining your walls with fabric, sidetracking into novelty condoms. Neighbours, fellow warehouse-dwellers, abounded. There was a whippy, athletic young man who cycles 15 miles to Richmond to do the Pentathlon, big in the computer game world (probably not Poor Little Rich Gay, lucky for him), another whippy young woman in a fitted jersey frock with a bald boyfriend, both in advertising, a delicious German straight man with male friend (not girlfriend’s weekend for coming over), the gay couple from the penthouse, one a chef and former restaurant owner with a string of nursing homes, and the other an artist and designer. Non-residents guests included Peter’s ex-trainer, chronically straight, but accompanied by a gay hair-dresser from Wanstead who is living with him.  This hair artist has an absolutely top-drawer designer apartment  in Hackney, but on purchase it emerged there is nowhere to park his Porsche. So out of grandeur and spite he refused to move in.

Suddenly the big thing at this party was forging into other people’s apartments for viewings. With Peter, I went round the whippy advertising woman’s place and then we all marauded into the home of the gorgeous German man. I thought I’d share it with you, through graphs. I know it’s not a Christmas theme but fascinating to see how straights in their late twenties at a certain level of income are living – with some PLRG touches, do admit, but others veering miles away.

Back in my own res, I was filled with bitter shame at the flexes all over the floor. These warehouse apartments are so finished.

The Straight Apartment with Warrior Movie Showing

The Straight Apartment with Warrior Movie Showing

What is this Contraption? The Metal Finish must be Expensive

What is this Contraption? The Metal Finish must be Expensive

A High-end German Ham Holder

A High-end German Ham Holder

The Coffee Corner

The Coffee Corner

Products, Products

Products, Products

Leave the first comment ▶

Rufus Pitman and Lord Arrowby at Borough Market – Perfume Thoughts and Bronzers

Sunday 6th December 2009

I was going to tell you – Rufus Pitman came directly from the studio yesterday morning where he had been broadcasting at the highest level on the subject of frockage worn by writers while writing.

Do you know Borough Market, beside London’s Thames? It is a weird kind of straight queenaria, fearfully serious and grim, for those anxious to pay £48.82 for a few grams of jambon iberica. It’s a food market, you see. But from our Spanish breakfast cafe, Rufus and I saw Nigel Slater. Nigel Slater! Angus Willis has met Nigel Slater, of course. Likes.

I don’t know. Does the Poor Little Rich Gay fit in at Borough Market?

We had little op to find out. Rufus has seen the future of perfume and it’s superb. In Paris only Cologne Blanche by Dior is to be had. This, Rufus explained, is the accord from which all subsequent scents will emerge.

At last a fume accord has been reached and we can die certain that our grandchildren (what?) will know no fragrance desert.

‘I’m wearing it.’ Rufus gestured towards his neck. Oh it was marvellous – so quiet, light and complex.

Last New Year, at a party given by Reginald Cresswell, the well-known Ghanaian ceramicist, Rufus wore Mitsuoko, to great effect.

I do hope we will hear more from him on this difficult subject of fume.

And now, Lord Arrowby! I must be careful to keep my head. He has been refined in the furnace of work (oh, a new commission, very hush-hush, perhaps to do with identity cards, hence not seen for weeks) to even greater heights of allure.

People are beautified by work, have you noticed?  This is why waiters are so gorgeous.

And yes, he was wearing bronzer, as well as a very hunky padded jacket. He’s also got a dashing new front lick of hair.

He bought a pie for £5.50, specially discounted for him from £6.50 . He has a weekly pie for his solitary suppers with head in papers, although there are many state banquets as well as private engagements, of course, for Lord A is a huge asset at any function, as you can imagine.

By the way, the bronzer was from Boots. So well-bought, for he had a film star hue. I’m beginning to wonder if my Institute Esthederm at £28 a bottle is worth it.

Rufus and Lord A engaged in light queenaria at a French cheese stall. But really we took little advantage of openings offered by Borough Market. So much else to think of. No grandeur over  muesli with single-estate dried pineapple.

2 comments so far, add yours ▶

I Meet with Lord Arrowby and Rufus Pitman at Borough Market, but First of All, Delia

Saturday 5th December 2009

So much excitement and I’ve got the tulips in (well, some of them). But I promised you Delia.

Her book signing was on Thursday at John Lewis, Oxford Street. I didn’t see any of you there, despite my hortations.

She was stationed at a bleak little table bang in front of the entrance to the food hall, which is really Waitrose. Honey-coloured, frockage battered and scuffed, odd grey sack, not bearing out my theory that the super-rich are a different species, their hue magical and elusive of description. ‘Not too close,’ she squealed at the bank of photographers, ‘I’m getting on a bit.’ Voice not of the best.

And the queue….well….Tim Hely Hutchinson, Britain’s leading publisher (friend of the Multis, quite out of my league: more of a Rich Little Rich Gay by all accounts), apparently decreed, since too many authors were getting self-up, that to be a celebrity you had to attract a crowd of 2000 min to a book signing and that the Police had to be present – on horseback.

Delia achieved a goodly queue through China and Glass of a few hundred.

