Saturday 6th June 2020

I was blasted suddenly to realise that Joshua Baring’s food, shown regularly on Insta, is all in the pale green range. There is also mention of celery which rarely features these days in the normal run of cuisines. In six weeks there was only one instance of a tomato.

Sensing a story, I began to sniff. But it’s so massive and will require extensive research. As you know, research is not what I was born to. I’m more of a colour artist: I do atmosphere, colour background, sensations and impressions, as well as visions. I always used to say that when performing extended travel items to camera from foreign locations for Dainty Lady TV.  I don’t me for the address of the lace shop.

Covering Joshua Baring’s cuisine will be years of work. For a start I’ll have to go over to Robert Nevil’s where he is ensconced with the Nizam and Sebastian Archer. At least they’re not busy breaking up the Nizam of Hyderabad Tiara, as the Queen did in the 1970s to make the Burmese Ruby Tiara – an Edward Heath Tiara, Rufus Pitman says. I’ll have to examine Robert Nevil’s copy of an ancient cookery book by Patience Gray called Honey from a Weed (peculiar title), which is Joshua Baring’s bible.

But I must persist because it’s so important. Joshua Baring is only 34, but he’s resisted so many trends. Staggering.

Wednesday 4th June 2020

Royston King said previously that the thing about ‘Harry and Meghan’ was their Insta following. That would buoy them up through all eventualities, being loved by young people who cared little for Monarchy.

Now it’s all different. Royston says they’re finished. Prince William is having a good pandemic. Although his speaking is appalling. Consonants reduced to a minimum. But he is Royalty. There was a TV about his Mental Health initiative. Very timely. He didn’t bring himself in all the time. Only once was his mother’s death referred to. He remained a personage, even though speaking the opposite of posh. It’s so incredible really, the endless ways in which you can be Royal. Who’d ever have thought talking to male footballers about their inner tears and anguish would be one of them.

Harry and Meghan now are just people. Going to live in Los Angeles was the last straw. How can they conceivably be Members of British Royal Family there? They can’t even be Duke and Duchess of Sussex. There aren’t any Dukes in America. They’ll just be joke figures in exile, clinging on to past glory, like those dissolute aristocrats forced to sojourn abroad after sodomy or gambling. The pandemic has shut them down but they’d have been shut down anyway. I suppose they might grind on as celebrities at the unimportant end of the scale. Goodness knows how long that will last. Their Insta is shut down. If you search ‘Duke of Sussex’ you get a pub in Waterloo.

A huge Royal Authority at the Cecil Beaton opening on 10th March said that Harry would be back – alone.

They didn’t realise that being Royal mattered.  The title conferred on marriage meant something too, but only on British soil.  They went too far. They ceased to be Royal. They was all they were which is everything in one sense.

Saturday 30th May 2020

No sooner did I have my brainwave about how the Queen could be on Zoom while ordinary members of the public carry out her engagements on her behalf (Be Queen for an afternoon) than who should I run into on the way to Rufus Pitman’s for a doorstep visit than Marmion Beaufleasance who is so near the Throne as to be on it for all practical purposes (especially now).

Why should I run into him twice by chance during this Time of Wrong? It must mean something. It must mean Monarchy being near and that can never be a drawback.

‘Can you get through to the Secretary?’ I said. Marmion of course could, there and then if necessary. He was a little doubtful about my brainwave, just for the moment, I’m sure. As with all new brainwaves, the first response is bound to be shock and dismay followed by the penny dropping.

Rufus has been low but his spirits lifted sufficiently for him to use his App which tells you which aircraft are flying overhead. So we found out the first one to pass was arriving from Beijing. Then there was another and that had arched through the air from Shanghai. Rather worrying but you must be careful what you say.

The next day Royston King called and said, ‘Where near you does Dominic Cummings live?’ Dominic Cummings, in case you don’t know, is an odd-looking person nobody likes who advises the Prime Minister and is always seen in Downing Street in unsuitable clothes which are all part of the act. ‘I didn’t know he lives near me,’ I said. By chance I was collecting my order of country vegetables from the temporary depot (oh, in London one mimics village life) run by the son of an old friend of Robert Nevil’s and mine with whom we were at University (if you can call it that. I never had much patience with the life of scholarly retreat. Couldn’t wait for the sales to start in the shops). That old friend latterly worked for Reuters. So I asked the son, ‘Do you think your father would know where Dominic Cummings lives round here?’ A random person distancing in the doorway piped up, ‘I know where he lives but don’t say I told you.’ So there we were. Brilliant coup and penetration just like that.

