Tuesday 26th January 2016

Actually, I’m out of London with the Gay Mother but had I been in residence I’ve have been at the Royal Academy PV for the Monet/Manet Garden Show. The Royal Academy PVs are just about the highest imaginable. I went to the one for Hockney, if you remember, and everyone was there. What’s more, The Real Marigold Hotel is being shown on TV tonight (but I shan’t be watching: no need): two of the celebrities involved are intense intimates of Bruce McBain and one known to Frankie-Doreen. What’s more, last night I went to see The Big Short with Merle Barr and the Lords of Hastings and who should we bump into but Marmion Beaufleasance! So close to the Throne! ‘Give my best wishes to the Queen,’ I said on parting.

But back to Stockholm, where I was last week. We saw a huge ship which is the mega attraction of Stockholm, but, as you know, creamy grey, gilt and glass were our real craving – or mine at least. Also my hat – ‘What is that thing on your head?’ Prince Dmitri said. I began to wonder: Would not fur be preferable to dead dog nylon? The ship was huge and very old. There’s no other like it in the world. All the other wooden ships of the 17th century and older failed to survive. This one sank within 2 hours of launching on 10th August 1626 in the brackish waters off Stockholm. It was the brackishness what saved it. In the 1950s, Vasa was dragged up again and reassembled for viewing in the present museum – a huge, dark thing, towering above, with the stern a great tower of carving. Originally it would have been garishly painted: but now a sort of monster come back from the Past. As the only one left, somehow not meant to be, louring, frightening really.

On the way back we loved the sunset. The world that far North goes briefly into violent shadow against brooding blue and orange before darkness. Then a fur hat shop loomed. Unlike Gustavian (those rooms I made the Prince hover beneath once again), the fur hat shop was as if mounted on rail tracks coming towards us as we wished. I would have taken the mink one, but the rabbit was a better fit. PM also took rabbit. So we left the shop fully furred. In the evening we were at the Opera: Figaro’s Marriage. The Opera incredibly egalitarian: hardly any fur, all the men in grey flannel slacks and jumpers, dog-earred. At the end, no limos, no chauffeurs, no even any taxis.  The next day was to be Drotters and Gustavian was within reach.

