Thursday 22^nd October 2009 (afternoon)

 I’m bursting to tell you about this hotel. It’s called the Villa Real. It means Royal Villa. I like the way the Spanish word for Royal is Real. The Madrid Ritz can be seen from its windows. There’s acres to cover. As well as the antics of the 85-year-old Gay Mother abroad…

 But yesterday I finally managed to read the piece in the Mail by Jan Moir about Stephen Gately’s death, which has caused such outrage. I had thought perhaps reports of its horror had been exaggerated. But no, it is beyond belief, unsurpassed in ignorance, innuendo, smugness and nastiness. There is barely a veneer of politeness, let alone respect for a man dead and not even buried, whose death, at the time the piece was written, was unexplained. This woman might as well as have crawled into a public lavatory and scrawled on the wall: ‘Gays is a load of slags. Kill them.’

 Her emission is smeared with moralistic jargon: ‘dark appetites’, ‘private vices.’ Gately’s Civil Partner, at the time of his death, was in another room with a mysterious Bulgarian young man (but not one of Anthony Mottram’s kitchens – see glossary). Moir therefore thinks it reasonable to sneer at the ‘happy-ever-after myth of Civil Partnerships.’ Later she clearly implies that heterosexual marriage is a model of propriety and fidelity that gays cannot live up to.

 Of course, since this drivel was vented (I refuse to call it writing), it has been established that Stephen Gately died of natural causes.

 Should we take any notice? Moir’s effort has been widely condemned. Furious comments have been pouring in. It’s the Daily Mail. What do you expect?

 I rather think we should. Anthony Mottram and I were talking about this at the weekend. We didn’t agree.  No-one would dispute that there is vastly more tolerance and equality than there was twenty years ago when Moir-type tabloid smears, according to Alan Bennett, accelerated and even caused Russell Harty’s death. All the same, gays are said to be ‘accepted’ and ‘tolerated.’ Nobody talks about ‘accepting’ or ‘tolerating’ straights. How deep and how far does this tolerance go? I’ve always thought the premise of Alan Hollinghurst’s brilliant novel, The Line of Beauty, even though set in the 80s, telling: in the end the gays will be blamed, heterosexuals will retreat into hypocrisy, only too glad to direct attention away from their own shortcomings. Beyond the middle-class, metropolitan world of the Poor Little Rich Gays, hate-crime against gays is substantially up. Only last month, Ian Baynham was murdered in Trafalgar Square, not exactly a dimly-lit back-alley, the victim of homophobia.

 Difference is ultimately a threat. There is more than a grain of truth in what Jan Moir says. Gay men are more likely to have ‘threesomes’ with their long-term partner and a new gorgeousness; more likely to be involved with several people in different ways at once; more likely to indulge in slagarama of various kinds in the afternoon, more likely to get hurt, more likely to be subject to violent fits of jealousy having declared themselves above jealousy, more likely to go in for a bit of revenge fucking.

 So what! Gay men of my age have been wrestling with these challenges for years. Long-term gay relationships don’t seem to work, at least as far as sex is concerned. I can only speak of what I have observed over time. But instead, there develops an amiable baggy companionship; sex and romance are sought elsewhere. Anthony Mottram and I are an example, sort of, because sex, as far as I can recall, has never been a feature. But we have the intimacy of equals; he has his kitchens (see glossary), at present Vladimir from the Ukraine. The current question is: Will our relationship continue if he forms a Civil Partnership with a kitchen?

 I don’t mind the kitchens, but I’m not having them married.

 Is it fair on the kitchen?

 But why is all this sleazy? Why is it ‘vice’? Explain, Jan Moir? Maybe it is dysfunctional but can hets really claim to be any better? Monogamy may suit some but not, evidence would suggest, very many. So why not celebrate the gay way of relationships? It’s new, it’s honest, it’s real. Let’s hope straights can learn from it.

Thursday 22nd October 2009

I haven’t been keeping up with my blog and there’s so much to tell. On Sunday Anthony Mottram and I had a perfect day.  It was a perfect day. It’s a song by Lou Reed. We went to Frieze Art Fair in Regent’s Park– for me, for the second time. According to Anthony, I was lightly cruised by Mario Testino. But it could just have been my prep school blazer from Topshop he was looking at.

