Thursday 23rd March 2017

I was conducted round Dublin by Reggie Cresswell at the highest level. We went to the Caravaggio and Beyond Exhib that I had missed in London and saw once again The Taking of Christ which was found only the other day above the sideboard and grease-splattered in the refectory of an Irish presbytery. I would cross continents in a third class railway carriage to see this great painting, which is violent, sinister and radiant with compassion all at the same time. Other works not by Caravaggio were marvellous and I can’t remember what they were. How can one grasp an exhib if you’re not allowed to take pictures and forget to buy the catalogue? How can you catch a moonbeam in your hand? Reggie said that Mary Magdalene in one picture exactly resembled a sheep in another by the same artist. It wasn’t just the hair, the face also.  Mary Mag was still incredibly holy and contrite. The sheep resemblance in no way detracted. We looked at a temporary exhib of works in the National Gallery of Ireland which is otherwise in restauro. Reggie said he can’t abide poultry in a picture. There were some Irish women artists of the late 19th century of interest and I was pleased to find works by such as Roger Fry whose pictures have been in the possession of family and friends at various times.

After lunch it was Yeats. An exhib of memorabilia in the Bibliotec National of Ireland. Incredibly detailed. Voices boomed out from the wall supposedly reading poems by Yeats but some of them didn’t know where one line ended and another began. Awful massacre. One of the voices appeared to be Seamus’s so who on earth were the others? Reggie was very moved by the exhib all the same and said Ireland was a great home to literature and the arts and writers are still heard years after they are dead. I asked What was wrong with Maud Gonne? Surely Yeats was really hot? But Reggie said his mouth was a big drawback, really rather horrid. Maud Gonne got into history anyway, perhaps more than she would have done if she’d managed to get over Yeats’ mouth. The actual Mrs Yeats never gets much of a look-in, I think because she swayed her husband in the direction of automatic writing. Reggie did say that Yeats was a bit bonkers in many respects (i.e. the automatic writing and moon worship) but still marvellous.

On the way back to the hotel where we were gentlemen,boys or lads, Reggie suddenly saw a tablet to Gerard Manley Hopkins among others on a wall. There was a church. Gerard Manley had been in Ireland, too, you know. It was a Byzantine-style church rather mucked about. The fresco cycle (copies of Raphael) was tremendously lurid as to colour. Reggie read in an old Pevsner later that they were ‘sadly faded’. Well, not any more. Restauro has taken place to the point of destruction. In one picture I’m sure I saw Felicity Kendall depicted. Reggie said, ‘She’s revered here, isn’t she?’

In the evening, Harry and Bertram gave their performance. They didn’t quite blow up the world but came close. Organised banging was the great feature. After the perf we went to a pub where there was nothing to eat. A packet of crisps was handed round below the counter. If caught eating we’d be thrown out apparently. One of the back-up performers who’d actually done the best banging of the lot had sustained injuries from her banging. The only hope of dinner was the Shelburne Hotel were Renaissance Hotels provide an international cuisine round the clock. The maitre d’ was insistent she could remember everything we were ordering in her head then came roaring back beside herself with the hilarity of having forgotten the lot. In the hands of the poor first-day waiter from Eastern Europe, a glass of water cascaded over Mercury Mr Kitten and the other more knowing, whippy queen waiter dripped Sauce mornay all over everything without realising it as he swiped at the crisis.

Yeats’ Mouth. Not Nice, Reggie Said

Church Were Gerard Manley had Been, I think, Imprisoned by the Jesuits

Lovely Restored Fresco Showing Felicity Kendall

Saturday 18th March 2017

I went to Dublin in Ireland with Reggie Cresswell by airplane in a Topman Donegal-type tweed suitlette. I’d never been there before nor to Ireland at all.  Harry Rollo was to give some perfs on the National Irish stage with Bertram Dibantry, the Irish performer who is quite against Ireland in many ways. His performances teeter on the brink of performance and those present often do not know the extent of their own terror.

Ireland is very Irish. I was struck. Most people there are Irish and speak like it. The other surprising thing was the grandeur. I had no idea. The Georgian squares are vast. I had envisaged Bath. The terraces are huge too and built of brick in old pink and other good shades but very plain – Reggie said to notice the colour. He’s been there before and given talks. They’d be uber-modern, so pared down, if they weren’t Georgian. Later on we were to see one of the most derelict interiors in existence.