Swedish Meatball Lunch, just like at Ikea: the Prince had Pizza

The Vasa: Incredibly Huge and Old

The Vasa: Ghost from the Past

The Vasa: Carved Stern

The Vasa: Great Hulk: What Strength of Beams

The Opera House: Not Gustavian: 19th Century: V. Ornate

Stockholm Opera House: Heavy but Fab

Curious Stockholm Buildings

Stockholm’s Streets: Glorious Light

Stockholm’s Grand Heart: the Opera House

Thursday 21st January 2016

We set out in minus 15 next morning. One advantage was that at last I could wear such pieces as my Topman tweed suitlette. But my hat … just a little rat-like, from River Island, in Russian style with ear-flaps. Stockholm was revealed in daylight – enchanting, flung over a number of islands in low gracious swathes, like a silk scarf loose on a table, although the individual buildings often v. palatial. We sought the Gustavian … that’s a kind of decor much mentioned in Interiors magazine years ago championed by Gustavus 111 in the late 18th century. It’s Louis Seize furniture but painted a gorgeous creamy grey – must be just right – a bit of gilt and glass and lovely wallpapers in azure or more grey with light semi-transparent white patterns. The whole effect is so Swedish. Imagine the modern Scand look but 18th century, so pared down but tempting, indeed edible. Online I heard of some 1st floor rooms of pure Gustavian, but impossible of access. What could be better? We went and stood outside them. There wasn’t even a door bell. No chance of bellowing into the wall: ‘I’m from Dainty Lady TV! Your whole future depends on you admitting me.’The hotel man had suggested some other Gustavian possibilities although I don’t think he really knew what it was despite the hotel being Gustavian supposedly. So we wrenched away from the inaccessible rooms and came out beneath the Royal palace. There it was, all laid out on different islands, the essentials of a civilised life – a Royal Palace, an Opera House , a Grand Hotel, a Parliament building, a couple of weird-looking spiky churches and a Royal Academy of the Arts. We worked round – much of the water was thrillingly frozen – to another island where there was supposed to be Gustavian. But when we got there – finger tips beginning to go despite Harrods gloves with cashmere lining … well, what exactly did the scrawled biro ring on the map refer to? Was it that church which looked as if it had been taken back into the community for craft activities? We rested in a modern museum then walked round the back to the ferry. Delicious buildings, possibility former barracks. Just low blocks in ocre and those Swedish windows that open out (not sash) painted an excellent dull green. Just so simple and gracious and Swedish. The light also – clear and forgiving. Now we were hoping for the Vasa, which Val had told me about. Somehow he seems to have been to Stockholm. The Vasa is a 17th century warship, the only one of its kind preserved in the world. But after the ferry, there was a sign which said ‘Abba Museum’. Prince Dmitri said it had been recommended to him. We must go. PD, as you know, loves music and is mad for vinyl. I assumed he likes Abba. A lot of people do. They were a huge pop group in the 1980s with hit after hit. Catchy tunes were their speciality, all very bright and rinsed. The Abba Museum would surely be riveting. In the first room was a car and a map then in the second they won the Eurovision Song Contest in about 1976. The winning song was called ‘Waterloo’. They could see them actually singing it in the contest and then compare their costumes on the screen with those in the glass case. Ann-Finn (I think that’s the name) had a skirt made out of scarves apparently. I couldn’t make out why the song was called ‘Waterloo’ which was the most awful massacre. But I don’t think it had anything to do with the battle. It is a deliriously happy song, with ‘Waterloo’ repeated as a word in a rapturous way at regular intervals. Then came Agnetha’s sewing room. It appeared that she did all the costumes. The fascinating thing was that she had a Husque Varna sewing machine. I never knew they did sewing machines, I thought only curious miniature see-thru dishwashers to go on the counter. Aunt Lavinia had one and the Gay Mother threatened to get one as well but never did mercifully. At this point Prince Dmitri approached and said, ‘This is dreadful.’ I was shocked. I had assumed he was a fan. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘these fabrics are a bit tacky and those dungarees… and Benny’s hair or maybe it’s Bjorn … that physique would never do nowadays.. so weedy… ‘ ‘Their music’s awful,’ Prince Dmitri said. We progressed to a room full of actual costumes they’d worn. Breathless. With success one of the men had got more and more spray-on below the waist while more and more flouncy above. Gleaming white early Lycra, blue blouses – but the mu is surely terribly rousing, like hymns, and such a beat, so uplifting… There were karaoke opportunities in the Abba Museum but I thought better of it. It was getting to be more and more time for lunch. Somehow there was an emptiness. Not just this great heap of dated show-biz tat. But the mu itself – so plastic and easy. And no sense of the human beings from which it spewed. It was really terribly depressing.

These Lovely Swedish Buildings: So Swedish. See the Heavenly Light

More of These Building: Simple but not Provincial

The Ferry Stop for the Abba Museum

This is Agnetha

Not Quite Sure Who These People Are But Like Their Look 

Their Eurovision Cossies

Abba Footwear!

Mock-Up of Swedish Island Home where Numbers were Composed – Sacred

Agnetha’s Cardy

Agnetha’s Husquevarna

Dungarees!