Anthony dismissed the Kusama which I love. He does that. There’s no compromise. But he threw a patient, penetrating light on Grayson Perry’s Walthamstow Tapestry, a small version of which was on show at Frieze, and I began to see more, even to love it. Later at the Royal Opera House, we wondered if there would ever be a flying opera house. Assuming prompt take-off during the overture or prelude, by the end of a Wagner you might have gained Tel Aviv (that’s including intervals). With conventional, shorter operas you would not get so far. We saw Tristan. It’s by Wagner. It was utterly thrilling; I’ve never enjoyed a Wagner more. Anthony felt the same. All the way home it was talk, talk, talk.

That was it; that was our perfect day. It doesn’t sound much, I know. To some extent it cost money.

What is it, this great intimacy? Phrases do not seem to suffice: having interests in common, sharing a sense of humour, being equals. Besides, he persecutes me with chocs, we madden and infuriate each other. So when suddenly there is harmony… Perhaps it is the same for everyone: there is only one other person, at the most two, of whom we are not afraid.

Well, the sad death of Stephen Gately, and the subsequent unhinged witterings of somebody called Jan Moir in the Daily Mail (have you heard about it?) bring to the fore the whole question of gay relationships. I want to look at this, as well as the MPs expenses, as I mentioned before.

But on to higher things. I know you’ll be gasping to hear about my hotel in Madrid. Hotels, as I’ve said already, are at the heart of Poor Little Rich Gay life.

It’s very brown. I don’t think the Multis would stand for it. There’s fake rag-rolling on the walls (it’s actually wallpaper) in exactly the same shade of dirty yellow as the dining room at Massivebury, the country home of the loathed Robin Smallmeal and Simon Limpney.

But it is 5 star. Here are some pictures to keep you occupied until next time.

Wooden Hotel Room in Madrid

My Very Brown Hotel Room in Madrid

Saturday 17th October 2009

Saturday!  My favourite day of the week. A Saturday in January or July when the sales are on – paradise!

Today my quests: those brown waxed jeans –  every branch of Zara to be covered, plus pants (TK Maxx), plus a new loo brush for the upstairs bathroom, plus at Frieze Art Fair I dropped my glasses, so I must get some more (£250 min., I suppose). Speaking of eyewear, I forgot to mention – at Frieze, the original David Hockney black-rimmed glasses much seen in the crowd, the frames even thicker though. Suit very few, but violently fashionable. Also very difficult vertical shoes with many straps for ladies. I’m hoping the photographer Multi will send a picture (they’ve arrived! See below).

Tomorrow Mottram and I go to Frieze; artists from the Central of Europe whom he buys are showing. Then we’re in the stalls at Covent Garden. It’s Tristan.  So it’s outfits, outfits and, of course, I’m aching to blog. I’ve got a lot lined up for you. The MPs’ expenses affair – I’m compelled to comment – and the Bulgarian Orphans are back in the news. There was a TV programme on Thursday. You may remember that Mottram is deeply involved. On Monday the Gay Mother arrives and on Tuesday we go to Madrid. What will we do there?  What will the hotel be like?

Hotels are crucial, as you may have gathered.

Mottram, you’re wondering, what’s he doing in London?  He was coming anyway for the opera but also now for the aunt’s funeral. He arrived on Wednesday, in the midst of all this great flowering of art, bearing a vast box of Mozart Balls, as a hostess gift. They’re chocolates. A speciality of the Central of Europe.

I’ve told him and told him.

No more Mozart Balls. Never give chocolate to a Poor Little Rich Gay. He knows I’m trying to lose weight. It’s all quite deliberate. He pays a private doctor in Prague to tell him he’s not overweight. He wants me the same (overweight, I mean). I’m about five pounds over. Bulging stomach despite Pilates and sit-ups. It’s all the eating. And I want to wear those little Prada black plastic slacklettes again. What’s more the Balls are absolutely horrid. These ones, it turns out, have that white bloom from being in the sun but it makes little difference, so beastly are they in the first place.

Of course, I can’t keep away from them. On Thursday I had three. After lunch, my heart lifts at the thought of a Mozart Ball with coffee – and then another. I tried to ram some down the cleaner. I might just leave them in the street.  With age the will weakens and weakens. Never let go I always used to say but now…

It’s a shame.  ‘I find you too negative,’ Limpney declared in dismissing me from his presence.  But Mottram is an outstanding personality. I long to show you.

