Wednesday 10th May 2017

Which is worse – summer or winter? I think summer because of the gardening. Not that gardening doesn’t begin in January or December or November. Does it ever end? But there isn’t the furious roar of Nature growing away to be contended with. I killed myself in the garden before leaving for the Gay Mother’s for Easter. Now it’s all to be done again as I prepare to depart for the May visit. This lack of rain and persistent dust doesn’t help. We’ve lunches Saturday and Sunday so outfits to be planned – not easy when it’s lunch on a farm. Also in summer being more outdoors you are more seen, so clothes can’t be left to look after themselves. Plus there is more travelling. For instance at the next bank holiday I visit Scotland again as last year with The Laird (laminated itinerary cards) and Lairdess, plus Laura Malcolm, Matt Driver, Beamish O’Halloran and Moira McMatron. Luckily I’ve managed to secure a fresh supply of suitable tartan outfits, plus making do with last year’s tartan. Incredible strain of squeezing all this into a walk-on case.

Glyndebourniana, the Buckingham Palace opening, picnics – an agony of packing and detail. One longs for the autumn, then before you know it, it’s Christmas and the caravan of luggage sets out for the Far West days in advance.

Tomorrow Genevieve Suzy and I visit Highclere on Dainty Lady TV business. Apparently we’re to be received exclusively by the Countess. Lunch was offered initially then abolished.

Last Friday I took a Wyndham Lewis Tour climaxing at the Imperial War Museum and lunch in the Orpen Room. Next Thursday is the Queen’s Gallery opening for Canaletto.

But I digress. Here are my tulips for this year. The back garden ones have been preserved by the cold weather; the others were over weeks ago.

The Front Area Tulips: All Meant to be Brown: Brown Sugar, Cairo and Belle Epoque. Well, it wasn’t Belle Epoque but a Glaring Orange Double Tulip

The Top Terrace Tulips: Shirley, Cheers and Spring Green Intended. No Idea What this Pink Thing is

The Back Garden: the Right Tulips: Couleur Cardinal, Arabian Mystery, Bleu Aimable, Abu Hassan (otherwise known as Abu Hamaz). The Gay Mother had Overspill, but Didn’t Like Arabian Mystery. Liked Bleu Aimable, Which isn’t in this Picture. Well, it is not Not Quite Out 

All the Right Tulips: Couleur Cardinal, Abu Hassan, Arabian Mystery and Bleu Aimable: according to catalogue supposed to flower at different times

At Last in this Picture, you can See all Four Tulips

Monday 1st May 2017

For almost a year now a programme of restoration and improvement has been underway at my London home, indicating a very full life or an empty one depending on your point of view.

The guiding principles have been light-touch conservation as practised by the National Trust, a deep mis-trust of anything modern, eBay and online antique buying (driving all over the country to view and acquire), ousting of modern furniture and the feeling always hovering at the back of the mind of Buckingham Palace – which does have some stains as a matter of fact.

Seven new antique pieces have been acquired for the drawing room and the 70s coffee table sold on eBay to a man from Caterham.

A new Gustavan-type chandelier arrived from Germany for the back drawing room, which needed to be oumphed up generally. No, chandelier in the back drawing room for the first 20 years of residence! A gilt mirror is still yearned over over the fireplace there -as the final touch for the time being.

The front drawing room chandelier, damaged in the move here 20 years ago, has finally been repaired. For 20 years it lurched at a drunken angle.

So the drawing room is now a maze of little Directoire and top class French brothel side-tables, plus a trolley with pineapple finials which nobody likes and a gilt cane window seat which only cost £120 on eBay (fetched from Long Crendon, the village lived in by Aunt Lavinia’s mother who always said, ‘Long Crendon was the worst mistake of my life.’ That was in fact all she said latterly) which is the most liked of the new pieces.