Clogs! We all Had Them Then

Helicopter from One of the Covers

Abba Waxwork: Their Fully-Developed Fame’s Height Look

Waxwork of Benny or Maybe Bjorn

So Gorgeous and Such a Good Fit

Bjorn in the Frock

Another Great Look: Note the Fit of the Dungarees

Tuesday 19th January 2016

Prince Dmitri was lodged at the Grand, doing some ghastly work for one of the Blue Chips. ‘Don’t ever be an Alpha Male,’ he said. We couldn’t stay at the Grand because of its association, for the Prince, with the ghastly work. Almost I didn’t go: so far, so north, so cold, so expensive. At the moment I’m plunged into money woe because of the Inland Revenue are very conspicuously not having a January sale and 31st January is pay-up-day. Stockholm is minus 15, Prince Dmitri warned. In the end, like a fool, I went. Why, there might never be another chance and I’ve always wanted to see it. So I took Club on air miles – and ascended to the level of the Multis. Prince Dmitri was derisive: ‘Is it because of who you are?’ ‘Why, yes,’ I said. He doesn’t even get Club from the Blue Chip outfit. Cod and mushy peas were offered in Club but no cheese and biscuits. At some point a notion entered my mind, but I was distracted by the view below of snow with patches of enchanted illumination – little towns and villages, I suppose, full of snow. What a world! The Frozen North. So the actual arrival in minus 15. Nobody much about; a glimpse of palaces, Swedish baroque, immediately identifiable, I’m not sure why, ocre hues, low-lying, an air of mystery and fairy-tale. The hotel was down an alley, Gustavian (oh yes! Gustavian) but really Ikea. Not the best but never mind. I had to beg them to get the window shut that wouldn’t shut. The radiators were luke-warm. The Diplomat was our other possible hotel,where Dmitri had stayed before, years ago. There was a danger we’d spend the 3 days hanging around outside it, yearning. The Prince and I ventured out in minus 15. It was dry and still and the pavements are passable because of diligent sweeping and the ice so hard and gritted it wasn’t slippery. After 20 minutes even a Harrods glove can’t stop the fingers from burning though. We had reindeer in a freezing cellar then retired. Stockholm was beginning to take shape. Gustavian, you see. It had been looming all day.  The decor of the late 18th century from Sweden. Ikea did a range in the 1980s. Val was too late and could only get the brown chairs which he was always going to strip down and turn the true Gustavian pale, pale grey. Gustavian, Gustavian….. I’d come to the sacred land of Gustavian….

The View from Club Class

The Frozen North, Seen from the Air

Gustavian Hotel Room: Not the Absolute Best

Wednesday 13th January 2016

Going back to France and the Norman New Year: we were very oyster and prawn at St Vaast la Hogue. Also very deli in smart shop there crammed with coiffed greatnesses showing ruthless aisle cruelty. I don’t think I banged my head on a fancy low shelf because actually pushed but I can’t be sure. We toyed also with Antiques Brocante which was the whole raison d’être of France in the 1980s. You remember all those prie-dieu Val acquired – along with Mariolatric items and electrioleers?

On New Year’s Day we took a walk along a bare stretch of beach to view a ruined German gun emplacement. In the distance was the 3rd tallest lighthouse in the world, La Phare de Gatteville. We could never reach it, only yearn, as in ‘To the Lighthouse’ by V. Woolf. Somehow, looking back only 13 days into the New Year, I hope this scenery is not a sign of what is to come – crashing commodity prices, oil down to $10 a barrel, markets ruined, portfolios reduced to a speck. What is to be done? We’re back to 2008 when in Tobago we sat in that drawing room there and watched markets crashing. Can it be as bad again? Will China crash?

Anyway, back at the Manoir Desmesne, we inspected Frankie-Doreen’s private tractor in its shed. Walking in the village, we saw a novel use of old bikes as planters. Indoors I made a break-through in styling the day-beds. Frankie-Doreen has a series of three-sided day beds in iron for night-use. Very comfortable but hard to style in the day-time because of the three-sides. I had the brain-wave of folding the duvet in half for a much neater effect. Some time later Laura Malcolm sat on the day-bed and squashed the whole thing. I fetched Frankie-Doreen to view the spectacle of Laura ruinously sprawled over the day-bed in the day-time. Oh, how we roared! Laura and I had been wondering about her son, Kelm, who is to be in Peru on his own for a month. I’d been looking at flights to Lima with a view to joining him for company – but it was 36 hours with stop-overs. ‘No-one wants to go there,’ Matt Driver said. Her other son, Ivo, was in the Manoir Desmesne condemning swelling and bloating. ‘It’s just when you’re feeling full,’ he withered. ‘What do you expect if you eat anything?’ This was troubling to say the least and then Laura said you need two different types of salt minimum, one for cooking and a ‘fleur de sel’ for salads.