It’s funny how the private address of a hate figure is still considered private. It was the same last summer. Guy Bostock knew where the Prime Minister was holed up throwing red wine about with his Carrie. Although supremely anti-Tory,  he didn’t like to reveal the name of the street.

I was round at Dominic’s in minutes. No sign of him. Big house, not in the best part. All the blinds pulled down. A bit like the Camerons living in that odd bit of North Kensington. A woman resembling Carol Thatcher (but not) came out of the house next door and approached one of the men in the street. I heard her saying, ‘It was in the middle of the night… I’ll have to check with my secretary the exact dates…. that’s important is it?’ Plainly she was offering a ‘story’. I’ve no idea whether she made the front pages.

Monday 25th May 2020

The first is moths: Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the world, don’t, in this present Time of Wrong, take your eye off the ball. Your moth regime should be proceeding as usual for the time of year. Despite the run of warm weather, it isn’t quite time for wools to be bagged up permanently until the autumn. Remember, in the days of fur, she would often have a Mink Stole for the carriage at Ascot, which is always the second week of June.

Nevertheless, particularly now when you might have put away good Winter and Spring pieces and not had them out again during this… you know what, when you’ve not been in outfits for weeks, careful management is more important than ever. All wools should be taken out, brushed and aired. Judge whether pieces need to be washed or dry cleaned. For Poor Little Rich Gays with large wardrobes this is a quandary. If you only have two or three winter coats (i.e. worn quite a lot), it would be best to have them dry cleaned before bagging up for the summer. Otherwise rely on careful brushing before bagging. Check that your moth sachets are up to date.

I have only had moth three times. Once when I put away my Paul and Joe coat without cleaning first. This was in the days when I had only one winter coat so it had been worn a lot.

A note on bagging: pieces should be individually bagged and labelled. Use aerated cloth bags, not plastic.

All winter/autumn pieces should be bagged by the end of June.

My other idea concerns the Queen. I had a sudden superb brain wave. If she can’t meet people, because of …, why not allow worthy members of the public to take her place at certain functions? She could be present on Zoom and the member of the public, perhaps a really excellent cleaner or a hero of the front line, could unveil the plaque or declare open or whatever… It could be a kind of alternative Honours System. You can be Queen for the afternoon. Men could participate. They might wear some of the hats or brooches. Investitures could also be conducted like this. The worthy member of the public actually gives out the medals, then the recipients are spoken to by the Queen on Zoom.

I’m going to write to the Palace.

Moth-Proofing: Note Dated Sachets. These should be Replaced every six months. You will be that I Last Replaced in April ’19. This is What happens if You don’t have Staff

Moth-Proofing: Sachets in Place. Replace Every Six Months

Thursday 21st May 2020

I forgot to say that Harry Rollo decided to depart from reality. His new performance was supposed to take place in early May. The actual day sprang upon him anguish when he’d thought to lie quietly on a chaise-longue and not mind, preparing different performances for only a few or no people.  So to depart reality was a brilliant move. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘my performance will be untouched as a masterpiece. No viewer can bring it down.’

Val rang from Moscova, Hastings and said nobody was phoning because of no conversation except recipes and menus. We then extemporised brilliantly for 20 minutes on the theme of whether you can make bread with self-raising flour. Val said For sure you can. And who now remembers (oh the grandeur of looking back, especially when everyone else has forgotten or is too young) that originally you couldn’t get bread flour, only plain or self-raising. ‘Originally’ would be when we were young, in the 60s and 70s, the original time.

I telephoned to Anthony Mottram in Prague. ‘It’s just a little dull,’ he said. He seemed to have no appetite for viral talk or plans or attacks of any kind. ‘It’s just a little dull,’ he said, several times. ‘I’m used to constant travel.’ He and Vadim are thinking of taking a little cottage in Bohemia, just for a change of scene. I said, ‘We’ve always been so close to Porton Down.’ ‘Have we?’ he said. Porton Down had just approved the Roche anti-body test last week. Such heaven. 100% effective. Anthony Mottram seemed to have quite forgotten how he was always making veiled references to Porton Down when we were at school. Barrowborough was near Porton Down. Anthony Mottram, also living in the neighbourhood although a border,  had an air of special knowledge. ‘Oh Porton Down… very hush hush… couldn’t possibly say…’ and so on. ‘I believe,’ he would say, with an insider air, ‘that they take a particular interest in that microbe at Porton Down.’ This was during a biology lesson.

