Saturday 10th February 2018

I’ve grown ill with decor. The detail and struggle. Last week I had not to touch a drop to get through. Decorators in the front bedroom, creating havoc, deliberately smearing filler, then the electrician updating the sockets and light switches to period pieces, then a former Romanian orphan painting the stairs – he got quite good once I had donned painting clothes and carried out a demonstration of sanding down myself.

Now I’m mending carpets, touching up the work on the stairs where the Romanian former orphan pressed too hard with his roller. Also when the sun shone, some bits of roller fluff were revealed as embedded in the wall. I hate the sun shining in the home, especially in winter. It’s catastrophic. I’ve got to fiddle specially mixed paint colour around the newly-installed period light switches to disguise bare patches and minor damage caused by the change of switches.

Will it ever end? The only real leap forward was finding frames for three of Cousin Teddy’s paintings, one of which was made by the same firm in New York as made the frame for the Leonardo that was recently sold. But Cousin Teddy’s paintings are not quite Leonardo. They fitted perfectly into these frames though – no cutting down required. Next week I hope to collect from Lacey Gallery, Westbourne Grove, then go on to lunch with my framer for new frames, which I rarely have. I don’t like new frames.

Otherwise there are the usual 500 or so tasks to be carried out in the home. Not to mention gardening, which must start now.

At the celebration lunch for contributors to Dainty Lady TV, Genevieve Suzy hid my handbag. When I came to my place where I’d left it it wasn’t there. I shrieked before all the Greatnesses assembled – a TV star so great she was ‘done’ by French and Saunders in their TV Christmas special, the other who Gays with Eddie Mair on the PM prog, the great double editor himself, a household name, who almost went to prison. ‘How are you?’ someone enquired. Glum pause: ‘I’m over 8o.’ There was much talk of sexual harrassment and wrong, the vogue topic. The TV star said, ‘All the men I know are terribly worried. ‘ There was some puzzlement. ‘I don’t know any men who aren’t predatory,’ she added by way of explanation.

Sunday 3rd February 2018

Ronnie Ronnie – an important early Gay, he blazed a trial for others to follow. The Blitz Club, Marilyn, the mid 70s. Nobody had ever seen Gays like that before, singing and being Gay with fearless abandon. It was totally new then and almost all the rest of the world was against it. No Gays, thank you. Filth.

But Ronnie Ronnie was glamour and music and sound at the Blitz Club. Recently he turned 60. And now he’s come back. At Pizza Express, King’s Road, Ronnie Ronnie rose again. Young Buck was in the front row, filming. He is the one who said ‘Sex is just skin.’ The opening song described the older lady, battling on with frock, face, hair and eyebrows. She has no choice. She must. Well, quite.

The agony but never giving in. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Ronnie Ronnie called from behind the curtain at the very start. Were we just to continue with our pizzas (or in my case, a Chicken Nicoise), songless? But Ronnie Ronnie burst forth. His timing is superb, as is his feeling for costume and lighting. And the rapport with the audience. This is deep camp. Dazzling and clever. Not merely a performance.  Shards of pain dare to intrude, are glared at with a hard steely glare. It would be trite to say, ‘The show goes on.’ It’s more than that.

Some say the artiste should retire gracefully, that a comeback is a mistake. What nobody sees is that they are different and often better – like Renee as the Marschallin, more poignant now with her own advancing years. No, no, Ronnie Ronnie is in his prime. Now is his time.

Everybody was there. Robert Nevil in Indian country garb, Eddie Sedgwick who has recently moved to Gay Central at the Elephant, Marmion Beaufleasance, fresh from the lower rungs of the Throne and Her recent ‘interview’ on TV, Trevelyan Poldark as well, from the Radio, a friend of Anthony Mottram who was at Prep with Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clockmender, whose mother was at uni with the mother of  Tinkly Skipworth (present at Pizza Express, King’s Road). He played the piano for Ronnie Ronnie years ago. And, of course, Bruce MacBain, my private architect, who knows them all and lived with the celebrity ballet dancer in the flat now occupied by Marcus on weekdays in Covent Garden (proximate for The House). What a web of Poor Little Rich Gays over the years!