A programme of framing a massive back-log of art works that have been sitting in drawers for years has been undertaken, resulting in three lunches with my framer in Kensington Church Street and one more to go – the Madonna del Parto is still with him. The vision of entirely old frames didn’t quite come off, but such old frames as have been bought are a success and the modern ones are what one would expect from Kensington Church Street and have an excellent aura.

Where would one be without one’s framer?

The framing exercise led to a re-hang and the problem of dust-marks and old holes in the walls from the previous picture hooks. Polyfilla, a little bit of Flash and some of the original paint from the tin, dirtied with a tiny bit of Raw Umber, have done wonders.

The home is theatre and not every blemish is noticed.

In the entrance hall I want the effect of massed hanging lights as seen in the chapel of St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Desert. Two chandeliers so far – eBay – and I crave more – a forest.

No time to cover everything now: the new beds, mattresses, hanging shades in the bedrooms re-made by Val, the new curtains in the back bedroom on the 1st floor…

In my bathroom on the 4th floor, a gap left by Miroslav at the floor’s edge – no filler would take. Just split and crumbled away. Finally I applied Unibond to the grout mix. That was lumpy so I cut a lot of it out, putting Polyfilla on top then over-painting with Humbrol model paint bought at an art shop in Shoreditch. It has in fact split again, but best not to look too closely. From a distance the effect is delicious.

Under the radiator in my bedroom, the seagrass had been all but destroyed by the endless upheaving of the plumber. The epic struggle to get that radiator working… In Angus Willis’s Hasting Home Store I saw some great rolls of edged hessian. Just the thing. I bought in September after the Michel Roux Hidden Kitchen lunch and drove myself to cut and fit in time for my Easter departure for the Far West. Having that task hanging over me another minute would have been unbearable. Val edged the cut hessian with his edger and I sprayed carpet adhesive to stick it down. Only some of the glue soaked through and not even talcum power would obliterate it.

Re-Hang on the Stairs: Solves the Problem of Scuffed Paintwork caused by Passers-By. Put Pictures and They Keep Away from the Walls. But Now I’ve Heard of a New Super Washable Emulsion Paint so Must Have the Hall and Stairs Re-Done with That

Paintwork Restored after Re-hang of the Drawing Room

Back Drawing Room Re-Hang: My Boscoe Holders. The Pictures Now on the Stairs Were Here Before (See Previous but One Pic)

My Van Gogh by Rudi Patterson

My Latest Rudi Patterson

The Bathroom Infill Site: At Last as Right as It’s Ever Going to Be after 10 Years of Effort

The Hessian from Angus Willis’s Shop Installed After the Radiator Where the Seagrass Had Been so Endlessly Torn up by the Plumber

Friday 28th April 2017

Monday was Harry Rollo’s great performance. If a bomb had dropped on the performance area such a swathe of vital Poor Little Rich Gays would have been wiped out.  It was so darling, darling before.  Names, names, names. What a garden! `Kernow Hellizon was accompanied by one so close to the Throne he is as good as on it, at least one buttock. There was Reggie Cresswell with Mercy Applause and Lord Arrowby in the reversible mac by Dries – the plain fawn side  for government wear, the paisley for later. Magnus Finn, the hot boy doc, as always, was with. They were charming to Prince Dmitri apparently, sat just in front of them. Rufus Pitman was released from an Austrian clinic for the occasion, substantially reduced in scale, possibly re-grown in a petri dish in fact, with Raj Zoroaster glinting at his side, cooking up naughty left-wing schemes, no doubt. My inner party was Sebastian Archer, looking more and more like God or Tolstoy, Robert Nevil (unspeakable, of course) and Anthony Mottram of Prague. We also had Archie Armitage and Fabien-Boris Claude both gleaming after many Iron Man contests and mountain cycling programmes.

It was all so darling. There was a detectable rustle as we entered the performance area. People always know even if they’ve no idea who we are. I was in the Zara military coat with gold buttons.

What a coincidence! A massive figure was right in our row, the one who booted out the Trustees of one of our greatest Statelies in a blaze of publicity and before that was ragingly entrepreneurial on the national scene and a tremendous intimate and former colleague of Sebastian Archer’s. Incredible that we should all book the same row.