As a Poor Little Rich Gay, lurking behind a frightful accordion-pleated glass vase, while Delia signed (don’t ask about the book: it’s called Delia’s Happy Christmas. None of us will be reading it), my situation was perilous. I could hardly be an ordinary member of the public. If I were ever in a news story and described as an ordinary member of the public, do you think I could sue?  Or ‘a motorist’ or ‘a passer-by’? On the other hand, Poor Little Rich Gays must be at the centre of things, so it’s hopeless trying to ignore celebrities or even names. We must have names to drop. Should we cultivate them and display them at our dinners?  I mean the actual people, not just the names. In which case, we might look like toadies.

What to do? What to do? There is something very fine and intricate to be said about the positioning of the Poor Little Rich Gay in relation to celebrity. But I am not yet able to say it.

Of course, there is no question of becoming a celebrity oneself – of any kind.  The True Poor Little Rich Gay is fractured, incomplete, every minute collapsing and re-forming as something else.

So I must skip away into light bitchery – why did Angus Willis fall out with Delia?  If I tell, will Delia sue?  Will you sue, Delia? Did you really say Angus could edit your copy? Did you give him recipes without lists of ingredients? And wasn’t it just a proof? Couldn’t it all have been changed if you didn’t like it? Apparently you sent an e-mail quite late at night. Angus thinks you might have regretted it the next day but by then it was too late.

Angus was having none of it.

Oh no!  I’ve left no time for Lord Arrowby and Rufus Pitman. Lord A was divine. And affectionate. I was speechless. Rufus said, ‘Now, George (for that is Lord Arrowby’s name, you know), it’s just like Mansfield Park. The person for you is here all the time.’

Wasn’t that nice of him? More tomorrow. Rufus had some outstanding perfume thoughts. Also, the Multis had a Chinese lunch – with sherry.

Delia with her book. Note the Mart Trolleys behind

Delia with her book. Note the Mart Trolleys behind

4 comments so far, add yours ▶

The Highest Queenaria Yet Known – Angus Willis’s Epic Three-Year Renovations in Hastings

Thursday 3rd December 2009

I have to tell you – I’m just back from Delia’s book-signing at John Lewis. It all fits in. Absolute arch enemy of Angus Willis, my visit to whose demesne in Hastings I was telling you about on Tuesday. Delia will have to wait….although I’m bursting to reveal all.

So, back to Hastings, last Saturday.  As you know, Poor Little Rich Gay life is nothing without builders. They must always be in, preferably under the command of Bruce MacBain. This summer, Edward Jasper, the bed-linen specialist, had an entire floor of his London home re-modelled just for the three-week visit of his mother.

All the same, nobody, but nobody has reached the heights of the non-Bruce-MacBain-employing, self-designing food stylist, photographer and writer, Angus Willis. After the charity shops and the junk shop last Saturday, I visited his Tudor house in Hastings for what must be the sixth or seventh time. Opera have been in progress for at least three years. Never before have 1200 square metres been so exhaustively and minutely remodelled. On purchase there was an Aga, a reasonable builders’ merchant kind of bathroom, carpets, expensive kitchen cupboards – perfectly habitable, 3-bedroom house.

Actually it was horrid. Nasty, somehow squalid, with all kinds of idiotic, despoiling modern alterations and additions carried out in what was intended to be the Tudor spirit – such as the kitchen cupboards, now I think of it.

So it was out, out, out, back to Tudor, no mod cons allowed unless as they would have been when first installed or beyond. So, bakerlite light switches, reclaimed bogs and basins, baths made out of sawn-up barrels, ancient cast-iron radiators. There is one modern lav, masquerading as the kind of rough-hewn bench (see graph) that might have last been seen in the communal craporium of a medieval monastery.

And so throughout, no new materials permitted, only reclaimed wood, second-hand bricks, lime plaster etc.

Now at last the house is nearing completion – maybe another year and Angus and Fergus’s friends the Sir Wilfred Selves will be able to come and stay. Sir Wilfred has already spent an improvised night on a lylo that got punctured. But you can see what it will be and that’s quite something. I know I’ve condemned nooky, wooky, beamy cotty cotts as the last word in non PLRG. Here is the exception. It is a rebirth. That which was contaminated and bastardised has been refound. The house is now ancient again and therefore new. This is the fight against death.

The only mild drawback is that the insane ward of Hastings hosp is now lined with all the plumbers, leccies, brickies, plasterers etc who have worked on the house.

But that is a small price to pay.

And, Angus, you’ll be thrilled to hear, has started the whole process all over again in a shop on the High Street, which I also inspected on Saturday.

So there’ll be no end to it.

Tudor Dining in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Tudor Dining in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

The Sir Wilfred Self Bath in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

The Sir Wilfred Self Bath in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

The Very Spot where Sir Wilfred Self lay in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

The Very Spot where Sir Wilfred Self lay in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Medieval-style Craporium in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Medieval-style Craporium in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Bakerlite Switches in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Bakerlite Switches in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

£4000 door in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

£4000 door in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Tudor Lav Cistern in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Tudor Lav Cistern in Angus Willis's Tudor House in Hastings

Tudor Sink by Angus Willis for his Tudor House in Hastings

Tudor Sink by Angus Willis for his Tudor House in Hastings

16 comments so far, add yours ▶