But there’s been awful ruination. Terrible modern office blocks. And very untidy. They’re casual with their wiring and quite capable of nailing a cable to the back of a Georgian front door with no appearance of having looked to see what they were doing.  Our hotel was in one of the terraces but actually built in 1885. Tremendous push-out in the Irish way – so friendly and anxious we should consume food.  To the head Breakfast lady we were either ‘Gentlemen’, ‘boys’ or ‘lads’, all with that upward Irish song-like lilt which makes words less distinguishable from one another.

The first day we went to Trinity College Dublin and saw The Book of Kells which is tremendously sacred. Huge build-up with explanatory exhibits – history of, contents of, how made, illuminated manuscript technique etc – but when you get to the actual thing, it’s quite small and you can only see one page, of course. A dense mass of dark red decoration, incredibly intricate with clear Byzantine influence. As a product of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ it quite belies the term. Nothing primitive about this exquisite miniature work.

Upstairs was an immense library of dark wood with busts of 18th century people like Pope and Swift. But nothing in Ireland is quite what it seems, as I was to learn. Here was learning and enlightenment with an undertow.

Harry Rollo’s birthday dinner was held in a plush-velvet restaurant with distinguished older waiters such as aren’t seen in England any more. Had ordinary members of the public been nearby, they might have been disappointed that here were 3 or 4 world-class figures merely eating food and drinking champagne like anybody else. Talk was mostly of the forthcoming performance. Harry said if they didn’t start a particular bit perfectly synchronised, catastrophe would ensue and it would be as if wires had sprung loose, writhing and knotting horrifically and could never be put back in place again. In particular Bertram was in agony over his forthcoming perf, even though he had devised it himself. It was fiendish, he said. All Ireland would be watching. But secretly I suspect he both craved and feared revolutionary outrage that could force its way out of his perf at any second.

The Library of Trinity College Dublin with Busts

The Library of Trinity College Dublin – Enlightened but Frightening

Friday 10th March 2017

The Memorial for Eric Vaughan: Wilton’s Music Hall. Lady Plowright was conveyed from Stenning. Robert Nevil saw her but I didn’t. Eddie Sedgwick’s consort, the Labour MP for Whirly and Lorraine, sat next to her. We had Drusilla next to us, who, along with Pamela Harlech, wrote leading works on stain removal in her day. Eric’s life was narrated from the stage by Nickolas Grace with film interludes. I never knew that Eric had been a Bevan Boy. Somehow he progressed to doing windows for Jaeger in Regent Street. Ernestine in the Sunday Times went wild about his windows and he was made. Nicky said the blue-dyed fishnet with real starfish stuck on was very common. Nicky wasn’t there, by the way: the Oscars. But Eric was marvellous: I once met him by chance in Kensington Church Street and he boomed the length of that street about the state of some of the nudists on Brighton nude beach. It was amazing the chandeliers in Mrs Thingy’s chandelier shop didn’t shatter from the unspeakable detail. Eric took Elisabeth Welch, the great Blues singer, under his wing when she began to fail. Hermione Gingold, Judy Garland, Claudette Colbert (the Bahamas, my dear) – they were his world. He decorated a house for Ringo and he loved Shakespeare: Jeremy Irons read from Cymbeline. Phoebe Nichols rendered the Greasy Joan speech from Love’s Labour’s Lost, with marvellous owl sounds. Diana Quick’s contribution was ‘Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day’ (so well-read) and finally Lionel himself heaved up onto the stage to announce that he is nearly 96 and how lucky he and Eric had been and how the occasion would have been perfect for Eric since everybody would be talking about him. But he, when alive, talked to…. how he gave and gave, an unstoppable stream of glorious carry-on, good-natured but outrageous which isn’t easy to bring off. Mikki Sekkers, the silk manufacturer was mentioned at the Memorial but what wasn’t mentioned was his story, re-tweeted (as it were) by Eric, about how the Queen arrived in Bond Street one day in the 60s, self-driven in a Mini and said that the parking wardens around there were something else and everybody should watch out.