So the performance began. Even by the interval, any cruelty and trouble of the Poor Little Rich Gays had fallen away. Robert Nevil, even, was transported. But the performance was the Poor Little Rich Gay life to perfection: the endless longing to rest at last on the sofa, the complete impossibility of doing so, somehow impelled, yet choosing a higher path. How could breakfast be served anywhere but the dining room? Coffee is never stirred with a teaspoon, only a coffee spoon. Later on there was such a risk of vulgarity but oh, Harry is marvellous. There could have been a religious revelation. There could have been a visit to Lourdes. Healing, resolution, everything making sense – all these horrors are superbly dangled and drawn away from. Nobody is anything definite, so liberating, and the only thing is we must sing our song when called upon to do so. Fail to sing and things will go terribly wrong. A curse will fall upon the Earth and paralysis. But even then there is a chance of going back, finding the place where one failed to sing and the second time round not missing one’s cue. So in the end it’s all worth it although without apparent purpose – the hair, frockage, make-up, flowers, menus and decor, the appearances, the gardening, the words uttered. We must give and give. Only giving up is fatal.

Upstairs, afterwards, at the private after-function, Poor Little Rich Gays have never been more radiant. Lord Arrowby with deep tan and glow rivalled the best lighthouses. Rufus Pitman was telling, how, in the clinic, an inmate had escaped and had a schnitzel. But the massage was her undoing. ‘Whas is zhis?’ the masseur exclaimed. The schnitzel could be detected by expert hands even from without. ‘I’m taking two more performances of the performance,’ Reggie Cresswell announced. I think I, Adrian Edge, will too. Like a fool I missed a vital bit, of such rarity and not because I wasn’t paying attention as usual. Robert Nevil was seen talking to a world-class English tenor whose singing has greatly improved after lessons. Probably Robert Nevil was arranging an evening of English song for a whole row of ladies over 90 in woolly stockings and other ‘art’ hand-woven garments. . ‘I only take 6 minutes for lunch,’ Lord Arrowby confided. ‘I can’t let the Nation down.’ ‘But you’ve done so much for the Nation,’ I said. I could have added that it’s in the National interest that Lord Arrowby has a proper lunch break. Conrad Matheson and I had a superb semi-quaver passage on the subject of mansplaining which is what I claimed to be doing re: the performance in talking to Mina Ermine and Sybil Barnes of Brockwell Park. ‘No, you’re not mansplaining,’ said Conrad, mansplaining. ‘Allow me to mansplain. Mansplaining is a man telling a woman qualified in a certain field all about that field because he knows far more about it of course.’

How happy we were. I called the Uber before it was too late.

Saturday 22nd April 2017

Our Easter personnel have mostly died; no more the Egg Hunt for thousands over our lands in the Far West nor the family lamb lunch with Cousin Smurry and Great Aunt Smidge. Since Great Aunt Smidge was took two years ago, her daughter, Cousin Smurry, is preoccupied with ecclesiastical affairs on Easter Sunday. Don’t mis-understand. It is not that she has acquired religious fervour.

How was it then that the two remaining, myself, Adrian Edge, and the Gay Mother, 93, managed to have three lamb dinners, a seated tea, a gourmet luncheon and come close to the Throne – not to mention the huge carrier of Easter chocs with which the Gay Mother arrived, armed, in the drawing room each evening?

It was the Gay Mother who remembered, not me, that the butcher cut up rough last year when I went in on Easter Saturday and asked for a butterflied lamb leg to do Mary Berry’s butterflied lamb leg with preserved lemon and thyme and even garlic. This in itself a big departure from the traditional roast.  ‘You should have ordered,’ he codgered. So, reminded by the Gay Mother, I telephoned the butcher. Answering machine – joke Far West voice. No email. No Facebook. I leave message. ‘Butterflied Lamb Leg for 2, please.’ No response. I phone again. Same joke Far West voice, not live. But this time the voice phones back and leaves unintelligible message for me, Adrian Edge, but the gist seems to be: leg okay.  So, come Easter Saturday morning, I loom in the butchers. Quite a lot of codgering. I’d left the wrong number to phone back. Well, I hadn’t. Then they slam down gigantic butterflied lamb leg, stretching as far as the eye could see. Request for leg for 2 forgotten or dismissed. £24, please. Didn’t dare to remonstrate.