My Boot with New Year’s Eve Celeriac Puree

I Ran Out of Grey Socks, so Emergency Washed and Dried. Only Remaining Sock was Black which was Wrong Colour

The German Gun Emplacement Viewed on New Year’s Day

The New Year’s Day Walk: In the Distance, the 3rd Tallest Lighthouse in the World: We Could Not Reach It

It Looks Like a Bike Casually Parked…?

No, It’s a Floral Opportunity!

Tuesday 12th January 2016

Robert Nevil WhatsApp-ed but I’d already heard. Ronnie Ronnie, Eddie Sedgewick, Angus Willis and Fergus Strachan – for them it was bad. Ronnie Ronnie, growing up in Reading with the now famous window-dresser and columnist, subsumed David Bowie almost completely.  He was David Bowie. David Bowie was a life-saver in 70s Reading. Ronnie Ronnie and the window dresser flew up and away. They went to London and had hair and make-up and filmy almost frocks. Later of course they met David Bowie and found him charming and modest. Apparently he wasn’t sure how his own name should be pronounced. He wasn’t very sure who he was but that was more of a plus point. He was kind of floaty and amorphous. Of course I can sing some of his tunes but I don’t know their names. There’s one where Ground Control are trying to get through. Another is awfully well-known – a charming not exactly sentimental song. Attempts were made yesterday to play it on cathedral organs up and down the country.

Last night I was bidden to the Warehouse for a duck supper (cooked by Angus Willis, world food figure) before we took Eight Hateful Men by Quentin Tarantino – which was incredibly epic and important, by the way. I wasn’t bored once, but Angus was. Angus was in mourning for David Bowie and his own teenage years. ‘You’re not a real fan,’ he snapped at Fergus. ‘If you were, you’d know all the albums. You’re just a jonnie-come-lately…. you only took up with David Bowie last week…’ Angus sounded this theme all the way to the cinema, even after the duck dinner with baked beetroot and greens. Angus sawed up the duck whole with a bread knife (top tip for you direct from a world figure in food). Of course Charlie Hurling and Archie Brahms – their love was forged in a crucible of David Bowie mu. But for Anthony Mottram and myself at Barrowborough from 1970 – well, we didn’t take pop music. Unfortunately we had no need of David Bowie, although his whispy ethereal mu filtered through. In the case of me, Adrian Edge, I was already fully formed as one who would do as he pleased – although in agony – from the earliest years. The Gay Parents could do nothing with me. There was the terrible incident when New Zealand lamb and not English was served one Easter with the result that I was lodged on the swing in the garden throughout the luncheon. As for Anthony Mottram, at prep he lit on Herman Hesse as the greatest author and Stravinsky was his composer. We were already self-marked out as not as others. So David Bowie passed us by, sadly, although his passing now is strange and sad, one can see, and he was a thoroughly good thing.

3rd January 2016

Eight Norman courses launched the New Year at Giles Ullerston and Frankie-Doreen’s Norman manoir desmesne. Laura Malcolm arrived from her Norman chateau fragment with a celeriac, leek, turnip and potato puree, traces of which turned up over subsequent days all over the desmesne. Cooks swarmed in the kitchen. It could have been lethal. Percival Cruising arrived from London in a large black Mercedes with various bits of wiring and a travelling organ. Sidney Cruising had Havana coconut creams for the second dessert but Percival carried them in from the vehicle upside down. Mercifully no tragedy. Percival then sat in a chair. He is not known in the kitchen. Central was Matt Driver’s construction of the fish course. He cooks every ten years. His once-a-decade dish was a massively ambitious fish shape moulded from Russian salad and actual white fish flakes, coated in mayo, with cucumber slices for scales, carrot fins and a pea eye. Giles said they’d got a whole book of Cooking with Jello of which Matt’s Fish Shape reminded him. Percival got out of his chair when the fish shape was finished in order to subject it to glaring silence.