Maybe I do already

Mottram with Mozart Balls

Difficult Shoes at Trenton's Gallery: Photo by Multi

More Difficult Shoes at Trenton's Gallery: photo by Multi

Saturday 17th October 2009

This is it!  My new Prep School Blazer from Topshop, as promised

My New Prep School Blazer from Topshop

Friday 16th October 2009 (later)

Just back from a Church Table Quiz. Indeed, it is not a narrow furrow that I plough. On the way, saw,  in obscure back street, youth mincing along  in –  MY PREP SCHOOL JACKET FROM TOPSHOP! Drawback I hadn’t thought of – Topshop, a bit ubiq.

The Table Quiz (don’t worry I have not let Jesus into my life; not at all) – much agony over  how many roads lead off Piccadilly, which wife of Henry VIII married Thomas Seymour etc. People not met before fully revealed as often the case with games. Nasty het brute wouldn’t let me be scribe, snatched the paper from me, two ladies, one wearing all her jewellery including bow tie made of pearls, quite insistent Neil Kinnock had been Prime Minister.

Ryvita, orange nibbles, quiche, cardboard plates,  my old friend, Miss Cheshire, the quiz mistress. Loved it.

Came 4th out of 7. Quite concerned about the result. Robert Nevil and Sebastian Archer, supposed to be so brainy, went to a quiz in an organic pub recently and came bottom. Sport and crap TV their downfall.

Nibbles at Church Table Quiz

International Furred Greatnesses about to Enter Frieze Art Fair, London

Friday 16th October 2009

I’m just back from Brent Cross.  It’s a shopping mall, on London’s outskirts, only about ten miles from my home,  thought by some to be the worst place on earth. But there’s a Zara there and I’m looking for those brown waxed jeans. You remember? STILL NO SIZE 34. Tomorrow I must cover all the west London branches.

Barely home, and Lord Arrowby texts from the Frieze Art Fair in Regents Park: Grayson Perry spotted – if you can say ‘spotted’ of a man in blonde wig dressed in self-made ‘art’ costume as girl kiddie/doll out of an old-fashioned picture book.

So that’s Grayson Perry for the third time this week.  On Tuesday, as you know, the photographer Multi and I were at Trenton’s gallery (he’s the one with the rock-hard, gorgeous bust) for the Walthamstow Tapestry. This is an artwork actually made by Grayson Perry. He doesn’t just dress up, you see (I’m thinking if you’re in foreign or US, you might never have heard of GP.  Here, he’s huge. I can’t explain the cross-dressing. He has a wife. It’s part of the art but he’s an authentic cross-dresser. He’s exposing himself).  At Trenton’s he was in a felt frock; I’ve a vague idea garments of this kind are worn in the Gobi Desert. Then on Wednesday the photographer Multi and I go to the Frieze Art Fair (very grand, contemp. art, galleries from Seoul, New York, Berlin, Madrid, Milan etc showing: basic price £10,000) and there he is again – Bo-peep straw bonnet and silk knickbockers with white knees – I mean his actual skin.

How does that man get anything done!

I couldn’t quite grasp the Walthamstow Tapestry. It’s very long and narrow,  like the Bayeux, pictorial, lovely colours, all about brands and journey of life through them. Not quite sure why Nokia represented with little picture of gypsy caravan. Perhaps not supposed to ask. The main thing at this function was a young German man in a very interesting cardy. The photographer Multi very bold in approaching, with camera ready. Turned out to be from Top Shop. Never been there but next day rushed in at Oxford Circus (that’s in London’s heart).  Utterly thrilling. Acres of little tiny dolly clothes, just like I’ve been wearing. They’re calling it the ‘skinny’ line. You must have it. They’re copying me. I bought a Prep School blazer for £80.It is blue with white edging. I will photograph it tomorrow for you. So come back. I didn’t buy the cardy though. Not cheap enough.

I could be arrested in the prep school blazer.

But I digress. Art, art, art. The Multis and the whole of London, especially the top gays,  have built their week around it. It’s this Frieze Art Fair; even you could go. It’s on until Sunday. Grandeur from all over the world is piling in to view and buy. All exhibitions in London galleries generally are swamped with international greatnesses trimmed with fur who come nibbling round before wrenching open their jaws and snapping up.

The Multis took  command, took the week by the scruff of the neck, launched it, even for those not there, with a lunch at La Pont de la Tour on Sunday for some of the most important artists of the day – Chantal Joffe, Anna Barribel, Dan Coombs, Goshka Macuga, Danny Rolph, Mark Wallinger – to meet gallery owners from Palm Springs and Los Angeles. Elsa Hodgeman, the Gertrude Stein of our times, was present.