Ronnie Ronnie: the Act One Costume: the Hair, of course, isn’t Natural: it’s Winter Mink

Ronnie Ronnie: the Act Two Outfit

Tuesday 30th January 2018

Just incredible: ‘Thank you for lending the pictures,’ Royston said to Lady Sarah. Who was momentarily non-plussed then lit up with full Royal graciousness just like her Aunt. The Throne was that close. Lady Helen was there also, in a good tweed coat, approaching Lady Sarah, as cousins, by surprise from behind.

Of course, Royston was to attend the higher Opening later in the week – but if this one was good enough for Lady Sarah and Lady Helen and Grayson Perry (who had a new Marge Proops look, by the way). It was good enough also for Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, who suddenly conceived the whole exhib while walking with the President in Shropshire (this time the Queen consented to lend her pictures). Also for a former Royal Academy head who was just a little miffed the exhib wasn’t his. ‘We did Van Dyck,’ he said crossly. He had to sit down.

We had some other sensational people coups. But would you believe it, we actually looked at the pictures. We were there for over 3 hours – looking at the pictures. With the result that we missed the dumbed-down cauliflower florets for dipping in the Members Room and no wine.

One is much preoccupied, looking at these pictures, with Charles 1. His art collection is about 50 percent pictures of himself. He looks the same when painted by different artists, so it’s a fair assumption that’s what he looked like. He doesn’t look very nice nor very impressive really – a difficult petulant jaw. The air of a small man with a shoulder chip. You can see now how he became what he afterwards became – i.e. without a head. Yet these are great paintings. It’s the same with Velasquez of which there is one – a perfectly extraordinary portrait of the Spanish king. But why didn’t they get flatterers in to depict them as gorgeous? Why didn’t they have Norman Parkinson? How did they know they had to seen as they were if they wanted to be in great art? One idea is Charles was too vain to notice. But I don’t believe it. How did he know he had to have Van Dyck and Rubens?

The other thing is there’s only one work by an English artist. Royston explained that there had been no English art since the Reformation. It was all destroyed. Charles 1 brought the European Renaissance to England and paved the way for Gainsborough, Reynolds etc in the next century. So Charles’s Titians are back from the Prada and the Louvre. All his riveting small portraits by Holbein and Durer of Renaissance/Reformation men – intense, intent, austere but humane. Odd choices for a king who clung on sulkily to the outdated notion of the Divine Right of Kings.

Speaking of which, we met the Svengali of Jeremy Corbyn. Yes, at school with Royston. That’s how it works, the British Establishment. Not the later Committees and Trusteeships, but school and uni. ‘I’m not with you on all you’re doing,’ Royston told him. Understatement of the century. ‘I suppose you think the Queen’s pictures should be nationalised.’ The Svengali re-assured: ‘Abolishing the Monarchy is not a priority.’ Not a Priority! I ask you. Hardly reassuring when you think about it. On the other hand, they’ll be sucked in. He didn’t seem to know anybody at the PV. But why was he there at all? At such a privileged event? With Royal pictures? Hoping to know people presum … and rise up.

The Head of the Garden Museum was divine as always. He’d brought a godson with him who acquired Grayson Perry’s signature. What about the Head of the V&A? Royston arranged for the Head of the Garden Museum and the Head of the V&A to lunch. ‘Can’t you come back and save our Nation?’ I begged the Head of the V&A, who used to be in politics. Generally he was a bit worried and seemed terribly young to me but still inspired confidence. He showed the burden of power as well as the glory which is true leadership.

