Sunday 1st November 2015

During our retreat at Lyme Regis, the Gay Mother launched a quest for Golden Cap. You could see out it of the hotel bedroom window. If you don’t know, it’s a small mountain right by the sea – indeed the sea has sheared one side of it away forming a cliff. So it’s not quite a cap, with one half missing. As far as I know there’s no move to restore it to full cap glory. We drove to a car park from which the Cap could be seen but it was £4 and the Gay Mother was sure there was a National Trust one elsewhere. They weren’t keen on you finding it. Trekking up Golden Cap is only for the select few, those in the know. We had to ask a man on a bulldozer and he said, ‘Take the turning before the concrete lay-by.’ Well, it was a tiny little lane. Nobody in their right mind would go down it. But we did and lo and behold, the National Trust car park. We hiked miles through a wood – well, one mile – at the end of which Golden Cap hove into view. Various middle-aged couples were striding about purposely. ‘What do you think?’ I asked the Gay Mother. To ascend would involve first descending which wasn’t encouraging, you would have thought, to one of 91. The Gay Mother made a sound which was not vulgar enthusiasm but not giving up either and we forged on. The steps up, when they came, were manageable and without crisis we reached the summit which was moderately populous but not disagreeable. A young hurrah-Henry was on the phone about a rental property but otherwise it was radiant – glorious views consisting of pleasantly rolling hills, successfully embroidered by humans with a pattern of fields and woods. On the other side, the sea was a particularly good ultramarine metallic hue that day. I don’t know what to think of the sea. In one way it’s a comfort because nothing much can go wrong with it from the appearance point of view and of course it’s ever-changing and fascinating and never ever the same. On the other hand, it’s disappointing that it has to be accepted as it is and offers little scope for improvement by human hand. On the top of Golden Cap a kind lady, whom we’d seen in the car park earlier, lent the Gay Mother her stick for the descent when the Gay Mother happened to mention that she’d forgotten hers. She said to leave it by her car. As you know Poor Little Rich Gays don’t go in for sentimentality, except when they break down in tears but  it was a charming kindness. Overall, the walk was 3 miles.

Golden Cap Seen from Lyme Regis which the Gay Mother Determined to Climb

Here’s a Charming Picture of the Sea

This is the View of Golden Cap’s Top

Here is the Landscape Seen from Golden Cap’s Top: Very Successful as a Landscape

Thursday 29th October 2015

I forgot to mention various other last minutes I couldn’t do before going down to Lyme Regis with the Gay Mother for 4 nights at the Hotel Alexandra last week. Lyme Regis is not much mentioned except by Jane Austen and John Fowles. It is tiny, clasped in a tight bowl by the sea, tucked away and has been bijou for centuries apparently. Always an agreeable resort with villas in gardens at the rear and a genteel row of pink terraced houses right on the sea front. In the hotel dining room a lot was going on. Two old men and an old woman at the same table were as follows – Old woman: ‘It was wretched end to her life…. just sitting there staring into space. Didn’t know anybody. Couldn’t move…’ Pause. Old man no 1: ‘Well, it all depends how active you want to be. I go out to buy the paper. Come back, sit in a chair…. that’s about it really….’ Another pause: Old man no 2: ‘That graveyard at …. is it still going?’.  The next night an elderly couple were both deaf: he bellows: ‘I need some buttons for my blazer like you’ve got.’ Wife ponders: ‘How many exactly?’ Man v. cross: ‘What do you mean? Three on each sleeve. Just like yours. What did I just say?’ Later, she goes: ‘You know our dog, Emma?’ Now the man’s turn to ponder, as if not certain either that they have a dog at all or if they do that it is called Emma.’ ‘Yes,’ he blasts at last.’ ‘Well,’ old lady goes, ‘I do wish she wasn’t quite so boisterous.’ ‘Yes, I see,’ old man says. What did he see? When they rose from the table, he said, ‘I can manage perfectly well, thank you!’ and lurched forth to be waylaid an American woman of a certain age dining alone at a neighbouring table and got up like a child’s idea of a fairy. ‘You two, you’re such a devoted couple. You make me miss my husband.’ ‘ Where is your husband?’ the old man enquires brusquely. ‘Well, he passed 18 months ago.’ ‘I see. How old was he?’ ‘He was 82.’ ‘Oh well, jolly good. Did you enjoy your dinner?’ Stumps off. We also are extracting ourselves from the dining room at the same time and fall into conversation with the old lady in the lobby. Delirious exchange of ages: old husband is 91, lady reveals. The Gay Mother exclaims ‘The same as me.’ Old lady very full of what he once had been in the City and how they’d lived in Buckinghamshire, Lyme Regis or where ever they lived nearby ‘not the same.’ All the while noises of discontent from the old man tottering on stick by the front door: ‘Do hurry up. Do stop this idle chattering.’ So off they went. The Gay Mother said, ‘They’re very brave to drive in the dark. They must have been keen to come here.’