But when I mentioned Porton Down last week, nothing. No recollection. I wondered if you could go to a cocktail party at Porton Down. ‘It might be a bit lethal,’ said Anthony Mottram in a tired kind of way.

Saturday 16th May 2020

One day these will just be dates.

Two bad nights. I’m worried about the numbers. What if they go up? Yesterday, listless, I searched for the hymn from Choral Evensong online and watched a massed congregation of church-going folk (frockage not a priority) singing it on YouTube. ‘How can I sing that Majesty which Angels do Admire?’ Not a good idea. Became overwrought. ‘When will I see the Queen again?’ I sobbed. I hope the neighbours didn’t hear. The proper Queen, I mean. Not from some isolation drawing room but in her car, amongst her people.

I thought about nipping to the corner shop for a bar of choc. As I would have done before. I could do it now – with bleaching upon return, of course. But I don’t know that shop anymore. As I know nowhere now. Is it the clamp of the plague or that our Country has been turned into the USSR?  Maybe I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: did we ever think we’d live to see the State intervening in our lives in the way it has? I’m an anti-lockist. Criminal, I know, to have that view. It should never have happened. Although, to be fair, the Government probably had little choice at the time. But it must never happen again. It cannot.

I’m thinking of Dame Lettie, Muriel Spark’s Dame Lettie who fought against Death so ferociously she brought it upon her. Also the line from Larkin, ‘The Costly aversion of the eyes from Death’ … which I’ve always thought has two meanings: the literal expense, in mink coats, diamonds, having everything new each season and also the other cost, of averting the eyes, which brings on another kind of Death. I see it now. The true analogy with Dame Lettie’s story is not that dear Corona will get us even worse the more we try to resist (although respectable opinion suggests that, evaded a little less desperately, it might adapt more to us and we to it) but that if we cower from Death as our main project we enter into a state of Death more or less at once.

Wednesday 13th May 2020

Yesterday devoted to mask-making. I thought they were to be compulsory for shopping from today but a shopkeeper I spoke to said just now he was going to consult his MP.

My recipe for masks I found on YouTube. Spent 57 minutes in the company of Aylssa from Penguin and Fish in America, while she demonstrated. Got to rather like her in the end. You rarely saw her face, if ever. She must be someone with a little independent fabric and sewing business. Her mask was in a bright yellow and purple material she’d designed herself with gingham trimming. What I’d call a craft look. But in personality she was not so uncompromisingly cheerful as her fabric would suggest.

My own mask route was a lilac silk dupion from my stock of fabric for a Queen Mother feel to the mask with old pillowcases to cut up for the lining.  The hardest part is cutting out the pieces to the right size. It’s incredibly difficult without a paper template to get even simple squares and rectangles accurate. And if your pieces of fabric aren’t the right shape to start with… The other thing is the unbelievable mess made by sewing. I’m still picking up threads all over the house 24 hours later.

But I managed to make two masks – one for me and one for Joshua Baring. I put mine on in a shop just now. It was hell. Glasses steamed up. I’m not sure that lilac silk dupion is such a good idea. Maybe this will be just a celebration mask, for rushing from the limo to the event attended by nobody.

While I had the sewing machine out – it’s a whole piece of furniture, and belonged to Aunt Olive whose husband gave it to her in 1948. He was a rich doctor. Their life was mink and diamonds, even a Royce and a chauffeur. I was there in about 1968, when a little gilt table was bought out at the furriers at Oxford Circus upon which Uncle Barton was to write the cheque for the blond mink to add to the brown one she already had. But Aunt Olive otherwise behaved as if very poor. She longed and longed to have an evening dress with matching full length coat. But she cut it out wrong and it had to be just a jacket. That was that. She never did have an evening dress with matching full length coat in all her life. But I digress – while I had the machine out, which is a tremendous performance in itself since it’s a whole piece of furniture, I thought I’d mend a terrible rip in an ancient duvet. When I finished I found I’d done it on the wrong side, so the raw edge is showing. I thought about unpicking and starting again – or just throwing the thing away. It could even be 35 years old.