It was hard to be sad when Eric made so bold as to lead a charmed gay life years before it was really permitted in the compass of celebrity that lives forever.

Jeremy Irons Pays Tribute to Eric Vaughan

Diana Quick: Superb Reading of ‘Shall I Compare Thee…’

The Greatnesses Leave the Stage: a Celebrity Led Memorial is a Different Thing

Monday 6th March 2017

Events are slipping away, not grasped; fashion crowds in and we must all unite to fight, once again, a dastardly move to make the silhouette ‘soft and draped.’ Did you see the FT on Saturday? I read with horror on the way back from Dublin. Rest assured, I’m moving privately to get it put a stop to. I’m sure Cousin Barley will be able to do something. She’s just taken over one of London’s greatest stores, where Lord Arrowby rarely pays the full price.

Reggie Cresswell and I flew back from Dublin with a world-class performer, who’d performed with Harry Rollo the night before. He said he’s desperate to buy a camper van although death at the hands of his wife might be a drawback.

But I’m getting ahead. At the last PV at the Royal Academy (Aunt Lavinia didn’t want to face the Private Breakfast for the Russian Revolution exhib last Thursday while I was away in Dublin wearing outfits: oh dear! I hope we won’t get knocked off the list) for the American Show, Genevieve Suzy posed before ‘American Gothic’, one of the world’s most famous paintings (not sure why, but it’s v. good) or rather superimposed herself upon the woman in the picture. So it was that the grim old gothic puritan woman was replaced by the Anna Wintour de nos jours. Howard Jacobson was huffy though about the attitude to one of the world’s most famous paintings. ‘I’ve had dinner with him,’ Genevieve screamed as he cut her dead. ‘Several times.’

That night, at the Royal Academy PV, my white Dior scarf sloughed off fluff all over my Topman grey flannel school suitlette (keep the silhouette slim and flattering) and I hadn’t got my clothes brush with me. The next morning for the PV of the Diana frock show at KP (can you imagine the outfit pressure?) my Zara Limited Edition Hussar jacket (with frogging) somehow rubbed off black dye onto the fly of my Topman suede-effect light bone spray-on slacks.

Absolute disaster. I had to hold my Visconti bag over the scene throughout.

I had low outfit satisfaction on both occasions. Barely 6/10.

The Diana frocks are huge. Don’t misunderstand. For some reason we’re used to looking at frocks in museums (mainly belonging to the Queen) that are very small. So the Diana frocks look huge. Kazudout, who made Diana’s iconic late spray-ons, gave notice to me privately that he was to be on Breakfast TV that morning, but none of his pieces are on show yet. There are 19 garments approx: amazing how blasting world coverage commanded by only 19 pieces. The Catherine Walker pink suit had a tiny mark on the breast. The anyway hideous Emanuelle blue coat was falling apart. I raised Val on the phone: he mentioned  the wedding dress, which is not shown, being imprisoned at Althrop. Which is for the best, because he said it resembled a crumpled paper bag.  Helpful labels tell where each item was worn. The occasion for a Catherine Walker blue tube dress, was ‘Shopping in Bond Street, 1997.’

Giant Frock by Catherine Walker for Diana

Awful Coat by the Emanuelles

The Post-Honeymoon Balmoral Tweed Blouson: Not Nice

Catherine Walker worn for Shopping in Bond Street

Catherine Walker Pink Suit

Mark on Catherine Walker Pink Suit

Thursday 2nd March 2017

There just hasn’t been a minute. Eric Vaughan’s memorial at Wilton’s was on Monday. Lady Plowright was in the front row. Diana frocks was last week, preceded by American art at the Royal Academy. Then the Gay Mother took 93 years and lunched on Friday. Robert Nevil continues to abuse Lady Lucy Worsley. Now I’m in Dublin and Reggie Cresswell is complaining that Yeats’ mouth wasn’t up to scratch, although otherwise marvellous.

Come back later for more.

Saturday 25th February 2017

Yesterday was the Gay Mother’s 93rd birthday. She said, ‘What’s this smell of Friar’s Balsam,’ meaning my ‘Monsieur’ by Frederic Malle, one of the highest perfumes in the world.