Royston made a point of addressing the other black people present: one was a TV producer but the others were mostly room attendants stood in the doorways. One was from Jamaica, like Royston, but they didn’t discuss picnic spots. ‘It’s all English,’ the Jamaican room attendant proclaimed triumphantly of the exhib. Which it wasn’t really but one knew what he meant.

Charles 1 on Horseback by Van Dyck

Charles 1 on Horseback: Which do you Prefer?

Spanish King by Velasquez: So Bizarre and Bare

My Fav Room: the Small, Fine Portraits

One of the Small, Fine Portraits

This is a King: I’ve Forgotten Whom By

Divine Holbein

Royston Liked This the Best: the Oldest Item in the Exhib from Classical Times

The Crouching Venus

Van Dyck Self-Portrait Royston Saved for the Nation

Charles 11, as He Later Became

Exquisite

Titian The Last Supper

Titian: A Victory

Grayson Perry: The Clucks

Sunday 28th January 2018

Laura Malcolm announced a fish themed dinner for New Year. But Matt Driver was not to make the fish-shaped fish salad as he did last year and the year before. He is only motivated by large numbers apparently. So no fish-shaped fish mould salad (an 80s recipe: incredibly decorative) this year. Mincing the shrimps for the shrimp butter, just a touch of soot was incorporated, Laura having previously stoked the fire. We shrieked and LOL-ed though because it’s so fashionable. The poor Multis once took me to a restaurant in an old toilet-block by Tower Bridge where the idea of the tasting menu was cooking with coal oil, tar, crude oil extracts and bitter wayside gourds, with a grating of Pears soap. £290 each, thank you very much.

What a menu it was for Norman New Year though: pink and red fish nibbles in the drawing room pre, oysters, prawns and exclusive, only-found-in-France cockle type of things,  sea bass au shrimp beurre avec cendre (the main), green salad with ‘enhanced cheeseboard’ and no dessert. One was spoken of, but remained a Platonic ideal at the back of the cave in the face of the unassailable reality of the Cruisings’ six boxes of Tesco’s special selection selection of chocs.

Things didn’t go well in the drawing room after the feast: in fact Percival Cruising abandoned Linky Linky altogether owing to bad behaviour and total breakdown of buzzer discipline. Those buzzers with their twisty never-ending flexes were being coiled back into their bag sharpish, I can tell you. We weren’t fit to buzz. Up Down was the only hope: Miss Elizabeth was writhing owing to lack of married love. Then her poetic husband had the idea of getting his publisher to carry out his marital duties on his behalf. Miss Elizabeth was remarkably acquiescent in this scheme but it wasn’t until our New Year’s Day epi that she rocked up in Eaton Place and announced in the drawing room that the marriage hadn’t been consummated. Lady Margery reeled in disbelief and Mr Bellamy sent for the lawyer at once. A grotesque scene ensued in which Lady Margery and Mr B waited in the drawing room while the doctor examined Miss Elizabeth upstairs. There was much build-up to this event, with Rose even saying downstairs that she’d got to ‘get Miss Elizabeth ready for the doctor.’ What on earth would that involve? The seconds ticked by, it grew unbearable the suspense. Finally the doctor appeared in the drawing room and announced that Miss E was pregnant. We must resume this Up Down story line next time.

On New Year’s Day afternoon we had The Music’s Sound. That stain by the door handle of Maria’s bedroom still there. Still not cleaned off. But the mu in The Music’s Sound – it is enchanting, despite everything, such as Julie Andrews’ awful acting and frocks. We totted up how many of the Van Trapp children now are dead – the actors playing them, I mean.

So Normandy was over for another year. The Triumph of the Seas set forth for the Euro tunnel at 10 a.m the next day. Its wound had been rusting quietly in the lashing rain all the while. I didn’t mention, did I, the tragedy? The Triumph of the Seas was nicked on the rear hub by a Hopper – or one of the London bus types – shortly before Christmas. It can be repaired, of course, but Percival is going to scrap her. A repaired machine, no longer intact, with body parts replaced, isn’t the same.