Lyme Regis as Seen from the Cobb which is the Harbour wall To from Whence Louisa Musgrave Fell, Causing the Other Sister to Faint so as Not to be Left Out. The Gay Mother Also Walked on the Top of the Cobb but Did not Fall

A Grey Sea-Scene from the Hotel Bedroom – Note the Paintwork in in Premier Condition

A Strange Sunlight Effect as Seen from the Hotel Bedroom: In the Distance is Golden Cap which the Gay Mother Climbed

Tuesday 27th October 2015

Three last-minutes came up after Rufus Pitman had to put off the outing on Sunday to the triangular building in Northamptonshire because of Raj Zoraster’s back. Messages flashed on Sunday morning: Cesar Kaiser and Connor Cadeaux had been let down for a fringe perf of ‘Closer to Heaven’ which is a musical by the Pet Shop Boys and book by Jonathan Harvey: would I step in? Yes, I would. It was interesting to see. Very young cast, great bodies; the singing was that X Factor crooning they all do now with American accent, no character: charming sentimental story of unloved boy with brilliantly funny passage for aging diva along ‘I will survive’ lines. Then Bruce MacBain, my private architect, wanted to have lunch at six pm before Downton. Yesterday Royston King summoned me to the Royal Academy for an exclusive afternoon function to do with the massive building project there to link in the old Museum of Mankind site: we funneled from the canapé and speeches room to the performance room. Two Chinese women manipulated keyboards and dials and one of them appeared to play the piano.  There were piano sounds and fragments of Chopin and so on. The trumpeter at the back of the blue-lit auditorium was not electronic though. Meanwhile a film by Mike Figgis showed, from a moving car,  a six-lane highway in Los Angeles being travelled along. Eventually the car turned off the road. Then two Chinese women were in Paris – it looked like the same ones as were before us. A second ‘event’ was a film of a young woman entering the Royal Academy and becoming nude. Royston was fearless before the terrifying Chinese women and made audible comments. ‘What’s it got to do with the Royal Academy?’ he asked. ‘This will have cost £30,000’.  I feared total collapse of the whole event and was desperate to pay for it.  Afterwards important people at the Royal Academy were not quite as important as Royston who had given them £13 million. ‘It’s not my Committee any more, but I still get the invitations’ he explained. ‘If you enter the room with an air of importance you will be important.’ This is how to do it, Poor Little Rich Gays. It is very simple. Even if you say, ‘I put out the milk bottles every Tuesday morning’ with sufficient grandeur you will establish an aura of importance. Royston and I retreated to an actual pub, except it had been stylised with new wooden floor. ‘I know you like an exclusive event,’ Royston said, of the event we had just been to, before also remarking that working class hedge fund managers are still having drink after work in pub with mates, no women.

But going back to the Saturday before last, I went up to Myddelton House at Enfield for a private tour by the Senior Gardener to whom Royston had introduced me at my own garden opening. Myddleton House was where E.A.Bowles lived until the 1950s; he was a famous plantsman and collector and many plants are named after him. He would have been a clergyman and enjoyed dressing up parties for local youth. Once they adopted geisha wear with those wooden umbrellas. There was nothing wrong with it. E.A.Bowles often gardened in his best clothes to the despair of his valet. He had a Bentley and staff all through the War.