What a mercy, Cousin Smurry, at the Gourmet Easter Saturday lunch hosted by her at our treasured Michelin star gourmet pub/restaurant, said,  ‘You’ll have to have that leg on Monday.’ How right she was. We had a seated tea for Cousin Monica, you see, on Easter Sunday. Cousin Smurry said, ‘You’ll never be able to manage both – the leg and the tea.’ How right she was, even though it meant casting aside all tradition. Leg and seated tea on Easter Sunday would have killed me, I’m sure, or at least confided me to my room.

For there was the cake drama as well, wasn’t there? Don’t mention how the crystallised violets from Amazon didn’t arrive in time. An Easter Cake is a Vic Sponge with orange juice in it and the icing also made with orange juice studded with crystallised violets. So there was that crisis. The year before last, it was Aunt Lavinia who said, ‘Why not use real violets?’ So I did. But this year there were no real violets. Then it turned out the Gay Mother had thrown away one of her pair of cake tins, so how was a Vic Sponge sandwich to be produced? She had one bigger round tin, so my scheme was to use that and cut the cake in half. But the Gay Mother said, as the single cake was resting on the wrack, ‘That looks like only half a cake. You must make another.’ Quite astonishing from one who a day later handed me back my orange juice glass as she was about to wash it up at the sink saying there was a drop left and I was to finish it. The War. So we ended up with this massive cake and Tesco’s vision of violet decoration.

The seated tea was a success. We had a cloth and a bit of silver out. The Gay Mother produced a trunk of old family photos. She and Cousin Monica pored over them. ‘Look, she hasn’t got any teeth, either,’ they said of various matriarchs.

It was after the seated tea that I came close to the Throne in the private chapel of great landowning family nearby. Camilla has been in that chapel, you know. And the next day the lamb feast took place. The Gay Mother bore it very well, for she dreads too much food. She can’t rest at the thought of it. She’s also furious and won’t speak if the food isn’t good. By great good mercy, she liked all three versions of the lamb leg as were offered up three days in a row. And the gigantic cake was greeted with enthusiasm in the drawing room each tea-time despite a bit of it not being cooked, even though the skewer came out clean.

Nor did she object to the carrier of choc from Paul A Young. I didn’t tell her it cost £65.

So the old order changeth, giving place to new and the rivers flow abundantly evermore but not on the same course as they once did.

Easter Day: the Seated Tea: You Can See the Sunk Bit in the Middle Where it Wasn’t Cooked

The Over-Size Easter Cake, as Ordered by the Gay Mother. Tesco’s Idea of Crystalised Violets

Paul A Young: Gold Easter Bunny, Given to Cousin Monica

Paul A Young Chocs: Odd Idea of a Rabbit

Paul A Young: Easter Chocs. Controversial Rabbit Concept

Extra Finnish Chocs Given by a Grateful Finn

Monday 17th April 2017

I have been exceptionally devout this Easter in the Far West. I attended morning service in the morning and evening service in the evening, the latter in the private chapel of the great nearby family whose wealth was derived from plantations in the Caribbean. In the 19th century, they had St Aubyn do them a fabulous chapel with sumptuous reredos. Members were present and afterwards I exchanged words with the wife who is a grandmother, the other grandmother being Camilla. Camilla has been in that chapel.

That close to the Throne.