We’ve not stopped whirring ever since. From Trenton’s on Tuesday we went straight to Bloomberg’s for Stuart Cumberland’s second Private View (too complicated to explain). He is an artist. Superb canapes. No need to have dinner afterwards. Then on Wednesday to Frieze  – private view day, only very rich and those who had got hold of  tickets on non-paying basis admitted. At Frieze, I liked best a picture by Kusama which Trenton (now on his stand at the fair) said was $200,000.   Lord Arrowby, who has just phoned from the fair, as well as texting, says he’ll buy it for me.

We shall see. It would be rather encouraging if he did, wouldn’t it?

But Kusama really is something.

So art – you must have it. Especially if you are straight and want to be a Poor Little Rich Gay, you haven’t a hope unless you’ve got a collection. Get the children out of those expensive, dreary schools and buy, buy, buy.  Even if you only manage to set aside £15000 a year, it’ll be a start. The Multis spend about that a month.  Lord Arrowby, Robert Nevil and Sebastian Archer, Rufus Pitman, Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock restorer, Anthony Mottram,  Bruce McBain (although recently he has gone in for glass jars) all snap up regularly. Smallmeal’s Bentley has occasionally been seen outside galleries for a short time (he has a busy schedule), with the result that he has one good picture. Only Fergus Strachan and Angus Willis  – now where is their art collection exactly?

I was just a little nervous that Limpney might suddenly materialise at Frieze. It must have been the association with art. There was  an unfortunate episode in a gallery back in March which I’ll tell you about one day.

Oh lord!  I haven’t left enough time for Anthony Mottram and the Mozart Balls.  It will have to wait until tomorrow.

Grayson Perry before his Walthamstow Tapestry: photo by Multi

Penises and Painting by Yayoi Kusama - Painting liked by me: $200,000: photo by Multi

Outstanding Cardy from Topshop seen at Trenton's Gallery: photo by Multi

The Multis' lunch at La Pont for the Greatest Living Artists - apres: photo by Multi

It’s been a difficult morning. I’m in a tangle.  No clean pants. This is the root of it. With all these entertainments recently I’ve got behind with the washing. And now I’m dashing for Grayson Perry’s talk about his Walthamstow Tapestry (Robert Nevil and Sebastian Archer, former residents of Walthumbria – will they be in it?)  at 3pm and can’t remember if I wore my suede jacket the last time at that gallery and Trenton, the gorgeous, massively pec-ed, four trainers-a -week mega A gay, might be there so I’d better watch out.

What else have I got to wear?

Until about 30 mins ago I was unable to eleve (is that the French for ‘get dressed’?  I don’t think so). Finally I forced a pair of pants dry with the iron. As you know I had a rotten time at the summer sales. Very few pants slashed in price and of those that were I bought the wrong size. That’s why I ran out. I’ve  hatched a plan to go to TK Maxx (have you heard of it? Will they have Calvin Klein red waistband or pink? For nothing?).

When you have no money, there’s always always a way of getting hold of required goods.  Only problem – no idea where TK Maxx is.

But last night low temps were announced and I had to drag my colocasias in from the upstairs terrace. Only place to put them my upstairs bathroom. Too much effort to drag them four flights downstairs where they can be stored properly. Result virtually impossible to get in (see below). They’re huge plants, you see, known as elephants’ ears, and terribly tender. Slightest little chill, they die.

So maybe it was – bathroom full of leaves – couldn’t gain access for shower – no pants – morning unravels.

Plus, tomorrow Anthony Mottram comes on a visit. First time in three months apart from last week’s  lightening appearance. Isn’t it extraordinary, by the way, him eating my Kiehl’s Rare Earth Facial Masque? There must be something wrong with him.

Now he only comments on the home if there’s something not right. So, having dragged the colocasias out of my bathroom and heaved them down four floors to the ‘lower ground floor’ (plastic sheeting fetched out of the cellar to put them on etc. All in my dressing gown) and finally got into the shower,what do I see? Yes, that’s right. STAINED GROUTING. Mottram will have a fit.  I should have followed Bruce McBain’s advice and had grey grouting which always looks all right – so he said. But I don’t like grey grouting.