There was doubt as to whether she would accept her present but mercifully it was liked: a charming Rudi Patterson, the unknown Jamaican artist of great talent, of a church in Jamaica.

So the birthday lunch yesterday made the 4th ‘meal’ (you must never say, ‘meal’). Really I might have to go down the bulimia path if I’m to continue wearing clothes.

I dined with Joshua Baring at The Smoking Goat. Patrick Lockyer was planned but was no show and hasn’t been heard of since. Big worry. We hope he hasn’t run away or been eliminated by the authorities. His links to those wishing to injunct from Barbados could have proved fatal. It seems that quite a few members of the Baring family have eye-trouble. Very worrying. Another is under-going tests for a condition. Joshua himself, he revealed, very nearly failed at the baby stage owing to an infection. The world might never have known him. Can you imagine – all that whirling grandeur and knowledge of the latest in everything – wiped out in infancy? He was saved by novelty anti-biotics and thereafter became infinitely special. He’s to give up Sandringham St Kil, you know. And might be moving to my neighbourhood! So exciting. His brother, Bover, on the other hand, could be in for millions if business plans come off. After The Smoking Goat (very good: no booking. You have to lobby for admittance. It’s what young people do) we retired to Joshua’s club, which is Quo Vadis. The other Jeremy came out from behind the scenes. He used to be at the Blue Print Cafe but now owns Quo.  He’s the boiled-down essence of Gay put-down and quip. Once the Gay Mother and I dined with him at Angus Willis and Fergus’s. Priscilla was the other guest. The Gay Mother didn’t like any of them, unfortunately and refused to speak.

Then followed that tremendous Saturday, with Boisdale in the evening and Rules at lunch. Rufus Pitman presided at Rules; it was almost his birthday. He announced that he’s going to take an MA in Bengali. ‘Can you speak it?’ Conrad asked. ‘Well, I know how to say “small penis”.’ Rufus said that the new flats in London are being bought by middle-ranking Chinese officials who’ve had their fingers in the till or done well with bribery. They can hide their money in London property owned by a ‘shell’ company so they can’t be traced. The new Waitrose at Vauxhall-cum-Battersea (that bit of waste ground between the two where all the flats are being built, as well as the American Embassy) is quite empty, Rufus said, because they don’t even bother to rent the ill-gotten flattis.

On to bank of Boisdale Belgravia in the evening. Beamish O’Halloran writes for their magazine and gets credit with their hospitality instead of money. What a fascinating place! The theme is Scottish and there is a labyrinth of tartan rooms.  Laura Malcolm said, ‘You’re at a het dinner dance,’ when the band struck up. Couples took to jigging. Some of the young men had the most amazing ladies, incredibly lithe and dancing, whereas they were more steady and restrained, of course, as a man should be, wearing suit trousers, and not really au fait with the wilds of frivolity. An almost conga-line of other young men in evening dress, some with tartan trews, passed through the restaurant. Who could they be? A Gay outing seemed an unlikely explanation. Then they came round again, having made a circuit through the labyrinth apparently. Esme Manning, the Heidi hi star, and I were mystified. I wondered if they were employed to make Boisdale look more populated, but that was hardly necessary. Boisdale was well populated with members of the professional classes of all ages who’ve still got their drives and juices, enjoying traditional fare with chef uplift and interludes of jigging on the dance floor.

Boisdale Dishes a Little Resembling a Dog Bowl: Excellent Food

A New Take on ‘Switch on the Logs in the Grate’. Moira McMatron and Beamish O’Halloran’s Fireplace in their Private Home

This Thorn has been in my Thumb for the Last Three Months: At Last Extracted

Monday 20th February 2017

I am burdened by the thought of all the outfits I’m yet to wear. How one longs to be completely finished, like the Queen or Jean Shrimpton, but one never is.