So it was that many cooks honed all eight courses and the dinner was underway. Oysters and prawns were brought by the only outside guests who were also the sole actual Norman residents although not Norman but in one case from Iowa, but with some fingers missing owing to a misfortune with a motor mower. Possibly he came over as a boy or baby with the invasion force in ’44 and was then involved in candle-making. The table was riotous with joy already and lifted yet higher by the arrival of Matt’s Shape. But I was deep with Sidney Cruising, explaining Poor Little Rich Gay life. ‘It sounds horrible,’ she exclaimed over the Baroque curls of connection in every direction that I had demonstrated, the cruelty, the brilliance, the blood-stained bickering, the raging humanity and wholeness. ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘it’s normal for Gays.’ Well, Frankie-Doreen had done a palette cleansing tomato soup with gin in it. Another great wonder was that even at this early stage the dinner was running late so no danger of longeurs until midnight. We were under pressure to get through in time. Slight oven tension arose over the côte de boeuf: cooks in frocks and outfits were seen flitting to the kitchen, determined to get it out or keep it in. Sidney and I enquired about Iowa and in fact the whole history of the man from Iowa which was never completed. Then the côte arrived and was a miracle – so elegant and succulent, with the exquisite mousseline of celeriac, potato, turnip and leek – a pure white fairy presence on the plate. Next Sidney demonstrated her cheeses: she’d been at La Fromagerie, Marylebone branch: the bog-aged pecorino, a washed Ashton-under-Lyme. Then the jellied fruits in sloe gin, the cherry aspect England-picked. Then the coconut Havana creams with Martinique rum which bolted Laura Malcolm across the room. Joy flew up in the air. It’s just food, you say. What about conversation? It flew away too but was ever such a menu whirled out of nowhere without agony? Did Poor Little Rich Gays ever before unite to such festal glory of menu yet light and sparkling? Finally, finally, as the gin-soaked English cherries were reincarnated at the table with a chocolate coating, Percival Cruising left the room. He returned with wires and the portable organ. ‘I’ve got buzzers,’ he growled. His eyes are coal-black, like Jonny Depp. It was a knife-edge of terror and fun, like The Pirates of the Caribbean. First of all there was to be singing: all nine million rounds of ‘Green Grow the Rushes Oh’ and ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, Percival driving us forward with his portable organ which must also be pumped as it is played. ‘Ah-ha!’ Percival bellowed,’ Ah-ha, ah-ha,’ as he plunged for another verse, with additional overtones of Dick Turpin. At last, at last it was the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Guests were sinking back but Percival was aloft: ‘I’ve got buzzers,’ he snarled. ‘We’re going to have a quiz.’ Buzzers! To create the full as-seen-on-TV effect. Wiring up was simple enough but it was nearly 40 minutes before contestants were even beginning to buzz as required. ‘You may think you’ve very clever, Laura Malcolm, but you’re not,’ Percival glared. Laura continued to fail to buzz. ‘Blankety Blank’ was my only answer to any question until I had the brain-wave of ‘Les Dawson,’ neither ever right. Finally nobody was declared the winner but I continued to buzz, feeling ignored, until Percival switched me off at source. ‘We must sing a song of Iowa,’ he announced, turning to the gentleman from Iowa. But there was no song of Iowa and it was time for the revels to dissolve. ‘What an extraordinary evening,’ the only Norman resident lady said as she gathered up her oyster equipment for reuse on another occasion.