The other thing was: Percival got v. cross if one suggested that he lives in Lower Norwood and as for West Norwood, where Val once resided and planned tremendous double doors into the drawing room – unspeakable. I don’t think even Upper Norwood would do.  So I don’t know how to describe his neighbourhood.

The Fish-based Pre Nibbles for New Year’s Eve Dinner in Normandy

The New Year’s Eve Seafood Course: So Light and Tripping

The Shrimp Butter au Cendre for the Sea Bass (the Main for New Year’s Eve in Normandy)

The Triumph of the Waves in Her Poor Wounded State: She’s for the Scrap-Year Unfort

Tuesday 23rd January 2018

When we got back to the Norman Fastness Chateau Fragment from the Paris train, the Cruisings had already arrived. In fact we drove round the circulation of the arrival town several times, possibly in the wrong direction, trying to gain entrance to the Supermart. It could be seen but not reached through the tangle of French traffic systems. Finally we were in and plunged straight into a menu crisis.  No sole! Laura didn’t break down or scream. Incredible.  She forked 67 euros for a sea-bass instead.

The Cruisings’ vehicle, The Triumph of the Waves, was parked outside the Fastness, recalling the time Matt Driver reversed into one of their previous models (The Wonder of the Waves, as I recall) many years ago but never forgotten by Percival Cruising who can’t recover from a damaged car.  So all the more agonising the present fate of The Triumph of the Waves. You won’t believe it.

The Triumph of the Waves didn’t move sadly for the entire three days of the Norman retreat. All that happened was that Percival Cruising sat in it (or her) for smoking. At other times he smoked out of the window and that might have been when he showed his pants. A Boeuf Bourguignon was served the first night. Laura Malcolm had cut out 8 hours of ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ carry-on (much loved by Val) and achieved precisely the same result. Then we hurled straight into arm chairs for the 1st epi but not before Sidney Cruising had showered a Tesco Special Selection Choc Selection over the company. There were six boxes in a carrier bag in the corner. Miss Elizabeth was now married and installed at Greenwich. The only trouble was her poet-husband was too refined for intimacy. In fact he got very fancy and superior at the merest hint of it and wanted to go on holiday with the dodgy manservant. Miss Elizabeth tried motoring and nearly ran over a lot of unimportant people in a park. But it didn’t help. Still she wanted to be married. She terribly blew up when she heard Rose and the new manservant flirting in the kitchen, but later sobbed in the bedroom. Rose was most dignified and merely said, ‘When would you like me to leave?’ Of course she was secure in the knowledge that she could always go ‘back to Southwold’ where all over-spill from the show, whether upstairs or downstairs, were assured of secure retirement grazing apparently. But Miss Elizabeth didn’t want her to leave really. Rose was all she had to cling onto, if the truth be told.

My thing in Normandy was to be like Rose, therefore vac-ing and dusting the drawing room and dining room before the family were down. But Percival Cruising said it was a fetish. Kelm and Ivy were never down, at least not before lunch.

It wasn’t until the next day that Up Down took such a sensational turn, with Lady Margery and Mr Bellamy actually waiting in the drawing room while the doctor attended Miss Elizabeth upstairs. I just couldn’t believe it for 70s TV, or indeed TV in any era. On New Year’s Day afternoon, of course, we had the Music’s Sound – I was waiting to see if anyone had got round to cleaning that paintwork round the door handle in Maria’s bedroom since last year.

Percival Cruising Smoking out of the Window. But did He Show his Pants?

Thursday 18th January 2018

In a mad rush: must outfit for London Art Fayre followed by Ulysses’s Return at the Roundhouse. Outfit not even formed in my mind.

And have huge vat of marmalade to pot: not even sure it’s set.

Last week was ill: appeared to be blank for January and indeed rest of life, but engagements have been pouring in. I wonder if I’ll live to see this house properly renovated. Though have managed to polish all the silver and wet-wipe the chandeliers throughout. But, as I always say, if one had 8 full-time employees, the surface of the work to be done in the home would only just be scratched.