But I digress. This Easter I am stuck by the business of the grave clothes. Finding Christ’s tomb empty was one thing, but the grave linens had been beautifully folded. There was no question of a hotel bedroom left anyhow by a careless rich occupant. This careful styling of the cloth is mentioned in more than more gospel. So since earliest times, we learn the importance of fabric and its management. There’s a world of difference between the rumpled horror of an unmade bed and one that has been smoothed and calmed to perfection. The same with cushions. A horrible squashed drawing room in the morning, with cushions not plumped on retiring the night before, is one of the worst sights. Not everyone has a feel for fabric, can learn its different ways, that it must not be forced or tugged and how speed is of the essence. But through Christ’s example, we can learn.

The Gay Mother’s Church Flowers: the Absolute Last of the Narcissus, a White Broom and Leaves of Amelanchier

Saturday 15th April 2017

Merle Barr staged the TV viewing with dinner a week or so ago. Filming was in September and my foot was nearly mangled when that billionaire’s driver moved off before I was properly on board – this was leaving the lunch which had been filmed at Angus Willis’s Home Store Restaurant in Hastings for Michel Roux’s Hidden Kitchens series on Channel 4. As it was, my Prada brown cluck was grazed. Perhaps it was a punishment for thinking that Michel Roux was one of Angus’s former kitchen boys, perhaps on community service.

So at last the whole event re-surfaced as a TV show on Channel 4. So many people saw it, with me Adrian Edge, far too much on view, even seen eating at one point which was awful. We were at chef’s table in Angus’s kitchen area, with white-tile walls – no lighting, no make-up. One looks like previous death warmed up. But I think the camera-crew were interested in my summer scarf neck interest which is something. But why didn’t they re-shoot to get it looking less like a rag?

TV appearances are even worse than being graphed from the point of view of getting it right.

Merle Barr planned dinner, with viewing of the show in her back-parlour. Charlie Hurling attended with Archie Brahams, Charlie with broken arm from ski-ing, so quite unable to move from the sofa. He’s the one that thinks of the worst thing to say and says it. His outfits are tangerine, lime-green – any warning colour really – teamed with checks so loud, the noise-abatement department need to be called. There was a scene when an old friend of his married a famous daughter, whose mother had polaroids taken of her by Andy Warhol before going out in New York – so that they could see how she was looking. You couldn’t tell by just looking at her. This mother arrived at the wedding. Charlie, as usher, said, ‘I will usher you to your seat.’ ‘I’m not going to be seen anywhere with you,’ the famous mother said. Nice. The famous daughter was recently in Hastings and took an exceptionally earthy interest in Angus’s feet, including full massage. She bought from Angus’s Home Store despite the expense which she mentioned.

Angus’s TV show was a triumph. It was obvious that Michel Roux liked Angus’s hidden kitchen more than any of the others. Not even Charlie could think of anything ghastly to say, although they are great rivals, both entrepreneurs and stylists, friends from childhood and at each others’ throats the entire time. The trouble is Angus’s kitchen is not just hidden, it’s non-existent. Not open. Angus said if people phone up wanting to book after watching the TV they’ll just be told to call back later.

Merle did pastry palm-shapes with sun-dried tomato and an Ottolenghi bake. It was superb. But she suffered terribly as the only woman present. None of the talk could have been broadcast which is curious since the occasion was to view Angus being broadcast. But the private talk was disgraceful, either really yucky gay or just a teeny bit misogy.

Sunday 9th April 2017

Val finished the lampshades so I went over. The conical originals had to be re-made. Tremendous technical challenge, involving a launch into the fabric stiffening world. So many people, when I mention these conical shades with stiffened wrap-around paper or fabric (Val couldn’t determine which from forensic examination before de-constructing), say at once, ‘So-and-so made those.’ At least three people and I’m sure they gave the same name each time. I acquired them somehow in the Portobello Road area 25 to 30 years ago. Val’s made a pattern so we can re-make again in another 25 years, he says. Some hope.