The Norman Table Laid for the New Years’ Eve Banquet

Photo in Jacques Pepin Book:Idealised form of Matt Driver’s Fish Shape

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape under Construction

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape: Mayo Coating On

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape Takes Shape

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape: Final Glory

Saturday 2nd January 2016

Happy New Year to you all, Poor Little Rich Gays, here and throughout the World. The central image of my Norman New Year (I gained Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver’s chateau fragment on Tuesday then forged on to Giles Ullerston and Frankie-Doreen’s Manoir Desmesne the next day) has been the long table laid for 12 min, only momentarily still, at once the scene of riotious assembly. Laura flung out a dinner for 14 on Tuesday evening. ‘If you’re late, the canapés have gone,’ she said to the late guests. Her menu was superb: Nigella’s poulet au fennel and orange followed by her Lemon Curd Pav. ‘I’ll never get Lemon Curd in Norm,’ Matt Driver had said. But she had.

Ivo Driver turned up in quite a few designer clothes for the journey out to Norm from London in the Official Car with Xenon driving lights. Thankfully its tyres didn’t burst (a worry after banging the front left twice in the far, far West on Christmas Day). Nor did it assume ‘limp mode’ again as portentously it did when travelling to the Mine opening in September. The worry is greater with a young person on board – the humiliation. But there’s the return journey yet to be accomplished. Anything could happen. Ivo is now a prize-winning young man, likely to be mega. He’s going into the EU. Naturally at the other end of life there is bitterness. We’ve had our chance. Ivo wants to see the gap between rich and poor narrowed but is open to reason.  We’ve mentioned this matter before, you may remember. Anthony Mottram of Prague briefed me that misleading statistics have been put about concerning this gap which is comforting although one doesn’t want people to be low-paid of course. Nor does one want anybody to be richer than one.

So the huge fête got underway. It was important to bring out the young people. The Flank-Rollers had brought their children, Roscoe and Rosacae. Roscoe received a birthday card from David Cameron, I learned, and campaigned on his behalf in the recent election, receiving abuse in certain quarters. Rosacae you will recall from the summer, when she made a quail egg holder in wood with a hollow for the celery salt. She was head-in-book at the table. ‘You’re 13, I hear,’ I said. ‘Are you terribly difficult?’ Well, she wasn’t in fact, just awfully bored by 8 hours studying ‘Pike’ by Ted Hughes at her school. I suggested that Ted Hughes had rather had his day. How much is there to say about nasty animals? Finally she flew free enough to ask the difference between Grinder and Scruff, a subject on which I was able to enlighten her having been briefed by younger friends, such as Joshua Baring and Patrick Lockyer. We got out Grinder and viewed the offerings. Matt and Laura couldn’t believe that there could be Gays just behind their hedge. There was an idea that Rosacae might join Grinder as the only girl looking for a boy. Roscoe’s girlfriend, Zinnia, is lodged in Bournemouth studying animation but the heating is always breaking down in the shared flat.  The ‘lead-tenant’ says she has informed the landlord but she hasn’t. They go for days and days. Now she suggests that they club together to buy a new boiler – for a rented flat. I had a sudden flash: ‘She’s got Münchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy – she’s harming you through caring for you.’

Sunday 27th December 2015

This year I am much preoccupied with the Three Wise Men. As you know, Christmas is a troubling time for Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the World because of the humble stable and the simple baby. At Christmas we are supposed to reduce our souls to the bare essentials and pour forth love. What room for a moisturiser fridge in such a scheme? And love? That can be exhausting. Only yesterday Val was having the most frightful time folding his whipped egg-white into his egg custard for the plombiere aux fruits! No little onions for his Boeuf Bourguignon either, not even for ready money. He was thinking of renaming it a daube or even a stew. But against all odds, Val’s Christmas message was heartening: ‘World Peace, my darling and remember: Live, just live!’

Our Vicar had an intriguing Christmas story of how homeless Carol Singers pitched up in Chester Square and knocked on a door with a policeman outside. Ma Thatcher herself issued forth with many banknotes. ‘Can I join in?’ she asked. ‘Can I choose the carol?’ She wanted ‘Oh Little Town of Bethlehem’ and got it. Denis emerged and arm-in-arm with the homeless, one of whom was a former miner, they sang on the Belgravia pavement.