Last week I dined on Oldroyd with Prince Dmitri on Monday, the Smoking Goat with Joshua Baring on Wednesday and Saturday was lunch at Rules with Rufus Pitman, Bruce MacBain and Conrad Matheson followed by dinner at Boisdale with Beamish O’Halloran, the Laird and Lairdess, Esme Manning (from Heidi Hi), Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver. Outfits were called for but exercise, even cycling, also, in order to be able to get into the outfits required for the functions but the cycling element having an impact on the outfits that could be worn. I only had 6/10 outfit satisfaction for Boisdale. A sudden flash gave me my white Zara jacket (had to be bought out from the storage wardrobe for summer clothes).  A heterosexual feel was called for. I was planning to change from the black Zara spray-on jeans to the Balenciaga waxed ones, but at the last minute didn’t. A perfect silver-yellowy grey spray-on slack hovered at the back of the cave (I mean Platonic Ideal) but unfortunately didn’t exist. Nothing like can I find anywhere.

The week before was the double PV evening already mentioned. I wore my Bott Ven suit whose trousers have just been narrowed. Had quite high outfit satisfaction as a result: 8/10. First I was Royston King’s guest at the Royal Academy for the Russian Revolutionary Art Exhib, to which I was recalled later to do a piece to camera for Dainty Lady TV. Essentially art wasn’t allowed in Rev Russia so it’s a bit odd. They had to do propaganda. The PV was packed, my dear, but nobody was there. Royces and the like drew up in the courtyard. I heard a woman advancing from the portico: ‘Good evening, Ambassador,’ she said. The ambass was accompanied by two spiked lady greatnesses. Another woman emerged from a Royce, in a skimpy red dress, feather boa and terrific heels, superbly dieted to the point of near-death but that was her look and it was great. She clucked to the front door for immediate admission but they didn’t seem to know her and she was put in the queue.

Mary Beard was a wheeny bit in the way in the dining hall where a choice of three mini-meals in bowls was offered except that Mary Beard was in the way. I had all three, finally. I think they’ve done something about her hair. It looked expensive rather than a wiry mess. The Gay Mother has had it in for Mary Beard’s hair for ages. Genevieve arrived from the Tate Hockney PV with the Nasreem in tooled Moroccan leather and was dead against our going on to the Robots at the Science Museum. But Royston was insistent. Gays are in charge at the Science Museum and the eats are fantastic, he said. As it turned out , we were thrilled with the Science Museum PV. There was no feeling of cruelty. Frockage, it’s true, did tend a little to pull-on boil-wash but there was  proper PV uplift despite this. We met the Head of Science Museum and I saw him later on TV at Windsor meeting the Queen. We met the man from the Bowes Museum which had lent the Silver Swan automaton that catches a fish when wound up, which it will be once a day. You must go and see it and take your children.

I was charmed by the robots. There was one that could keep you company: it had a screen on its chest that showed the most fearful shaggy dog story. Poor robot was rather a bore. A Japanese one will look after any old people you have who need looking after – apparently. The best was the baby at the entrance who was a dead ringer for a baby. But babies are easier; the Japanese girl robot mostly had her puzzled face on. Two young men in boil-wash pull-on frockage were shouting at her, really getting quite cross and the more they shouted the more she lurched about and repeated her phrase – I suppose that’s like a human. They also got frustrated with another robot that wouldn’t pick up the toothbrush when they told it to. Really these robots can’t do much, poor things.

It’s strange: a lot of endeavour has gone into getting a machine to resemble a human. The point is not quite clear: if you want your old rellies looked after by mechanical means why does the machine have to look and act like a human? But still this great craving for a perfect robot just like a person. What is it? Like the quest for the perfect outfit? Or a perfect state of affairs where robots will be wheezing about our homes doing everything for us and we will be suspended in perfect finished leisure.

The Baby Robot: the Star Attraction at the Science Museum Robot Exhib

The Robot Keeps you Company but it is a Bit of a Bore

Poor Girl Robot was Confused

The Swan Automaton from the Bowes Museum: The Glass Rods Rotate when it’s Wound Up and Look like Water. The Swan catches a fish

This is an Old Robot: Was Show to the Queen’s Father in the 1920s

Wednesday 15th February 2017

Valentine’s Day did not go well for Poor Little Rich Gays, but it wouldn’t, would it?

Meantime, here are some things that happened:

Miss Mina took a break from artwork (her linocut of an American Turkey was the Gay Mother’s star present for Christmas) to have an anaesthetic. ‘They had trouble bringing her round,’ Robert Nevil reported. ‘She’s so tiny, you see. Imagine trying to anaesthetise a mouse.’  Before she was anaesthetised, Miss Mina was one of my bump-into’s at London Art Fair. She was touring the show with her friend and fellow artworker, Mrs Magnus, who flies privately, you know, with a turkey on board, but trussed and oven-ready for the Christmas table at Montreux, not living and magnificent as in Miss Mina’s lino-cut.