At 3pm Royston addressed the Society on preserving the heritage. So much can be brought back; all is not lost, although it would be difficult to de-culvert the river that runs under Buckingham Palace. Only the day before Royston had been invested by the Queen at Windsor and had said to Lord Peel, the Lord Chamberlain, as they looked out of the window: ‘the Royal estates are keeping Slough at bay, I see.’ On a previous occasion the Queen herself had looked out of a window at Windsor and remarked on the wonderful job Paraquat was doing with the weeds in a certain field.  This weedkiller turned out to be lethal to humans and had to be banned. The heritage can be preserved but must be made new, must adapt to modern purposes, Royston said. New developments were not necessarily hostile. There was a bit of an altercation with one of the members of the Society about affordable housing. ‘Why don’t you raise equity in your own valuable home and give it to your grandchildren,’ Royston told her. Royston is worried that people won’t be gardening in the future because of not having gardens. Not enough are gardening their gardens as it is. But his talk took a new view, not the usual heritage lovers’ hatred of the modern world and sour gloom.

Royal Academy Afternoon Canapés: My Life These Days

Sir Chipperfield Address the Throng: ‘Other Museums are Zurich,’ he said. ‘The Royal Academy is Naples.’ Comparison not Necessarily Flattering

The Royal Academy’s President Flows Forth

Charles Saumarez-Smith Introduces the Chinese-Lady-Electric-Piano-and-Film Installation Performance

Thursday 22nd October 2015

Last Thursday Lord Arrowby summoned me to a fashion Private View. It was a Liberty’s Exhib at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey. We were the only men there. But what men! Lord Arrowby had only taken 3 hours sleep owing to power and was incredibly powerful. Already that day the committee chair, one of the most powerful men in the country, had said, ‘I see that Lord Arrowby’s directive must be followed that we put gentle pressure on Brussels.’ Lord Arrowby looked and felt sensational and threatened to ask a question of the editor of Harper’s and Queen who was chairing the Private View talk attended by all the women and us. The women I thought were lecturers in fashion and fashion historians with hard glasses and a certain hardness that comes from being a fashion academic and having to demonstrate fashion in one’s person at all times. Lord Arrowby’s question was to be: ‘Were the Liberty prints originally inspired by Indian fabric prints and were those in turn inspired by Europe but re-inspired by India?’ He’d been at the Fabric of India Show at the V and A. Ultimately he did not ask the question but a Russian lady’s question was not a question but a slab of autobiography about how Liberty fabric had penetrated Siberia. The talk was given by a die-away American expert in the history of Liberty’s of which no one word audible. Justine Picardy, editor of Harpers, was audible. The feeling was that Liberty prints were always fashionable and had been reinvented for each era but continuity had been maintained. Timeless fashion in other words that changeth but remaineth the same, a miracle that the exhibition of Liberty clothes from 1880 demonstrated well. Post-talk discussion veered dangerously though. There was talk of minimalism out and maximisation in. Justine said trends were harder and harder to spot. Many hours could be devoted to analysis of the subject. I sensed a terrible threat to the jackette and the slim-line look. Whereupon Lord Arrowby said, ‘The jackette’s ghastly. So many bums on display that shouldn’t be.’ I nearly fell to the floor. He was quick to say, ‘It’s all right on you.’ Then we toured the exhib. ‘That’s a servant’s dress,’ Lord Arrowby remarked of a 1900s ‘Art’ dress. ‘That could be Dries,’ he said of another. We agreed on the timelessness of the prints. Lord Arrowby couldn’t go on so I had spag alone at home.

All-Women Talk at the Fashion Private View, Including Russian Lady with Bun

A Servant’s Dress, Lord Arrowby said: in Fact 1900s Liberty Art Look

‘Could be Dries’ Lord Arrowby said.

20s Liberty Frocks

Liberty in the 60s

Edwardian Liberty

Tuesday 20th October 2015

Val said, ‘Zinc’s going up.’ He’s taking an interest in metal prices, possibly because of my mine. Did you hear, by the way, that the Guardian ran a piece on the mental problems brought on by wealth? ‘Brass is a compound of copper and zinc,’ Val informed me, ‘whereas brass is copper and zinc.’ ‘Why not make your own bronze, Val?’ I suggested. ‘It would be something to do. All you need is a Bessemer Converter.’ Otherwise Val has mended a pane of glass in his kitchen and is hooked on ‘Strictly’. On Sunday he was grand with huge actressy vowels which is usually a sign of re-bottling on a small scale. Maddening because my new Zara suit needs altering.

Joshua Baring went to a huge ducal wedding at one of our most famous Statelies. Some of the younger men guests were sprung from nowhere and exceptionally glamorous. They insisted on staying the night.