The main thing is I’ve achieved my goals outside the home for 2018 already: 1) get into Hamilton, the musical: well, Frankie-Doreen came up trumps with a sudden ticket 2) gain access to Charles 1 PV at the Royal Academy: Royston King came up trumps there but says I must be properly dressed, looking like a rich person who will give them money and they will carry on inviting him as one who brings in such. Needless to say there’s a better PV later on, possibly with Prince Charles. The cards for that have a gilt edge.

I’m feeling very blessed (Yuck! Gush!). No, it’s simply that, somehow, whenever I have determined that something will happen, it does.

But going back to New Year, I passed through Paris on the way to Normandy, not driving but riding in a train this time. The idea was to have lunch with Mme Macron in the interval between Eurostar and local train to Norm. I was so preoccupied with this that the Dior Exhib at the Grand Palais quite passed me by. Drat, drat, drat. Hadn’t even heard of it. Genevieve Suzy pointed out tartly: ‘We covered it on Dainty Lady. Weren’t you paying attention?’

Can you imagine? Was actually in Paris and never saw the Dior. Fabulous apparently. Frocks as far as the eye could see as will never be seen again all in one place.

Mme Mac said it was a bit chilly for lunch as she only ever wears a macintosh dress with zips and short sleeves. She doesn’t engage with a Winter look at all. Instead I had to make do with another French greatness (see graph below).

Mme Macron: Too Chilly for Lunch in Winter

My Luggage Ready for Disembarkation at Normandy

My View of Paris En Passant

My Paris Leg and Foot

Strange Organic Lunch in Paris: Couldn’t Understand the Lengthy Label

Tuesday 16th January 2018

I was plunged straight back in to London life with a private visit on the day of my return from the Far West after Christmas. 28th December it was. This visit was so private we were the only people there. The rooms were in darkness when we entered. Gradually they lit up, and the works could be seen. For centuries they’ve existed and been seen. But after the hours of daylight though and with nobody else present, not even a VIP tour with guide, just 4 in the party, Anthony Mottram, Vadim, me, Adrian Edge and the Artist Trustee – well, it was quite a different thing. Did they ever expect, in their glaring fame, ever to be seen like this? So private, so after hours. More real. More frail. One lunge and one could have scratched the Piero, smashed the Arnofini Marriage. One felt so responsible, being alone with these works. You could see their workings somehow, how they are attached to the wall with banal brackets, their frames, how they are physical objects like any other that might be taken off the wall, laid flat and worked on. The thick impasto of the milling public or even of those gathering at a private fund-raising breakfast was stripped away. No strangers present of any kind, just friends viewing privately. So the pictures too became private in a strange way.

Our Artist Trustee was magnificent too. His commentary on Piero’s Bap of Christ was thrilling – what a radical painting it is. Not realistic at all. The reflection of the mountain in the River Jordan, in any case a stylised stream – well, in real life it wouldn’t reflect like that. It’s the picture that requires a reflection just as it also requires the figures to have radiant white flesh such as would never be seen in a living person because most likely they’d be dead if they were that pale.

I recommended a different background hanging for the central apex. Really that brown-red damask is not sympathetic to paintings. But the AT said it was awfully expensive to replace. He spoke about restoration and pictures that were mucked about with in the past. There’s a Tintoret that’s had a big expanse of floor added in much later, after flood damage; also a Giorgione now called ‘St George and the Dragon’ but originally there was no St George and the Dragon. The Victorians added them in, presumably mystified by the lack of subject matter otherwise- just two men sitting on a bench. But what to do now? This is how people think the pictures look. It’s no good going back. Pure restoration is near impossible: the AT thinks that the sky in the Titian of Ariadne and Bacchus which was controversially restored in the 60s (came back bright blue) looks like a mono print of the period. So they liked it like that. Titian’s Ariadne and Bacchus has now got an authentic 1960s element. It’s all right really. Part of the history of the pic.