But no, it must be right. I’m scheming now to sew tape over the raw edge. Some people would say it’s a waste of time. What does it matter? Nobody will see it and most likely I’ll put that duvet back in the drawer and leave it there for good. What I want is the satisfaction of a good result which is extraordinarily satisfying regardless of whether there’s any audience at all. There’s not really much point in asking What’s the point?

My Mask in Lilac Silk Dupion

Mask with Clever Pocket into Which to Insert further Wadding – Maybe for winter

Patti LuPone in Hollywood – O Bring Back this Look! The Medusa Hair and Supreme, the Fur Cake Surmounting the Coiffure

Saturday 9th May 2020

The Queen said that the streets are filled with love, although empty. The other day not only was this true but She was there.

It was when Angus Willis brought up the fishes from Hastings. I think that was the week after Easter. But it might have been the week after the week after Easter. Days do just keep their ghost of being what they were, Monday the sense of being at the bottom of the hill again, Wednesday midway etc. But the weeks are as they always were – hard to tell apart.

We assembled outside the Warehouse apartment of Angus Willis and Fergus Strachan, the one that’s been in all the magazines. Merle arrived from either an international Zoom meeting or her allotment after gruelling toil. Horror ensued because we had negronis – in their glasses and from their jug. Later something even worse happened. I hardly dare to say what. It was because we had more than one negroni. I can still see the figure staggering towards the open door of the building. It was like a scene from Chernobyl, the TV drama series.

Praise be! Massive thanks. We didn’t get it. It was over two weeks ago, I’m sure.

Angus arranged classic school stools for us to sit in in the road, 2 metres apart. Quite firmly in the road. Any Uber had to wait while we moved but I don’t think there were any. The stools were tubular steel painted and chipped, with plywood seats, big statements of the vintage, industrial, or in this case, school look Angus created and has become international.

So there we were, styled and chatting, not really thinking at that stage, as we would now, of how those metal tubes of the stools could be carrying virus, when who should come by on the other side of the street but Marmion Beaufleasance, one of Her Majesty’s Attendants of State, a Proclaimer and Keeper of Lineages. So extraorder… he was taking an evening constitutional – but Shoreditch is not the usual backdrop for the Royal Household and that he should have happened upon the buried side-street where the Warehouse apartment is. And we should have happened to be there. Perhaps it’s what occurs if you are a genealogist. But I think more it was a Gift of Love from God to guide us through the Pandemic. We had megaphone conversation for quite some time from one side of the street to the other. ‘Have you heard from the Queen?’ I go eventually. ‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘only yesterday. She confirmed the cancelling of the Garter Service.’

Too awful – the cancelling. But she was there as she said she would be.

Wednesday 6th May 2020

A few weeks ago, Val telephoned from Hastings. V. Lady Bracknell.  ‘Aye’ve got may own sourdough,’ he warbled. Yesterday, was rather different. There has been a decline. ‘I’m not making much sense,’ he said. Rather true, unfortunately.  ‘This pandemic isn’t going to do any good,’ he declared, funereal. Well, no, I wasn’t aware that that was the idea. ‘What exactly do you mean?’ I ventured, with little hope of finding the meaning. I think he was hinting at a genocidal programme, quite frankly. Best to draw a veil.

Rufus Pitman says it’s just like living in a village. To the butcher’s shop in the morning with a basket (Reggie Cresswell wouldn’t approve) then after lunch lie down with a novel and perhaps some weeding. One could be both writing and reading a novel. One day he went on a walk in Batty Park with Harry Rollo. Things were different.  Even though no pair could be more devoted to virus avoidance –  ‘I’m self-isolate and wipey,’ said Harry. ‘I haven’t seen anybody for six weeks’ – it was mysteriously revealed to both of them at exactly the same time that they are dissidents. Batty Park is Gorky Park. It’s the USSR or the DDR. ‘Not literally of course, but the basic idea is the same,’ Harry says. Confusing instructions: masks don’t work. You must have a mask – well, not exactly, but mask wearers eligible for bonus points. Some mask wearers will be punished, however. Don’t sit on the bench! Why? The bench is taped over. You may not remove the tape. Might it be viral? We’re not saying. But not all benches are taped. What if I’m tired? You may exercise but you may not be tired. Nor may you be in the upper age range to 70 on a walk and suddenly weary, if for instance recovering from major surgery and advised to walk with rests. Exercise is permitted once a day for all those up to 70, however. You may not sit on the grass either. Sitting of all kinds disliked. Might I sit responsibly for a short period? No.

Then there are the upside-down values loved by regimes: Museums are closed, DIY shops open (Art is useless)

It is extremely important that Art is useless.

So that’s it. It’s a regime.

Is it really the only way? I’ve been thinking today: all through February and the early part of March (before the change) I was wipey, hand-wipey, non-kissy and huggy, self-trained for years not to touch mouth, eyes or nose unless hands washed. I didn’t, as far as known, become viral, despite being at function after function in the capital, at the time of maximum risk. Nobody else was bothering much, including Jacob Rees-Mogg who tried to shake my hand on Tuesday 10th March, when infections were ramping up, we now know, in their millions.

Virus appals every Poor Little Rich Gay, here and thoroughout the world. Nothing could more outrage the sense of hygiene, procedures, not being dead, the progress of canapés, functions, performances, outfits for which the Poor Little Rich Gay lives. Nobody could be more against viruses – far too small and just ghastly the way they get about without being asked.

If only it had been left to us to lead the Nation, we’d never have ended up in this state.

On Sunday (Sunday, I ask you!) we’re summoned to the headmaster’s study again for a deeply serious announcement. Or so I hear. I don’t tune in regularly because of strain. He knows we’ll be available. I bet you it will be the dinner hour as last time. 8pm.

We’ll have to see. But they should be warned. As Harry says, you can go on like Shostakovitch for so long but finally it might be necessary to put on a blond wig and defect.

Tuesday 5th May 2020

I’ve swung back up. Don’t ask me why. It’s going to be either herd or disappearance of the thing. By October. You mark my words. Not easy. Pain and risk can’t be avoided. But things are edging in the direction suggested by Professor Johan Giesecke.

Yesterday I took two lettuces and some lovage given me by Merle Barr to Aunt Lavinia who couldn’t get BBC iPlayer to work. That involved dangerous handling of her iPad. Luckily I had hand san with. Then I called on Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver. Laura let me in through the back passage. I sat on their terrace and had coffee and cake. Lockdown crumbling. It was a plum jam cake in Martha Stewart’s recipe.  Incredibly dangerous cup of coffee. Matt Driver appeared, not seen for six weeks except through the window. ‘You’ve got more chance of being killed in a car crash in London at the moment than catching Corona virus,’ he said. I hope he’s right. ‘We’ve had enough of it,’ Laura said. ‘If they don’t do something soon, there won’t be any society left.’ Their neighbour loomed on her balcony above, barely 2 metres away, and said she was going to report them. Well, not in fact. But she’d never appeared on that balcony before in 15 years of being neighbours. Another neighbour was waving maniacally from his home office.

I’d gone there to recover some white cosmos seeds, having over-given my entire supply a week or two ago. Laura didn’t seem to have the idea that seeds have to be sown. Originally she said she wanted something to look forward to. She’d got as far putting some in a cup but it wasn’t looking hopeful for seeds with her generally.  ‘They don’t really suit me,’ she said. ‘I can’t be watching over them. Wretched little things. They don’t grow fast enough.’

So that was that.

I’m still colour-washing the woodwork in my dining room. Thought the window agony was over. But the colour looks wrong. Despite exactly the same colour looking perfectly all right in other parts of the room. How could that be? Did I mention that for 23 years the woodwork in my dining room was glazed with a glaze of raw umber, yellow ochre and the tiniest bit of black, while the floor colour was made from chrome green, ultramarine, raw umber and the tiniest bit of black and Naples yellow?  I’ve lived with that for 23 years. Not matching. It wasn’t planned not to match. Just got like that. In parts the woodwork has flaked and cracked. Not surprisingly after 23 years. So now am trying to match. Why? When one of my regrets in life is going down the matching set path in early life, a path which once embarked upon it’s very difficult to reverse out of. You’re stuck with too many matching sets which inevitably have parts missing. But it’s no use trying to pretend they’re harlequin. Anybody can see through that in a second.

So why not am I trying to make my dining room woodwork match? I should have thought of something quite different.

My Seedlings Such as Laura Malcolm can’t be Doing with

Here the Colour is All right: My Dining Room Woodwork being Repainted

Here It is Too Green