Robert Nevil is taking a walking tour in Shropshire as research for his latest Pony Club book. He’s to look at ponies in their pre-Club state but fears he may end up, from solitary walking, as a tuft of wool caught in barbed wire and a heap of bones nearby.

Laura Malcolm, meanwhile, had the Laird and Lairdess up from Usk. The Laird brought his Scalextric and spread it over all the floor.

I’m in a hotel at Lyme Regis with the Gay Mother. She’s the youngest person here at 91. This morning she climbed Golden Cap which was 3 miles plus climbing a hill. Now she’s resting. Had I not been in Lyme Regis, I would have had an important Private View with Harry Rollo followed by dinner after – just the two of us; an opera;a card party; a lunch with Scalextric at Laura Malcolm’s. Important to remain available. If not available won’t be asked.

Thursday 15th October 2015

Many might look at a life like mine and think it indescribable. What must it be like to be him? To wear outfits and go to functions on a non-paying basis – for it is indeed true that the higher you go the less you pay. Last week I was lurking outside Christie’s King Street (no lower-rung Christie’s South Kensington, thank you very much), telephoning to Robert Nevil before the Duchess of Rutland’s mystery launch. ‘Oh look,’ I said down to the line. ‘Lansdowne Reindorp is arriving.’ Completely thrilling. He’s of Palm Beach but also very significant in the City of London and was wearing an incredibly good quality country-for-town look with brown shoes. ‘I’ve got a friend for the launch,’ I shrieked, cutting off Robert Nevil, and together we ascended the grand escalier to the state rooms of Christie’s on the first floor. Why were we there? Why was Liz Hurley there? Lansdowne introduced an American from Palm Beach who is President of a society devoted to British Art. A sculptor wanted to install a major tribute to Capability Brown. Would we pay for it? She was rather insistent about it. £60,000 required. I fell into conversation with a young man might have had some notion of what was going on. ‘I’ve been to Belvoir,’ I said. I went years ago with Val. ‘That saloon – just like a hotel.’ ‘Oh that’s rather unfair,’ the young man was put out. ‘When you’re with the family there, it’s charming.’ Then a handsome woman of sixty-odd, superbly bred and in quite a modern short-sleeved pink shift dress, addressed the throng. ‘I’m the chairman of the Capability Brown society…. so difficult.. one’s agent throws up his hands in horror…. what they’ve done… medals all round… must make way for the Duchess.’ So the Duchess, breathy, handsome … ‘we found the plans…. they are authentic…  my dyslexia… but I had lovely…. to help me…. absolutely nobody would touch it… ‘ All the while a film was playing on the wall above the Duchess, showing Alan Titchmarsh in winter, squeezing vile mud through his fingers while mechanical diggers swivelled in fields in the background. ‘So look I’ve got 5000 copies to shift…. £35 … would you? … Christmas coming up.’ Finally the pieces fell together. The Duchess had written a book about Capability Brown on the back of plans being found at Belvoir which were never executed until now – with Alan Titchmarsh involved. Apparently the Rutlands sold a Tinteret at Christie’s for £15 million. That is what she meant when she thanked Christie’s for all that they had done for her family. Then the Rutland private poet read a poem for the occasion except that the reader wasn’t the private poet but quite a well-known therapist and counsellor in the Chelsea area known to the Poor Little Rich Gays already in several ways not least through being his patients. So once again, connected and belonging.

Lady Weymouth was seen – as seen on TV. Very fresh and lovely in person. I ended the evening being briefed by an exceptionally contemporary young man with the smallest eyes about a film called The Imposter. I formed the impression he was the producer but I don’t think he was. Then I departed Christie’s while the going was good.