So at Christmas we know that some come down. The Three Wise Men came down. Mrs Thatcher came down. Greatnesses come down and bathe in humility at Christmas. The Three Wise Men paid court at the stable and gave their expensive gifts. However is there not another point of view?  What if the Wise Men had never come? Would not the overall brown colour scheme of the stable have grown oppressive? Would some smelly shepherds have been sufficient to launch the Baby Jesus? Might it not be that the Wise Men lent prestige? Surely this was the turning-point? The descent of Royalty to the stable bucked up the whole scenario no end. It’s doubtful that we’d remember the Baby Jesus today had they not shown up.

Thursday 24th December 2015

We are quiet and meditative far, far in the West, away from the Capital, before the great moment. Thursday 17th was The Sleeping Beauty as by Matthew Bourne. Lack of a dull moment leapt out and swept me away. It didn’t seem as so much waving about of arms but quite a good battle between Good and Evil with charming mis en scene (late Tsarist Russia, always a favourite), 1st class costumes and ravishing mu, of course. Just give this familiar ballet some shape and purpose, rather than a boring series of set-pieces with minimum narrative as in the original version, and you’re away. What a brilliant, sumptuous Christmas spectacle! Afterwards at Ed Jasper’s: a pop star was present from the 80s (can’t remember who) and a massive from the Mail. Ed is building in Greece and bearing up very well in the circs of killing strain. Ed suffers terribly.

After maiding and Christmas laundry, Saturday was back-to-back: a family party followed by Arabella von Gardendoor’s charming collection: Iran was the main theme; exiles were present; an uncle (but not like an uncle in many necklaces and unique black garments in a mousselene fabric) was dead against Islam. He said you need only be 5% Islamic and you’re a fanatic. He hadn’t been out for days and always has to wear a hat. Another Iranian lady had thought of marrying the uncle years ago. ‘Good thing you didn’t,’ I said. She said Definitely yes. He doesn’t sit still for five minutes but is very creative. The previous boiling hot son of Arabella’s first husband arrived and made two important revelations: the first was that his girlfriend would be arriving shortly from a bottomless brunch. I’ll leave you to find out what a bottomless brunch is. It’s not quite what you might think. Second was the Mr Porter sample sale: only the select few can get in and it’s not online, it’s near Regent Street. Boiling Hot’s jumper was Junya Watanabe reduced from £900 to £90. It was orange, brown, and chestnut horizontal stripes with a touch of puce if I recall. A stand-out piece. Old Etonians (knew people I know) and clerics were also at the party.

I should also mention that, riding on the coat-tails of Genevieve Suzy, I have once again shaped the Nation’s Christmas in the Daily Mail last Saturday. Robert Nevil incandescent.

So on Sunday was the boarding for Hastings for the revered Christmas opening of the Angus Willis Tudor House, among other things. This is undoubtedly the most important new English interior since the War. I was conveyed by Lord Suzy, husband of Genevieve Suzy. We took panetone at 12 and lunch at 3 in the Jedward. Before lunch I was at the Tudor House Christmas opening. I tell you, you step through the door of that house, and you’re in another world. It’s magical, such a feeling of the past created in the last five years. Members of the paying public were bowled over. ‘So much more interesting that the Jedward Collection,’ one of them said which is saying a lot because the Jedward has some important artists, many of them owned or known personally to Poor Little Rich Gays. Then at 5 we arrived at the White Rock Theatre, Hastings for the panto. It was Genevieve and Lord’s daughter’s 8th birthday. Jessie Wallace off of Eastenders was the Fairy Godmother. Cinderella was about 40, in a apron. The audience – my God they were rough. Somebody shouted at the Fairy Godmother to fuck off. Genevieve said, ‘These people have never eaten a vegetable in their lives.’ In the interval we had a pink birthday cake for Genevieve and Lord’s daughter’s birthday. In the second half, there were many gorillas behind the Ugly Sisters. They even got into the audience. But the Ugly Sisters never saw them no matter how much the audience bellowed ‘Look behind you.’ This was Genevieve and Lord’s daughter’s fav bit. The panto also involved singing. They do this nowadays to give an X-factor feel –  so these loud, brassy, crooner-type voices, especially Cinderella. Genevieve said Prince Charming was Gay: strangely his spray-on velvet breeches for the Ball Scene had no fly, suggesting a possible absence of equipment. Anyway it all ended happily. The cast escaped the worst the audience might do, such as knife them.  Despite cake, we took an Italian dinner before boarding for London.