What do we see when we look at  pic?

We were in the gallery for 3 hours at least and afterwards dined at Zedel. The AT treated us. Unbelievable.

Friday 5th January 2018

Well, here we are – 2018. 100 years since the end of the 1st World War coming up. Robert Nevil has announced that today is 12th Night. I’m in a flat-spin because it’s always been 6th January in my world. I’ve never heard of 5th January being 12th Night. The thing it’s bad luck to take cards etc down before 12th Night and just as much bad luck to leave them up after – so what to do? I feel as if I’m suspended from the ceiling. I actually put all my cards back up today after cleaning – before hearing this news.

Anyway – one important thing I forgot to mention from Lord Arrowby’s father’s funeral.  Lady Veronica Sealyham-Stanway, married into one of the leading political families of our Nation – her coat. Rufus Pitman admired her coat on exit from the church. There was also a good white fur hat, but it was the coat that drew us in. You can’t cover everything.,especially when there’s so much.  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s been extended, you see.’ First of all it was extended downwards, then cuffs were added and finally pockets. She explained it all in some detail. The extensions were marked by bands of crimson braid over the crushed raspberry wool, giving striking drama to the coat. This must be what separates Greatnesses from ordinary people – they have their coats extended.

Christmas in the Far West was most satisfactory. The outfits went according to plan. I wore the Tartan frock coat by Topman for Morning Service and the Zara crushed green velvet jacket in the evening at Cousin Smurry’s. Our pre-Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve was really good although neither the Gay Mother nor I could be bothered to get the candlesticks out. The bird was moist. 1hr 20 mins in the Aga. The Gay Mother did the bread sauce and the sprout preparation work. We had the little sausages and Oh the heaven of  vacuum-packed chestnuts! They’ve made Christmas possible really. It was no different from doing a normal bird dinner – just the little sausages and the chestnut exterior stuffing for Christmas uplift.

There was nearly a drama though. Why is Christmas so fraught with peril? On 23rd I broke the toilet handle of the upstairs toilet. We were facing Christmas having to pull up the wire handle in the cistern by hand and cistern lid off throughout. Can you imagine? Then I had the brain wave of B&Q. Open on Christmas Eve, this year a Sunday, of course. So toilet order was restored.

But others were not so lucky. I had word on 2nd January that an acquaintance had dropped dead on New Year’s Day then immediately word came that Francis Petworth, the mentor of Reggie Cresswell and great taste-shaper of our age, had died aged 93 on 28th. Also that architectural historian with whom I dined in November – he was taken.  Is it the pre-Christmas run-up that kills them? Now I discover that another Poor Little Rich Gay – his mother was subject to emergency open heart surgery on Christmas Eve while visiting her son from abroad in London. Thankfully is recovering well. But no bird joy in that home, you can be sure.

Christmas Font Flowers in the Far West

Christmas Flowers at Church in the Far West

Monday 25th December 2017

Christmas is everything that Poor Little Rich Gays are not: babies, family life and the shops closed. I’ve been thinking often of the infant Christ this year. A baby is somehow an inert thing, not filled with the promise of what it will become but suspended in a state of temporary perfection. A baby needs to buck up, acquire some conversation and some outfits as well as some complication. The Baby Jesus wasn’t a baby at all really, nor was he poor and lowly but down from Heaven for a short stay. Heaven, we understand, is like a country estate, its halls lined with lapis and presumably an incredible level of service.

Even so Poor Little Rich Gays might contemplate the Nativity. As Bruce McBain said the other day as we toured Prague, if every building were a great building it would be unbearable. So, with the Poor Little Rich Gays: if cap a pe in Prada night and day, always rich and great and in command, they would be insufferable. They would turn into the Earls Court Gays, with their bleached teeth, personal trainers and eternally spotless white jeans accompanied by not very nice attitudes. No fun, no lapses allowed, a lot of sneering, loathing of the Poor etc.

No, Poor Little Rich Gays, here and throughout the world, Jesus, who was rich and all for our sake became poor, who lived on Earth without even a capsule collection but eventually ascended to Heaven, from whence he had come, Jesus, the way he mixed rich and poor was an example to us all.

Sunday 24th December 2017

The run-up to Christmas. Always a difficult time for a Poor Little Rich Gay. Fear of missing out, not getting enough, marginalisation. Outfit pressure. This year no Dainty Lady events, no low-lit evening Press reception at Kensington Palace with Lady Lucy Worsley. But somehow I faced it and gifts poured down. And two pre-Christmas funerals this year, instead of the usual one.

Bruce McBain and I took Follies as our Christmas pantomime treat: the best thing was Josephine Barstow. She sang ‘Never look back’. Her entire deportment throughout was superb. And her marvellous piled up silver coiffure.My least favourite was Imelda. Not sure why. I don’t really like her singing. They made the best stab yet at getting Follies to add up. But oh the numbers! We won’t see a production again in our time – it’s so little done.

Rufus and Raj arranged a luncheon at Baltic. It was a great success: Harry Rollo and Mercury Mr Kitten were going on to Bananarama at the Hammersmith Palais. Everyone’s roaring over Rufus’s latest production. It’s got a child in it called Tresco (a boy) and a baby called Trevor (a girl). Trevor is felt to be the most menacing of the lot.  The big thing at Mercury Mr Kitten’s supper later that week was injecting the horseradish cream into the soup from actual syringes acquired in a night-club. Don’t ask. Mr K’s got a whole other life at night it’s very hard to grasp. If you think Mercury Mr Kitten is an unusual name, you should try some of the others, all their real names, of course.

I took one honorary Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, but there’s still that sense of having heard those lessons more than once in the Christmas warm-up. The selection of carols gets worse and worse. No Berlioz Shepherds’ Lament, no ‘He who was rich beyond all splendour.’ Why doesn’t someone tell the authorities there are other songs beside ‘O Come all ye Faithful’, ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ ‘Away in a Manager’ and ‘O Little Town of Beth’?

If I had my way these would never be used again.

The ballet this year was Cinderella by Matthew Bourne. Needless to say, no Ugly Sisters, no Prince Charming. Instead it was about the bombing of the Cafe de Paris in the War. Thank you very much, Matthew Bourne. At the ballet I often think it would be so much easier if they stopped dancing, started talking and got on with it. It’s maddening the way they don’t speak. Ed Jasper, the bedlinen expert, was so upset he had to retire to his own bedlinen when he got home, despite 30 guests for post-theatre collation. Incredible champagne and comfort. There was a rumour circulating that another Gay not actually of the party had had a kitchen in the front row at the ballet.

The next day I hurtled by train to the Far West in an official capacity as Landed Gentry for a memorial service. But nobody seemed to know who I was. Cousin Smurry had an almighty battle to even get seats reserved for myself and the Gay Mother in the church. ‘She was a Miss Smollyhan, you know, ‘Cousin Smurry barked at the interfering woman who tried to remove from the pew the piece of paper I’d put with ‘please save’ written on it. As it turned out we could have sat in the Gay Granny’s old pew after all. Didn’t like to because near the front. In Granny’s day nobody else ever sat there, except on one occasion when Mrs Lumox stormed it at evensong (Granny not there) and Mrs Hooper said, ‘Is tradition to count for nothing?’   I wore the red Sandro coat and the Topman weekend check suit as worn at the Ivy and condemned by Matt Driver as ‘cheap-looking’.  Afterwards in the parish hall, a man asked, ‘How is Lavinia?’ I explained about her new dog and opera lessons, but he meant the other Lavinia, the one whose ancestors, as well as herself in conversation at least, were at Waterloo at a very high level indeed. The man obviously thought all the landed families know about each other. But I didn’t know about the other Lavinia. Terrible journey back. Train jammed at Reading. Freezing cold in 1st Class. Had to go round by Waterloo. Not home before midnight.