Prince Dmitri was returning at 2a.m. from a night out with co-workers at his blue chip. The new lodger opposite in the mews sprang up at a window and invited him in. Well, it’s very intimate in a mews. The Prince said he’d go into his own house first. While he was there, the chap came knocking on the door, he was that keen. He works for Faron Sutaria. Joining the party in the other house, Prince Dmitri was aware that a certain height had been achieved, with assistance. There was another young man there on a phone. The estate agent left the room and came back with no shirt on. He too had a phone. ‘Have you got pussy on speed dial?’ he inquired of the Prince. The gathering lasted for hours, until it was time for the young man to resume his duties at Faron Sutaria. But no pussy appeared.

Last week, Laura Malcolm was recuperating in the Chelsea Public Library, King’s Road. As I’m sure you know the famous registry office is in the same building.  A wedding could be heard getting underway with bagpipe accompaniment but police sirens added another layer of interest. Laura recorded it and the effect was magical. The melancholy wailing of bagpipes and hysterical screaming of sirens going on absolutely at once – what could better depict the married state.

At lunch on Sunday Beamish O’Halloran was fresh from the funeral of Alexander Chancellor and tremendous bickering in the car with his tremendous mate, the great Mail diarist. He recalled a previous Press outing to an important golf hotel in Ireland with this diarist. But Beamish slipped at the ninth hole and muddied his trousers. He only had one pair so he self-washed and hung them out of the window of his room. But this was badly letting down the upmarket golf hotel. At once they were whipped off the window sill by staff while Beamish was in the spa in a dressing gown. Regaining his room, he found his trousers not remotely dry. Thus it was he was squelchy at dinner to say the least.

Saturday 11th February 2017

As you know, I was chronic for Jackie. I’d envisioned acres of frockage with an assassination. Well, it’s a marvellous film but not frock-minded. It will be misunderstood. Indeed has been. When General de Gaulle referred to ‘la gracieuse Madame Kennedy’ in welcoming the First Lady and her husband to Paris, he meant her style. As First Lady she was largely decorative and in her TV tour of the White House, watched by just about every American, almost simpering in her devotion to her husband. But she knew what she was talking about. She knew the history, she knew the facts. When President Kennedy was shot, she was preoccupied with the funeral – she studied the ceremonial accorded to Lincoln. For those few days she was in charge as well as angry. She was nothing like as frothy as appeared.  Nobody knew more about spectacle than she did. She’d married for power, not love, as she told the priest. Kennedy’s death made her more powerful. But also nothing. She is seen dumping her clothes, the clothes that had made her what she was, still on their hangers, into cardboard moving boxes. ‘Every First Lady must be ready to pack her bags,’ she says. What was the Kennedy Presidency? What would it have been had he not been shot? What would it have been without Jackie? The long scenes with the journalist at Hyannis Port, a few weeks after the funeral, are vital, although some say they’re dull.  The culmination is Jackie inventing Camelot and the legend that has persisted ever since, despite everything we know now about the reality. By getting assassinated, President Kennedy became whom he afterwards became. And nothing can ever change that.

So Jackie is incredibly intriguing. And like our own lives, as we re-decorate and wear outifts, all for nothing and everything. Oh yes, philosophical.

Wednesday 8th February 2017

Jackie was awfully good; so was Jonas (despite injury to his vocal chords); so was the Robot PV at the Science Museum; Russian Revolutionary Art at the Royal Academy just a wheensy bit tiresome and, my dear, the crowds. What kind of PV is that exactly? Genevieve Suzy arrived by public bus from the Hockney Opening at the Tate (never before known) accompanied by Mareshi Injit Sen in a waistcoat of antique Spanish tooled leather. The shade was malachite. Lady Bracknell’s Confinement, given at the Women’s Institute hut in Cromer, was exceptionally outstanding as well.