So it’s down to the other bathroom to fetch the mould removing spray and the special toothbrush.  To clean my shower you have to be in it, so there I am, with nothing on, wielding the spray which is nasty stuff, mainly bleach. Hate, hate anything to do with grout. There’s always a bit missed. And I’m sensitive about bathrooms. In my old place (don’t tell anyone) I had an avocado bathroom. An AVOCADO bathroom, never refurb. One day, Frankie-Doreen Gunn, the dynamo, said: ‘You know your bathroom stinks. We think it’s because of all that washing you keep in there.’ Evidently she and Giles Ulverston, her husband, talked of little else when alone. These days, Robert Nevil never misses a chance to point out the promixity of my downstairs bathroom to my dining room because I once said that you can hear a lav flushing in his drawing room (yes, drawing room, not sitting room. Pretentious. Don’t care. I started saying it and the wind changed. Too bad). Last night I sent him a photo of the colocasias in the upstairs bathroom. He replied, ‘I see you’ve removed the dining chairs,’  cruelly and deliberately confusing my bathrooms.

At least I’ve got two bathrooms, Robert Nevil.

Robert Nevil and Sebastian Archer have always had the classic top gay attitude to decor and the home – i.e. we know best.

But my downstairs bathroom in this house I do hate. I fear it smells of damp and there’s always stained grouting. If they get that mine going the first thing I’ll do is take a sledge hammer to it.

The gay bathroom should be indistinguishable from a hotel bathroom. Mottram’s guest bathroom in Prague is known as ‘the hotel bathroom’.  As with hotels, the gay bathroom should be re-built annually.

But, I was saying – I’m spraying the mould with the mould spray in my shower.  It gets on my feet. What will Grayson Perry think if I smell of bleach? Somehow I’ve taken the old towels downstairs and not brought up new. So I wash my feet and dry with kitchen paper (yes, kept in the bathroom for cleaning). Back downstairs to get towels with idea of washing feet more thoroughly. Then decide not to use towels in case they get immediately dirty from the feet. So repeat previous washing procedure. Piece of kitc paper lands in the loo.

Despite all this I’ve not cleaned my teeth and it’s Grayson Perry in twenty minutes.

Good-bye!

Colocasias Choke my Bathroom

Sunday 11th October 2009

Last Thursday Mottram telephones: ‘I’m at King’s Cross. Why aren’t you here to meet me?’ This is typical. No warning. No previous call to alert. As you know, he is normally to be found in Prague.

Not a few days before, I suddenly had a window for a Kiehl’s Rare Earth Facial Cleansing Masque. This is one of my favourite products but I just never have the time to apply it.   I go up to my bathroom.  I open the pot. What do I find?  Scraped clean! Barely a smear left!  Mottram’s had the lot – on a previous visit, I assume.

And this is one who claims to loathe and despise products and all who believe in them.

It’s a love/hate relationship, of course. But all the best relationships are. If you’re not driven mad by your loved ones, you’re not telling the truth.  You may remember, Mottram is a great supporter of the young, to the extent of having them living with him. At present he is involved with Vladimir from the Ukraine. I can see the romance of it. The young are all potential. It is easy to forgive them. They may turn out better. As Wilde said (or rather it is Lord Illingworth in The Woman of No Importance) ‘Youth is the Lord of Life.’  But the young are too tragic, too much at the centre of their own lives; they have not mellowed. I would give anything not to be young again. Lord Illingworth’s remark is in fact incomplete. What he goes on to say is: ‘Every one is born a king, and most people die in exile, like most kings.’  Which is exactly what the young do not understand.

Beloved Mottram popped round from King’s Cross (it’s an adored London railway terminus if you’re in foreign or the US) on the way back to Prague to use my lav. I am failing to convey my pleasure and joy at the visit.  He lay on the floor in order to more effectively execute his imitation of  his Aunt Gerry dead – her demise, if you remember, the reason for his being in England.

Now, readers, do not be shocked. Do not for one minute think that Mottram is callous or unfeeling.  We Gays in our fifties, we have known Death. It stalked us too early, when we were in our twenties, in the form of AIDS. Those early HIV tests, you know, when there was no cure, were quite an ordeal. Besides, people render themselves ridiculous by dying. If they were alive we would not hesitate to say so. So why let death stand in the way? There’s a brutality too in the triumph of the survivors.

Mottram only tells the truth. This is his great glory.

Mottram's Outrage

Saturday 10th October 2009

Only just back from the frock shops at 6.45 and must dash straight out again. Mottram outrage will have to wait for tomorrow.