Otherwise Val proposed Hacienda Pie. ‘What’s that?’ I said.  Val elaborated at length. It’s a supreme evolution of chilli con carni. The mash topping evokes the cottage pie but the meat section is chilli con carni. Hence the name, ‘Hacienda Pie.’ It turned out that neither of us, not even Val, was exactly certain what a Hacienda is. I think The High Chapparal took place on a Hacienda. That was a TV programme in the 70s. You won’t remember. Even so, I ‘m not sure. Is it an estate? Or a house with a veranda? Or just a Spanish atmosphere word, just to give a Spanish feel?

Otherwise Val’s been watching ‘Taboo’, a TV drama series that was much disliked. It was historical. In fact Val watched one episode then another one some time later.The same inaudible historical figure was still starring at the same bit of dreary coastline. Val turned his clock back on the Friday to get ahead. Officially clock-turning-back was supposed to take place on the Sunday at 1 a.m. Only in the newsagents was there some confusion, with Val being in a different time-zone. He explained that Belfry has got nothing to do with bells. It comes from ‘Belfroi’ in French, meaning a place of safety.

The Original Conical Shade, in Need of Restoration. Bought in the 80s in the Portobello Rd Region

Val’s Restoration of the Conical Shade: Frame Re-Enamelled, and Re-Covered in Stiffened Silk from Soho: Note Bigger Tassle

Tuesday April 4th 2017

To the Far West for the parish hall opening in the parish where our lands and properties abide. The Gay Mother has given up chocs and taramasalata for Lent, but not sherry or wine. Setting out for the parish hall opening, she suddenly took an interest in my outfit. I showed her my brand new naval frock coat from Zara, bought especially. ‘It’s got gold buttons,’ she said. ‘The naval echo is good, considering that’s how we rose up in the 18th century,’ I said. Thank goodness, we weren’t slave owners, unlike some neighbours I could mention, vastly more wealthy.  But evidently the Gay Mother didn’t like the naval echo. I gestured to my suede jacket, over ten years old, cleaned for the first time last year and declared a life piece. ‘That’s better,’ she said. What she didn’t know was that the suede was reduced to £700 over ten years ago and was sent back to Japan, from whence it came,  after an oily salad leaf fell on it in Cafe Rouge Greenwich in about 2008. I’ve always been convinced that what came back from Japan was a new one.

The Zara naval frock coat was only £119.

So there it was. I was in suede with Topman spray-on breeches in the exact off-white shade of the old naval breeches. We were seated especially in the church by Cousin Smurry, next to the lady for whom Waterloo is still a living hell since her ancestor was a general there. She’s got a lot of Fabergé. It turned out she’d only recently been released from hospital hence was struggling to remain conscious. I didn’t like any of the hymns, but the Gay Mother did. The highlight was when the Bishop mentioned the tablets on the walls of the church commemorating the ‘great families of the neighbourhood.’ Yes, indeed. A silver trowel from our family vaults, used by Aunt Nan in 1883 to lay the foundation stone of the Vicarage, was re-deployed to poke cement round the commemorative stone set into the new Parish Hall. Then we all poured into the new building for tremendous sandwiches and buffet with parish ladies flying, handing and replenishing before finally at sinks.

Our Parish Church in the Far West: Here Our Lives have Begun and Ended, with Weddings for Some In Between

The Very Font Were I, Adrian Edge, Was Christened

Wednesday 29th March 2017

Boarding the aircraft for London, I said to Reggie Cresswell, ‘I think Harry would keep “British Airways”, were he to become ruler, but would add ‘Imperial.’ In Ireland we devoted time to the interesting question of how Harry Rollo would rule. ‘It would be very unfair,’ Reggie said. But unbelievably dazzling. The Soirées at Court, the diamonds, the quality, the great vistas of Majesty. Those without, of deficient standard, would not suffer. Harry would have a kindly word every now and again and receive adoration, of course. In the event of a riot, a really good bread and cheese supper would be laid on at trestle tables in the park but nothing would halt the swish of Greatnesses passing over parquet.