But I’m pushing all that aside for fashion. If anyone enquires after my occupation I say first and foremost it’s wearing clothes. I manage to wear clothes even when all else fails. Shirts must be expensive, although just now my shirts are quiet and purring but have no detail uplift. I saw Gary Barlow on TV in a white shirt with big, black buttons. Where did he get that? I haven’t seen anything with that extra thrill for years. Knits can come from the second rank houses, such as APC, Lindberg, Tiger of Sweden – expensive but affordable; this season I acquired an excellent salmon knit from Sandro (of which more later). As you know, I’ve championed the jackette and the spider trouser for the last ten years. I hope and pray this look never dies. I don’t think it will, it’s so flattering. After all, pleated trousers were new in 1985 but dead by 1996 and never seen since. So ugly. That’s not to say, fashion isn’t the fight against Death, with endless renewal. But you can renew within the same silhouette. I’ve got one Balenciaga black waxed jeans and one APC sand slacks, otherwise all trousers are Topman or Zara with some tiny exceptions. Adorable, throwaway and spray-on. I do a lot of my winter white through slacks. I would buy a high-end slack at Prada (just one pair per season) or wherever, but I never see anything that induces the required state of complete and absolute must-have-ness.  My fav suit is still the Topman grey flannel and the Topman Limited Edition powder blue which maybe I’ll wear at this summer’s dynastic wedding, when my family is united with Frankie-Doreen and Giles Ullerston’s.

My present mania is for frock coats. I got one by accident for the visit to Scotland, because it was all they had in tartan at Topman. The look is so elegant, with the single button and the coat is not removed at the table, which confuses some. Now I’ve got another in dirty oatmeal, bought online from Topman Limited Edition, slashed to £80. A third I’ve had for some years, bought at The Library. It’s a navy, light crepe, a rare house, hugely expensive but reduced, only worn at Glyndebourniana and the Daily Mail Weekend Section Christmas Party, where it really needn’t have bothered.

In a frock coat, you feel frocked as never before.

Now the house of Sandro – except it’s not really a house but a chain of shops which I’d always despised as high street. Until I went down to Covent Garden to buy Christmas presents and they were having a sale so I bought the salmon knit already mentioned and a rust coat. Still v. expensive although reduced, but not £2300 to begin with, like the light Spring coat I tried on at Prada. Sandro is classic, luxury and not too middle-aged. Even so, is one going to buy a suit there for £500 when you can get one at Topman for £180 which is maybe 25% less expensive looking but 40% more nipped in, tiny and spray-on.

All the same, look out for Sandro for occasion wear. Paul Smith I still recommend, although not for suits. The high-end houses have gone off the rails both in price and the ghastliness of what is offered. The Library, once so dependable with a line in less expensive unknown designers, is now entirely devoted to what might be called a middle Viking look, clothes made of mud in unheard of shapes.

The other thing is altering: I’ve had the trousers of the hated Bott Ven suit slimmed down. I wore the result on Tuesday at the Royal Academy PV then on to the Science Museum for Robot PV. How had I never noticed before the jacket of the Bott Ven suit is a jackette? Now I’m having some Prada black slacks (bought at the Prada Factory Shop, Montevarchi) given the same treatment.

Still, I am wracked with guilt at not buying at the absolute height. There’s always the dread that somebody will be muttering, ‘Cheap’ as I go by. Twenty years ago, I would never imagined I’d be prancing in slacks costing £25 from a chain store. Let’s hope this is progress.

New Good Wool Coat in Rust by Sandro – More a Draped Look – Novel for me. I hope Not Dreaded Baggy, Sacky

My Topman Online Buy Reduced Limited Edition Dirty Oatmeal Frock Coat

Have Had a Lot of Success with this Limited Edition Zara Cossack Jacket. Can be Worn at Table and was on Christmas Day with Topman Off-Bone Brushed Cotton Slacks

Prada Spring Collection: Joshua Baring Said Would Wear This to go Hiking, which Since He never Goes Hiking, Means Never

More Horror from Prada: Spring Collection. Thank God Don’t have to Buy

Dreadful Mess: Prada Spring Menswear 2017

Drab Little Coat: We Don’t Want Gingham: In Sloane Street Branch Another Coat, Kitty-Kat colour, Literally Tied with String