Sunday was the family party, Monday I lunched at Dishoom with Miss Mulholland, dined with Aunt Lavinia and Cousin Lavinia. Tuesday I dined with Aunt Lavinia, Cousin Lavinia and Cousin Barley. Wednesday was poor Lord Arrowby’s father’s funeral at Wimbledon. I felt I didn’t pay enough attention to Redmond O’Connor’s outfit which was excellent. I was so preoccupied with my own. He was mending his mac in the train. It turned out he’d got a whole suite of clothes from a fashion designer friend of his. He can sew also as well as do conceptual art. Going up the road in our funeral clothes, Rufus, Redmond and myself, Burna suddenly said, ‘You know what we look like. We look like Mormons.’ She helped me to brush my outfit at the last opportunity and said, ‘You always look immaculate’ and I failed even to say ‘Thank you.’ I consume compliments and attention like a vampire. But it’s also worry. Redmond, by the way, is the one who told me where to buy sockettes back in the summer. At Uniqlo.

The church was packed. There was a lot of good fur. Lord Arrowby’s father had a stroke in 2001 and after that couldn’t speak. But his glow was stronger than ever and people were drawn to him and to the family in their outstanding fortitude.  Lord Arrowby himself gave the tribute and it was superbly measured and paced. Everyone was riveted. Before his stroke Lord Arrowby’s father had been an administrator in Africa and then had worked for the security services. Absolute backbone. A Nation depends on people like this and evidently the entire Arrowby family are the same. Highly able but not attention-seeking. Never complaining. No hysteria. Absolutely reliable. Essentially good. Afterwards in the parish hall, I said to Lord Arrowby’s mother: ‘I didn’t know your husband but now I feel I do.’ ‘Oh, he was very nice,’ she said. Then she said, ‘I intend to speak to everyone here,’ and set off to that purpose.

In the evening, in a different outfit, Topman in fact, cap a ped, except for footwear, I rendez-ed with Joshua Baring in a dark alley behind the Bethnal Green Road where he is to take up residence. A charming mews has been acquired and of course massive refurbishment will ensue. I pushed for different radiators and replacement windows and doors out. It will be very Parisian, with roof terrace. There is an unbelievable Bethnal Green Muscle Gym on the corner. I saw some enormous men going in. We thought of joining and peered through the window but didn’t join. Needless to say, Joshua has homed straight in on the latest artisanal restaurant nearby (you know: menu says, ‘Rocket with Belstead’ and ‘Belstead’ turns out to be a rare sheep cheese). He and Patrick Lockyer are entertaining some incredibly attractive younger men at the moment. He showed me pictures on Insta. But Joshua’s possibly has no sense of humour and might not like being teased re: eating normally in the Lebanon and has he been to the gym afterwards to work off the calories? We marvelled at the shops in the Bethnal Green Road after dinner. The things humans think of!

The final London engagement was Frankie-Doreen and Giles’s Xmas drinks on Friday with community singing around the piano. Frankie-Doreen arranged the 12 days of Christmas for different groups but some people singing the 4th verse weren’t published authors and it was the same story with verse 7 which was supposed to be only those who’d been on Radio 4 which I have several times – but never asked back. I was meant to have Verse 12 all to myself and gave it everything – but somebody else was singing.

Lighting in 1st Class on GWR. In Virgin you Get Lamps

Good Fur at Lord Arrowby’s Father’s Funeral

I Banged my Head a Few Times Against this Ledge in Parish Hall at Lord Arrowby’s Father’s Funeral

Joshua Baring’s New Alley

Bethnal Green Road: Carpet Shop

Carpet Shop in Bethnal Green Road