Forty minute battle at H Nicks to get money back on belt that broke. They said, ‘You’ve worn it!’ ‘Well, yes, it’s a belt. What else am I do with it?’ ‘You’ve had it for nine months. It’s normal wear and tear.’ ‘Do all the buckles of your belts explode after nine months?’ I said. ‘Is this a shoddy goods store?’ At last, at last, ungracious, unacknowledged retreat.

Now I’ve got £35 in gift vouchers and a £1 coin.

Feel a little grubby though. But shall rise above it.

I said to them, ‘You’ve done the right thing. Now I get carried away in your shop because I’m £35 up and spend millions.’

I nearly did too. Some waxed jeans by Diesel. I love these shiny jeans that are ‘in’ at the moment. Totally unsuitable for my age. £190. I’ve already got some black ones by Lindberg which I’ve become chronically attached too. But I dread washing them. What if all the shine goes out? So I’ve a plan to stock pile similar pairs for back-up. I’ve even thought of buying another  of the Lindberg.

In the end found some brown waxed jeans at Zara but not in my size. So will be going round all branches in quest.  Days and days. And no knowing if they’ll look hot on. Didn’t actually try on the Diesel, come to think of it. Will have to do that in order to find fault and cease wanting. So that’s another trip to H Nicks.

At last, at last , also, the right  plain white T shirts. Zara – that shop always has what you want. It’s uncanny. Super slim fit, low V neck. Can’t bear any bag in the T shirt. Must be fitted, fitted, fitted.

But this was only at the last minute – after I’d been round all the concessions at Selfridges. ‘Where are your scoop neck plain white T shirts?’ I said. Blank looks. ‘Everybody’s wearing them; you must have…’ ‘What about this?’ one of the so-called assistants said, pointing to a packet with ‘crew neck’ emblazoned.

These people don’t know their necks.

 Friday 9^th October 2009

 Anthony Mottram turned up out of the blue yesterday, on his way back from a death. Behaved outrageously, but I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

 Today is Laura Malcolm’s Tuscany Reunion Dinner. Everyone who coincided with her at the Multis’ villa is to assemble. I’ve been to so many dinners recently, I’ve run through every possible outfit. The only hope is the ludicrous Prada slacklettes I bought in the summer but I’ve got so fat from the dinners, I can’t struggle into them.

 But that’s not my point.  What we need to inspect is the amazing display of arse and grandeur that ensued when Laura issued her invitation at the end of August. ‘September’s completely impossible,’they queened and shrieked.  ‘We’re wall-to-wall. Fully booked.’  Poor Laura was batting dates back and forth for an entire week. The photographer Multi remarked: ‘Funny thing. They were all available for dinner – and lunch – in Tuscany.’

 But, back to London and it’s out with the attitude.  

 In the end we did well to find a date only six weeks off.

 So we come to a matter at the heart of top gay life – availability or rather total absence of …

 Smallmeal, despite then being near the top of the landfill or whatever, hadn’t got the idea when I first knew him in the mid 90s. He once called me up at five in the afternoon to invite for dinner there and then. But he soon learned. Maybe he learned from Limpney. The final, as it turned out, invitations to Massivebury were issued three months in advance .  I once answered my phone at the end of October and there was Limpney, in his best Queen Massivebury voice, announcing: ‘15^th December – that’s the earliest I can see you.’  Given all this carry-on, it was rather strange that the only intelligible reason ever given for the abrupt termination of our friendship was that I’d made poor Limpney feel guilty about not seeing enough of me.

 But how could this be when it was him wielding the diary all the time?

 Which brings us to perhaps the most crucial implement of all in high gay life – yes, the diary. You must have one and you should always refer to it importantly as the diary. Once you’ve got it you must fill it up, especially if you’re feeling lonely or wondering if anyone really likes you. It’s not difficult. Just make a list of everyone you know and then make a rota for inviting them to dinner or even tea, if you’re cutting back. That way you can easily fill up your diary until at least next April. You could even include people you don’t know if necessary.

 The huge advantage of this method is that if anyone has the nerve to invite you at the last minute you can genuinely refuse rather than having to pretend you couldn’t possibly be free at such short notice. Even so, some gays do decline all invitations on the grounds that they can never be assumed to be free.

 The diary approach needs to be supplemented, should you actually meet anyone, by the deployment of certain phrases such as, ‘I’ll hope to see you before Easter’ (very effective if said just after Christmas). Finally you should acquire a large country house; then you’ll be relieved of the burden of at least three potentially worrying nights a week in London with only four left to fill. What’s more, your friends and even, oh joy, non-friends will be battering to get onto your rota for country house visits.