The other thing I forgot was Reggie’s bidding. Every spare moment he was scrolling through. Online auction catalogues, you know. Bids were placed in Germany and possibly in Sussex. It turned out that Reggie is familiar with many unlikely neighbourhoods, owing to his having bid at auctions in them. West Norwood, for instance, where Rosebery’s is. Also extremely près to the former residence of Val in Thornlaw Road. The station there Val re-named West Norwood International, having once seen the Orient Express passing through it. ‘West Norwood International,’ Val would declaim in his West Norwood days, ‘with connections to Moscow, Constantinople, Samarkand and beyond…’

Anyway, Reggie was seeking art: perhaps an 18th century oil (quite small) of two fighting men or other Old Masters of distinction by good but lesser known artists. I urge you to take up art. Your efforts have a better chance of arousing interest at auction in a few hundred years time than some old bit of writing.

Saturday 25th March 2017

We left Dublin after 3 very happy days but probably not leaving it in a better state than we found it – at least as far as flexes trailing everywhere was concerned.

One got the hang of Irish tablets on the wall, public inscriptions, and memorial tablets. In one north Dublin street somebody had gone to the lengths of erecting a plaque which said, ‘Once this Street had the Elegance and Grace of Paris but then the Poles arrived ‘ – words to that effect, dated about 1840. In St Patrick’s Cathedral Swift’s memorial stone speaks, in Latin, of his ‘savage indignation’ and another tablet has such strings of adjectives re: the departed one, you get the distinct feeling of someone or something else being got at.

We visited the studio of Bertram Dibantry’s partner, Oisin MacNamara, whose exquisite steel rolls for the portals of an important Irish museum were knocked off by a delivery truck. That was the end of them.  The studio was in an abandoned Georgian terrace house. Could a place be more derelict and draped with flexes and cables caked with old paint? Oisin pointed out that the O’Connors opposite had done a lot of restoration of their house but they’d left out one thing. On closer inspection it emerged that the building had no roof.

At the Hugh Lane Gallery I dozed agreeably in front of a huge picture of a carriage accident caused by snow. I can’t remember whom it is by. Someone very well known. They’ve also got Les Parapluies by Renoir there and that v. famous picture by Manet of a woman artist painting while wearing a very good frock. You must know them. I had no idea they were in the Hugh Lane Gallery. They’ve also got Francis Bacon’s studio, uprooted from Kensington and re-installed there exactly as it was. He was Irish too, you know, in origin. There’s no end to it – the Irish creatives. The studio is a living death, a Hell of untidiness, dirt, items buried alive, abandonment, a brutal and deliberate horror, a smashing-up of what a room should be. He was perfectly charming when interviewed on TV by the likes of Melvyn but was a masochist and keen on dodgy semi-criminal boyfriends. The paintings are horrible but can’t be ignored.

For the final evening, Harry gave his own Death piece assisted by a world-class performer who was riveting. Performing the Death piece was for him itself dicing with Death so hard is the piece. This time he survived. Harry’s Death piece is incredibly great although I am yet to grasp it fully. For most of the time it is the terror and unrelentingness of Death but something happens at the end – I’m not sure what because on the face of it, what could happen? But something does. Death is a fantastic drama and where would we be without it?

On the plane going back we encountered the performer who had diced with Death. He was going on for further perfs in Stuggart or somewhere of other works. But in the meantime he was trying to buy a camper van although foolhardy, he admitted, and had had trouble with airport security on account of the rocks he was carrying from Spain which he wanted to use to write something on some other rocks in Wales. I think that was it.

Swift’s Mem Tablet in St Patrick’s Cathedral

Another Tablet in St Patrick’s: No Hope of any Further Bards, then?

The O’Connors Have Done Much Restoration Except for One Thing – Too Boring, I suppose

Inside the Georgian Studio House: Did you Ever Seen such Dereliction?

This is a Painting by Mary Swanzy in the Hugh Lane Gallery. Reggie Said Mary Swanzy Imp

This is a Picture of Mary Swanzy by the Other Significant Woman Artist of Early 20th Century Ireland – Or it Could be the Other Way Round

Francis Bacon’s Horror Studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin