Wednesday 17th March 2021

I’ve been at the Gay Mother’s for two weeks. The main thing is the cardboard boxes – all the deliveries. One every hour or so, either what she’s ordered, or I’ve ordered for her or tributes sent by devotees.

We had her Birthday. People queued at the gate as she took 97 years.  We had one and half porch coffee mornings and one porch tea with our man who manages. The Gay Mother and I were crouched at the drawing room border, while the visitor was lodged in the porch. It seemed good form as an arrangement. But no doubt holes could be picked in it by those minded to do so.

I made a lemon and elderflower drizzle cake from a mad recipe by Nigella. A visitor then conveyed her own lemon drizzle and Cousin Cornella sent a good but shop lemon and elderflower cake. So all the cakes were the same, except they weren’t when it came to it and we ate them all.

Then there was a vaccine fest and we were buoyant. I took an Astra and the Gay Mother had her second Pfizer – at the hospital. This is a terrifying place, being a vast, looming Stalinist block on a vertical site. The vaccination home was amidst a maze of crumby outbuildings. The 15 minute waiting, in case of collapse, was in a cafe, where drinks and buns were on sale and being consumed in the room. Doctors present in scrubs having just been injected themselves. So it must have been all right. But all other cafes and restaurants in the land are strictly takeaway only, eat-in absolutely not. When we made to leave through the marked exit, a volunteer leapt up and said the steps were too steep and we must go back the way we’d come. So one-way system out of the window as well.

After that, it was TV and menus with gardening. The Gay Mother wanted to know what ‘woke’ means. Copies of The Tablet and the Church Times were piling up everywhere. Hard to get rid of them and even harder the cardboard boxes. The recycling system of the authorities in the Far West is labyrinthine – only a certain size taken, otherwise must be self-transported to the dump. Besides the Gay Mother envisages a bonfire, for which cardboard will be vital to get it going. But a bonfire of the actual cardboard, of course, out of the question.

Eventually the house will fill up with cardboard entirely, in some Gormenghast kind of way.

The Gay Mother was furious about ‘Terror’ and it had to be switched off. ‘It’s all made up. Nobody knew what happened to them. Only some Eskimos made a few comments.’ I said, ‘But it’s a TV drama.’ ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘It must be true or not at all.’ Her choice of viewing was Line of Duty for the prime Saturday 9pm slot. The plot’s a nightmare, she said, but was tuning in with alacrity all the same. We were bored to death by the Harry and Meghan interview. I inflicted The Crown on her because you can always re-view that when there’s nothing else on and it will cheer you up. ‘Who’s that supposed to be?’ she kept saying. In the end she conceded it was ‘quite entertaining’ although plainly she didn’t believe a word of it.

The Gay Mother is 97. It’s not right that she should be left alone for months on end.

Birthday Tulips Sent to the Gay Mother

Visitor’s Lemon Drizzle Competing with Nigella and a Shop One in Lemon and Elderflower

A Selection of the Gay Mother’s Birthday Cards for 97 Years

Thursday 11th March 2021

Have you noticed? They said that the vaccine is really a computer programme and that shortly we will all be re-booted. Poor Little Rich Gays will turn into people with ‘mates’ who chase ‘birds’ and play darts. We’ll be holidaying in Widmerpool.

Well, it’s not turned out quite like that. But those little calling cards they inscribe for you at the vaccine dispensaries…. such lovely handwriting… People photograph them and put them on social media. Robert Nevil’s an Astra Zeneca, so is Rufus Pitman. Sebastian Archer’s an Astra Zeneca, Merle Barr’s an Astra Zeneca, and me, Adrian Edge, I’m an Astra Zeneca. What about Moira McMatron and Beamish O’Halloran? They’re Astra Zenecas (early ones). Beamish’s daughter invented the vaccine. They got a Press Preview, possibly. Now Aunt Lavinia, Laura Malcolm and the Gay Mother – they’re Pfizers. Do they have a weeny beam of advantage? I think so. That ‘Pf’ and then the ‘z’ are so exotic. Even though Astra’s an Astra, the Astra Zenecas, I can’t help feeling, would be an excellent industrial family living in a suburban mansion perhaps built by the latest architect but the Pfizers go back generations, have several estates and aren’t double-barrelled. They’re a bit like those English families whose names begin with two lower case ffs. The ffynes, the ffiskes…

No matter.There’s not much to be done about it now. We are our vaccines and that’s it.

Sunday 7th March 2021

It’s not much mentioned. I can’t think why. Untroubled by ripples, one day blending evenly with the next, breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, menus in the morning, the shops, otherwise deliveries as we’d always craved. Service at last. Everything paid for, except for those who don’t qualify for payments but somebody’s got to be in Hell, I suppose. The quiet life was once a dream. Oh to slow down, it was said universally. Why so many functions? Racking outfit worry. One dinner after another, with no time to exercise to work off the dinners, so careering downhill. Bored to death in the theatre. Wounded by the slightest word flicked by someone met at drinks. The horror of the world and the cost, resources draining away. What if others were doing better, had selected more successfully from the catwalks, had the knack of not going off the rails just as about to serve, were jetting more, had got better tickets, or even any tickets? Even if spared, there was the horrible responsibility of having to self-diarise, to pitch one’s life up to a suitable level, doing it all oneself. Now none of that.  Just this perfect smoothness, every day exactly the same, no striving or effort required, perfectly cared for, a miraculous uniformity, everybody having exactly the same life. Extraordinary that it has not been remarked upon.  This is paradise. This is what it will be like, at the finish, when our days are done and we are carried up to the gates to be judged and allotted our place. In paradise, boxed sets on tap in the evening, even all day, total availability, nobody left out. One perfect day rolling on to the next, for ever. Except we’re having it now. Heaven on Earth which we were told was out of the question has come to be. What could be better?

Tuesday 2nd March 2021

We went to Regent’s Park. As you know it has emerged from this Time of Wrong as the greatest of the parks, unrivalled in its architectural theatre and range. The sweep to the west towards the American Embassy residence is wild and vast, then there are the avenues, the circles, the formal lawns landscaped with hedges, the rose garden, the dry garden and the lakes – with ducks. Harry Rollo knew all the ducks and said there was a special place where a rare bird could sometimes be seen, not a duck. I explained that Royston King was trying to find a use of an area to the east of the Rose Garden that needs to be found a use for. ‘No humans,’ Harry said at once. ‘Think of all the harm they’ve done. But badgers, foxes, otters and… wolves.‘ Superb.

Anyway, we looked at the ducks. I thought I’d grasped them from the visit to the Serpentine a week or two before. But it seemed not. There are gulls too, of different types. The duck that sticks in my mind is the eider duck because of the connection with eiderdowns. But it doesn’t look a bit like an eiderdown. It’s a stark black and white.

We saw a heron standing on a lawn. I thought they were shy and shunned human company. Apparently not. A lot of people look like herons. But hardly anyone looks like any other sort of bird, except eagles – odd.

As we were regaining our machines for departure, Harry said, ‘Listen.’ He’d heard a bird singing and knew it and found it, high in a tree. It was a mistle thrush. I’ve never seen a mistle thrush before.

Next I went with Merle Barr to Hackney Marshes. Surely the Krays were busy there, burying people.The disused filtration beds are a feature. They filtered out cholera, you know. It took some time to find the special bird viewing facility with shutters to lift for viewing. But most of the shutters had disappeared so you just looked through the square in the wooden panel. I don’t know why you couldn’t have just looked without any structure. The birds were quite far away. More ducks, but not belonging to any of the categories previously encountered. Maddening. Maybe they weren’t ducks at all. V. busy diving.

We saw Merle’s past residence and the block of flats opposite from where a man flashed. He was very unattractive unfortunately as well as a fool, flashing from his home address in full view. Merle had the Police round and the resident said it was a friend of his, come round for a bit of flashing before going away again. The Police were certain it wouldn’t happen again and it didn’t.

On the next visit to Regent’s Park when the newly vaccinated Royston King came over, we decided we’d had enough of it. Royston didn’t like the idea of the wolves at all. I said, ‘Let’s tour to the east.’  We machined past the Nash terraces. I said, ‘They’re fake really. Just plaster.’ Royston didn’t like my remark. I didn’t mean to harm the terraces. I think the boldness of all that drama of pillars, pediments, statues mounted, done in plaster is fabulous.

Those terraces are one of the wonders of the world.

I was right that our tour would be rewarding. After the Caledonian Park Clock Tower which Royston had funded the restoration of, and which stands in the middle of what was once a huge cattle market, we viewed Pentonville Prison with the added bonus of the warders’ quarters right by. The remarkable thing was Pentonville Prison was flying the Gay Flag. I wonder which Gay inmates they’ve got. After that it was Tony Blair’s old house in Richmond Crescent, where Cherie opened the front door having just got out of bed on the morning after the 1997 election and was seen by the entire world. Then the strange Egyptian styling of the houses in Richmond Crescent. Finally a surprise. Whose house was this? Can you guess? Royston got it straight away, in fact before we got there. Boris Johnson. Royston said, ‘I’ve seen enough.’ But there was one last thing. My Covid-19 neighbourhood vaccination centre. Royston said, ‘Why don’t you ask for a vaccination?’ So for the 4th time I entered into negotiations with the volunteer on the door. ‘Royston’s had his,’ I protested, ‘and he’s younger than me.’ ‘But I’m fat and black,’ Royston bellowed and everybody in earshot turned to ash.

An Eider Duck in Regent’s Park – not a Bit like an Eiderdown

Another Eider Duck

The Middlesex Filtration Beds, Hackney Marshes

Hackney Marshes – Merle knew it Like the Back of Her Hand

What is this Hackney Marsh bird – Much Given to Diving ?

Caledonian Park Clock Tower, Restored by Royston King

The Gay Flag Flying from Pentonville Prison, Signalling their Gay inmates, but whom?

Sunday 15th February 2021

Borderline of existence. For a week I’ve done nothing. How is it possible? I’ve managed it.  A philosophical conundrum surely. People keep ringing up: ‘Why haven’t you returned my call?’ What happens to the time? It roars by as always but really…. Somehow I’m not up before 11. Supermart and back. The day’s over. Time for drinks and Call my Agent.

I keep thinking it’s only me. But it’s everybody. How could this be? I have all news feeds except the Stock prices switched off. I won’t listen. Aunt Lavinia says the News is everybody disagreeing. Which is good. The Gay Mother has heard that a black curate at All Hallows by the Tower, which was where Aunt Olive worshipped (so keep off there) has done a tweet and there’s been terrible outrage, even though he apologised. The Tweet said that Captain Tom in the aura around him was White Imperialism – something like that. Royston phoned and said, ‘He couldn’t help being White.’ He should know, being black himself.

Three weeks ago or so I felt so desperate. I couldn’t see how I’d ever get through all the menus I’ve got planned. How to keep up with Laura Malcolm, who’s progressed to a self-fermented barley loaf requiring some grains to be pre-soaked for a week? The loaf, finally, resembled the late Lord Goodman whom I saw once in person at St John’s Smith Square at some kind of fund-raising concert in the late 70s we weren’t supposed to be at or not in those clothes at least. There were looks. Important ladies accompanying Lord G (where they Fag Hags?) cast looks. But Lord G covered up for Lord Boothby re: the Krays (such dears) and fixed it that the Mirror lost the Libel case. Wasn’t he just a weeny bit criminal? So why did we have to have those women looking at us like that all those years ago?  Anthony Mottram and I were taken by his brother. Something to do with the Royal College of Mu.

I was breathless all the time. How was I ever going to get Marcus Wareing’s Brined Pork Fillet with braised cabbage and Quince Sauce on the table? And that white cabbage in the cold area – been there for weeks. I bought all those elements for Nigella’s New Orleans Coleslaw but had to throw them away. Have now re-bought. The white cabbage still looms in the cold area.

What’s so depressing is the actual eating, after all that kitchen slavery, is over in ten minutes and even in that time I’m trying to make inroads into the clearing up. Getting ahead. Will I ever have a moment to myself?

All this cabbage though, especially raw – I can’t digest it. But we didn’t live through two world wars to waste cabbage.

So that phase of frenzy lead to another. I had a risotto three nights in a row. It got nastier and nastier – mealy and dry. Then the red cabbage in the Austrian style. Industrial scale of supply – but what do you do with a red cabbage?  Even the smallest one is huge.

Well, at the end of that – and did I mention I’m trying to lose weight – my digestion was wrecked for good. I was picking at my food. The white pudding fried in slices to go with the red cabbage in the Austrian style tasted of utter drear. The Gay Mother said, ‘Haven’t you got any smoked salmon? How about a bit of plain boiled rice?’ ‘Rice! I can’t touch it. Swollen and bloated for days.’

I’m only just beginning to recover now. It’s just not natural to be eating one’s own cooking all the time. The digestion wards will be crammed for generations for sure.

Down with it all and I blame the Government.

Laura Malcolm’s Lord Goodman Loaf

Tuesday 26th January 2021

So we’ve been turned out to wander the streets. Walks or pedalling all that’s allowed. With Royston King I went to Welsh Harp Reservoir and then almost as far as Wembley Stadium. Tremendous mud. Then we crossed fields towards Fryent Park. I think it was West Hendon Playing Fields in fact, but it could have been wilds near the Artic or remote New Zealand. There were some crows, or perhaps rooks. The trees full of birds were actually ashes whose dead clusters of leaves look like a rookery from afar.

The path to Fryent Park was impossible. First World War standards of mud, churned and endless. So we left that for another day. Royston said it was one of the largest open spaces in London, easily the size of Regent’s Park. At Welsh Harp Reservoir, Royston said, there had been drainage to create a wildlife sanctuary but it hadn’t worked. He’s not on the Committees for these places but sees them from the inside, of course. Any tour with him is exclusive.

He said my machine needed replacing. His is new and has an electric boost so he whizzed ahead on hills. But the bell fell off and we couldn’t find it, going back a bit over our route. We went past the Neasden Esplanade, a photograph of which always accompanied the Sid and Doris Bonkers column in Private Eye in the old days. They supported Neasden F.C. In fact they were the only supporters of that club which didn’t even exist.

Last week I accompanied Robert Nevil and the Nizam on a tour of Clerkenwell – very much two steps behind, like the Duke of Edinburgh, I can tell you. At one point the vista was entirely occupied by Peabody Buildings which was thrilling because we’d seen quite a few sets of these before on earlier walks. In Clerkenwell Road there is a fine building in the Sloane Square Dutch style but better – about 1880. The Holborn something or other. It’s been there all these years, passed by me almost every week but never seen before. We moved into Hatton Garden which gave rise to mention of the Hatton Garden Heist of only a few years ago. I was explaining to the Nizam and that it was turned into a TV drama. So there’s something else that they could watch. They’d been watching Legend, about the Krays. So I watched it too. I do agree with Ronnie Kray in his attitude to life, although no good came of it.

There’s so much going on. Really there is. Also in Hatton Garden is a partial Wren church with some blue dolls glued to the outside. The Bluecoats. But on the corner an excellent blue plaque commemorating the location where Sir Maxim invented the Maxim machine gun. At last, something really useful. I could think of quite a few people who would benefit just now from a riddling with bullets. We were engaged trying to translate from the Italian a plaque to those drowned in a Second World War shipwreck. The sacristan appeared and insisted we enter the Church. All the usual precautions, but he was coughing in the outside lobby and then again when the visit was over. Nobody coughs nowadays. Italians settled in Clerkenwell and must have done well for they erected a Church with a huge kind of parking lot before the Altar for the parking of numerous ruthlessly gold items. Otherwise the Church was blazing cerulean with red carpets.

The very next day I joined Anthony Mottram and we roamed through Acton. Wonder! Another Peabody – this time in the Queen Anne Style with extravagant lunettes but set in a depressing sea of tarmac. After a while I realised we were near Bedford Park. It’s actually only a few streets of prime Norman Shaw (?). Very complicated Arts and Crafts houses, all different. We went into the Church there of St Michael and All Angels, where I once heard a Matthew Passion. On that occasion it was freezing within and the tenor had pyjamas on underneath his concert wear. Now it was very snug. Perhaps they got a legacy and can heat, especially in the present time with nobody there.

Welsh Harp Reservoir – Wilds within London

Prime Peabody in Clerkenwell

Queen Anne Grandeur of Peabody in Acton

Clerkenwell: An Antique Vista: these Victorian Commercial/Industrial buildings Looking Better and Better as Time Passes

Farringdon Road: Victorian Gothic, Very Good of its Kind – with Peabody Van by Chance!

Clerkenwell Georgian

Sir Maxim and His Machine Gun

The Office of the Holborn Union Board of Guardians 1885. They Administered Workhouses. I don’t Think This building Actually was a Workhouse. Now Flats.

The Italian Church Clerkenwell

The Italian Church Clerkenwell

Bedford Park, Chiswick: So Many Bits

Bedford Park, Chiswick: Minimal Symmetry

Sunday 24th January 2021

I thought I had a matching set (there have to be 3), almost as good as the toilet set I collected in Britain and America – Queen Victoria’s, seen at Osborne, Martin Luther King’s, on view in the Martin Luther King birth home, Atlanta, and Margaret Mitchell’s, which was featured in her re-constructed apartment, also in Atlanta. Val telephoned from Moscova, Hastings, before Christmas. ‘Have you shopped your Christmas needs?’ he enquired. It’s a new way with words. Really just the preposition has been eroded but ‘to shop an item’ is quite a different thing from ‘shopping for’ something, giving a crocodile snap of complete possession, the essence of shopping. Then Val telephoned again, not in the best of moods, and said he was going to ‘soup some carrots.’ A good addition but very soupy. There was a final new verb, provided by Laura Malcolm on Friday while we were in Brompton Cemetery, sitting amongst some crows, described by a passer-by as ‘charismatic’. But, misery, I’ve forgotten it. And so has Laura. Maybe in a sudden flash, it’ll come back.

So no matching set. Two isn’t a matching set.

Morbid anxiety engulfs me in between cooking mania. You’d think crowds were coming round. I can’t take in that nearly everyone in the world is plunged like this. It ought to be a comfort. But it isn’t. It just doesn’t seem real. Besides, some like it, maybe more than you might think, rather as people are said to like being in prison – no responsibilities, in a way taken care of. Laura said that Matt Driver is enjoying his little life, tucked up in his mansion. Mind you, if you’re a world-taste shaper, it might be different. Little life but huge outreach. I’m just it’s the same in Downing Street. They just don’t understand.

Last weekend I repaired some paint chips on the stairs. They’ve been Polyfilla-ed for years. Lumps of filler left, not even sanded. I had to tint some white eggshell so the touched-up areas wouldn’t show up glaring. I used burnt umber, yellow ocre and black in the tiniest amounts.

An Example of a Chip to be Repaired on the Stairs

Sunday 17th January 2021

Good – I thought maybe it was only 16th January.

If only Nancy were here now: ‘What time is it?’ ‘Ten?’ ‘No better than that.’ ‘Ten past Ten?’ ‘No better than that even…’ This is two young women telephoning across the wasteland of a society morning in London before the War.

Ten days ago I was in a different phase. I’m not in the same phase now. I had an early whoosh to do all Nigella’s new recipes at once. From her new book, ‘Cook, Eat, Repeat.’ The chicken with orzo. I don’t greatly like Orzo, but so what? The Rev Richard Coles was doing it The beef cheek with port and chestnuts ( beef cheek – so new), the cherry and almond crumble … So I ended up launching on Tom Kerridge’s Self-Cured Salmon with Beetroot Slaw, Horseradish Cream on self-blinis. Laura Malcolm  gave me the recipe from The Times newspaper.

First cure your salmon. At the same time I had a mania to find frozen cherries for the Nigella crumble. There they were in Waitrose frozen cupboard. Miracle. In Planet Organic’s tundra were Frozen Sour Cherries, which I’ve been looking for since the Spring. So lucky, even if not immediately relevant. But the curing. Terrific assemblage. Grating of cabbage. Pouring of whisky. Only had dark sugar, so evil viscous dark result. Pack in cling film. It all leaked out. Into the fridge for 48 hours and breathe again. For a while. There was no escaping the final destiny though. Laura Malcolm had got ahead and was sending graphs of her finished ‘set’ as Anthony Mottram was later to call it – the full plate. I went to Waitrose and screamed in the aisles. ‘Where’s the buttermilk? I’m self-blini-ing,’ I screamed. The 48 hours were up. The first evening I couldn’t face it. The beetroot slaw had 12 ingredients and at least three stages. There seemed no hope. For the rest of life I would be forever slaving, the Tom Kerridge Cured Salmon Self-Blini, Horseradish Cream and Beetroot Slaw set just out of reach. What’s more Laura had added a cucumber pickle to her set. I looked at Nigella’s recipe for Scandi cucumber pickle and died. It was a desperate race to keep up with my ingredients. Eventually there was no choice but to set to: grate the red cabbage, grate raw beetroot.. but the Bramley was rotten through. No cooking apples to be had in three shops. Bash on. Finely chop. Salt. Add this. Add that. Check the recipe. Don’t forget the horseradish cream. More grating. That completed. But what would you do with horseradish cream on its own? Terrible bits of grating all over the kitchen. Beetroot carnage. Finally though a bowl of purple slaw. Only parsley to be added. With the self-blini-ing ingredients I got muddled trying to reduce by 2/3rds. Just guessing really. So near the end but collapsing. The salmon itself smelled funny after its curing. The Gay Mother, down the phone, said, ‘Are you sure it’s all right?’ I could have wrenched the wires out.

But I did sit down with a set of sorts. The blinis, because batter too wet, were huge. Pancakes really. I cut corners with the cucumber and had little appetite after a 1st course to build up strength for the assembling and hot-pan last minute blini-ing.

Don’t have a 1st course if you’re contemplating menu-ing this set.

Anthony Mottram and I had a little picnic of the salmon in the middle of Walthamstow Marshes and that’s when he called it a set. With the last of the fish I did rise to Nigella’s Pickled Cucumber, improved self-blini work and enough Bramley for the slaw.

Laura Malcolm announced that she would surely be doing the whole thing again. I doubt I’d survive. But I do have half a red cabbage, guilt-inducing, hiding in my fridge and we didn’t live through two World Wars to waste food.

My Final Set: Tom Kerridge’s Self-Cured Salmon, Self-Blinis, with Beetrow Slaw, Horseradish Cream and Nigella’s Scandi Pickled Cucumber added in Because Really Otherwise it would be Sadly Simple

Tuesday 12th January

Robert Nevil and the Nizam were sealed with me for Christmas in my London home. Don’t ask. Only Poor Little Rich Gays could achieve such a rare configuration. To the world in general, it will never be explained. Such a web. So many dimensions.

We only diverted from the strict Hindu diet for the actual Christmas dinner. For Christmas Eve we had Mushroom Ragu in Egg Foam. There was a hiatus re: pudding because Robert Nevil and the Nizam clung to the idea that food should be nice. But there were some dried sour cherries to be finished up. I’d soaked them in grappa. The Nizam doesn’t touch alcoholic beverage. Even a whiff could send him delirious. Nevertheless he sampled the dried sour cherries with minimal 2% yoghurt and found them sour. Damnation, they weren’t cleared. I spent the rest of Christmas trying to force them down the guests. It was hopeless.

Robert Nevil and the Nizam curl on the sofa and post. There’s a lot of subsequent pinging. That’s the comments coming in. They look at the comments and comment. There’s a huge tangle of commentators all connected in ways yet to be understood. Otherwise there’s TV. It was a tussle between Bridgerton and Black Narcissus. Bridgerton I thought lovely. Lovely colours, particularly on my new screen. So vivid. Frocks and wigs. Good, well-thighed young gentlemen with ungentlemanly tendencies. What more could you want? I never knew that George 111 made a lot of people of African descent into Dukes etc. Did you? It was because of Queen Charlotte being also of African descent. Where are they now? Robert Nevil and the Nizam were aghast. ‘Why are we watching this?’ the Nizam cried. They wanted Black Narcissus. But that was even worse, surely. Since leaving my premises they’ve kept up the attack on Bridgerton. Black Narcissus is conveniently not mentioned. But it was incredibly awful. Photo-shopped and the message you could grasp in the first five minutes: don’t bother being a nun. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.

On Christmas Day we went for a walk and saw the New River, brought by Sir Thomas Myddleton from Hertfordshire into London. The day after Boxing Day we took another walk. Who knew that St Paul’s Cathedral, the Temple Bar, the Old Bailey, St Bartholomew the Great are within the compass on foot of my home in London? I showed the Nizam the place where Queen Victoria’s carriage stopped at the foot the Cathedral Steps in 1897 and she remained in the carriage while the service of Thanksgiving for her Diamond Jubilee was conducted out of doors because she was too infirm to descend. The Gay Grandmother was somewhere lurking about then. She had a medal from that Jubilee. We also got a sense of where the Royal cars would sweep, arriving at the Cathedral. Then we delved in the part below the Cathedral towards the Thames and found the boards in a passage said to date from Shakespeare’s day. Also the King’s Wardrobe and the Society for Unloved Churches. Returning past the Old Bailey (Robert Nevil and I know someone who was jugged from there. RB even has gone as far as Belmarsh on a visit) we saw the new private wing of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, not quite opened, where I hope to end my days. Finally we found dear old Betj’s front door in Cloth Fair which I’d never seen before.

I forgot to say that when Royston and I went to Glyndebourniana, owing to current restrictions, we pissed the lawn in the dark.

Christmas Day Lunch by Robert Nevil

The Christmas Table

Dried Sour Cherries Soaked in Grappa: Still not Finished Up

Saturday 9th January 2021

Many tiers ago I took tea with Rufus Pitman and Raj Zoraster. It was a superb tea in the Bangla style raging with decoration, a little patterned table, a tea-strainer that might have been a holy item and English biscuits. They were so bouncy and full of Christmas. I really think now the carriages could be ordered for the Service of National Thanksgiving at San Paolo di Londra for their deliverance from the Affliction. Raj dangled a profoundly unsuitable brown doll – really – made of knitting, plain at that. Somehow it was a Christmas piece. The wow-factor was the thong, that could be pulled away to reveal a knitted man part, which, even though knitting, looked a bit sharp and nasty, like an apple pip that had been weaponised. I got sight direct of the famous mermen that adorn their tree and which are known here and throughout the world, although rarely seen in person. They’re costly (about 30 euros each) and one is added each year. The upper half is muscular Tom of Finland with leather cap, the classic top class, sexual Gay; then there is the fishy lower half. As Berlioz, in The Shepherd’s Farewell, penetrated to the melancholy heart of Christmas, so Rufus and Raj have embodied its other heart, which is kitsch. They’d got other ornaments which are even worse.

‘We had such a common lunch,’ Rufus said. It was either egg and chips or egg, chips and fish fingers. ‘What foods will be common next?’ Rufus wondered. I was a bit stumped. I’m always trying to bring common eats back, like Birds Custard. ‘How about sumac?’ Rufus said. I’m sure this will come true. We’ll know for sure when a sumac shaker appears on the tables in that cafe in East Enders.

We talked of faraway places. Rufus said he wanted to go dancing. Apparently the road from Dhaka airport is lined with palatial curry houses named after the places where the funds from emigration were generated to build them.  So there’s the Dudley Curry House, the Brick Lane, the Royal Leamington Spa etc… This is the arrival in Bangladesh.

Raj mentioned Priti Patel. ‘Nasty Auntie,’ he said.