That just left Tuesday and one final outfit before the retreat into the full sanctity of Christmas. Giles Ullerston and Frankie-Doreen gave a fundraising Christmas music evening for their younger daughter’s voluntary work in Africa. I know, one ought to volunteer. But sadly I find myself doing less and less for others, unlike Lord Arrowby. She is a highly skilled soprano and gave a thrilling recital. The second half was Christmas carols and joining in despite large numbers of leading atheists in the audience.  Many greatnesses, especially doctors, but also media, novelling, general brains but those who fire importantly at the inner core of our Nation, where the Queen and Lord Arrowby and the PM are lodged, were present and the canapés and buffet stretched as far as the eye could see in lavishment. Important doctors at last were able to meet. I discussed exercise regimes, such as side-plank, with Ivy Driver. My campaign to have ‘Oh Come all Ye Faithful’ banned for good was not successful – in this quarter. It turned out later that Buddhists had been of the party, saying that upon Death one’s electrons are released and disperse throughout the Universe, later to make another being. Not a pleasing idea. And there must be exceptions, such as Royalty and Poor Little Rich Gays who erect monuments to themselves during life and after it.

The Tudor House, Hastings, with Giant Hogweed Appliqué

Back Corridor at White Rock Theatre, Hastings where we Were for Cinderella with Jessie Wallace off Of Eastenders

Genevieve Suzy and Lord’s Daughter’s Machine Gun for Cinderella at White Rock Theatre Hastings

Pink Cake for Genevieve and Lord’s Daughter’s 8th Birthday

The Magic of the Tudor House, Hastings, within: One is Transported back into Another World

Tuesday 22nd December 2015

His time is almost nigh. Several times by modern means I tried to arrange to meet Lord Arrowby at Borough Market one week ago last Saturday. Eventually I set out anyway and there he was, in the corner of the café, doing his Greta Garbo act. ‘I’m just leaving,’ he said, not quite pulling down dark glasses. ‘But I’ve just arrived. You can’t.’ He looked shattered but fabulous. Power is incredibly shattering, as we all know. The waitress loomed and was known personally to Lord Arrowby. ‘Have honey with your croissant,’ he said. ‘I suppose you were hoping to avoid me,’ I said. ‘I suppose you wanted to be alone.’ Within three minutes of this kind of carry-on the Lord was miraculously revived and grew prancing and glancing, even naughty. He described a mass rally he had addressed with the Prime Minister’s right-hand man (or one of them). He showed me a picture of himself addressing the rally. ‘Look at you,’ I said. ‘You’ve got your little prep school jail bait face on.’ ‘What’s that?’ the often solemn Lord twinkled. ‘Look at you with your little cutsy come hither face on!’ That Lord was squealing, I tell you. ‘You’re too interested in money,’ he said when less excited. ‘It’s so corrupting.’ Well, that led to me, Adrian Edge, describing the tragedy of money for certain Poor Little Rich Gays who hoped to be more loved for their lavishment of villas and gala restaurant occasions which they might have been up to a point had not other side-effects of money also been present. Lord Arrowby was a bit more pleased with me and gave comfort. ‘You’ve got other friends,’ he consoled. He meant himself, among others!  It’s true. Over 18 years, I’ve spent too much time in a certain quarter. But the Court of money is demanding and requires constant attendance or else it feels neglected and grows fractious. We left the cafe in a gale of goodbyes from staff known personally to Lord Arrowby and toured Borough Market, visiting tenants and Lord Arrowby said there was somebody nice in the kitchen shop but they weren’t there. What absolute larks we had and you won’t believe what Lord Arrowby said when I said I was a bit off my food.

Lord Arrowby on a Saturday Morning