An Actual Duchess Addresses Christie’s re: Her Book on Cap Brown

Rutland’s Duchess Signs Her Book Copies

Greatnesses Seen At Christie’s for Rutland’s Duchess’s Book Launch: Her Book on Cap Brown

Monday 12th October 2015

Last Tuesday was the Private Fundraising Breakfast at the Royal Academy followed by a private art historian-led tour of the Ai Wei Wei Exhib. Aunt Lavinia met the man who organises the breakfasts in the street – she did know him from country landed connections. She was asked and allowed to bring a plus one and now we’re on the list! This is the fourth private breakfast we’ve been to, but it’s becoming embarrassing how untraceable are the funds that they’ve raised from us. One time, at the breakfast for the Summer Exhib last year, we saw a terrifying battle-axe in a floor-length blue coat-cardy, huge blouse bow at the neck and merciless nun’s shoes writing a cheque. I sidled up and observed that it was for £25,000. Well, they need £4 million so even a few hundred would be a bit of an insult. This time, Royston King was there!  He is hugely influential and is to be invested by the Queen this week. I always wondered whether he would not loom at one of the breakfasts and finally he did. It was inevitable. At once he and Aunt Lavinia got acquainted. She said she was looking forward to the tour. Royston said he wouldn’t be listening to a word. She said, ‘But you might learn something.’ He said, ‘I can make up my own mind.’ ‘Aunt Lavinia said, You might get it wrong.’  ‘You’re quite strong-minded, you Landed types,’ Royston said. We were never slave-owners, Thank Goodness. Royston, you see, is descended from slaves. Indeed we were stopping slave ships after the trade was abolished. That’s how the Admiral rose up. But often the ships were flying false flags and there was nothing he could do. So after that, Royston and Aunt Lavinia were friends. He was able to point out some important names, such as the Chairman of Fortnums, a member of the Weston family, as well as various other Heads I now can’t recall. But it was me who saw Anna Ford and Baroness Patricia Rawlings, of whom Royston had not heard – so what must she amount to?

Royston was the chance encounter at the Royal Academy and Lansdowne Reindorp similarly I ran into at Christie’s for the Duchess of Rutland’s launch. This is what it means to be in society. You go to a high place and there are people you know. What could be more thrilling!

I’ve quite run out of time to tell you about the Ai Wei Wei exhibition itself. Only the society surrounding it. Royston proposed that he is an artist made by the state. What would he have been otherwise? The Chinese Government encouraged him to build a studio at Shanghai, then, when it was finished, said he’d contravened planning regulations and cheated on taxes. They bulldozed the studio and Ai Wei Wei made a kind of tomb thing out of the rubble with a piece of antique Chinese furniture visibly embedded in it. ‘Well, an artwork came of it,’ Royston remarked.

Artwork by Ai Wei Wei Made out of Inadequate Reinforcing Rods in Government Buildings that Caused Severe Impact and Loss of Life in an Earthquake that Could have Been Avoided

These Trees are Placed to Form the Shape of China and You can Wonder Freely all Over, Unlike in the Real China

Ai Wei Wei – His Dad’s Old Chair, Done in Marble. Dad was a Poet, Persecuted in the Cultural Rev. V Important to the Artist

Outdoor Installation of Trees at the Royal Academy by Ai Wei Wei

Friday 9th October 2015

It’s a long time since we had any fashion notes, although with a cold that’s been looming for ten days and after twice being mistaken for Robert Peston in the past week, I’m almost beyond bothering. Robert Preston! All those hours in Topman, Zara, H Nicks, Harrods, Joseph, The Library, Liberties, Browns, struggling and struggling for outfits, craving and craving a reduction in prices, frantically moving money from one account to another in my head in an effort at economic restructuring before forking out. All that to amount to nothing more than Robert Peston. I’m sure he’s divine, but he doesn’t look terribly well, has a mad stare and doesn’t wear clothes – in fact is thought dishevelled. The second time it happened was at Christie’s on Wednesday where I was in such low spirits with pre-cold weakness I’d put on my Bott Ven suit reduced from £1200 which is what you wear when you haven’t the strength to be a zizzy, springy  z-flash of fashion. It’s not tiny. It’s not un-sitdownable in. On the way home, I stopped off at Leon to save money on dinner and dropped a piece of salad on it. So now face £60 dry cleaning bill. Would have been better off going to the Savoy next door where they’d have had napkins. The first time I was thought to be Robert Peston was at the Fabric of India press preview at the V&A when I was wearing my new light grey Zara jeans (ultra skinny) and a blue Zara blazer in techno fabric.

But I must buck up and carry on. You’ll be gasping to know the Autumn fashion notes. What’s new this Autumn? The great dread has been that trousers will go baggy and waists will go up. There have been murmurings. Prada are trying it. Let’s hope they pay the price. They’ll lose their fashion edge. They’ll end up like Gucci before Tom Ford – moribund. Only worn by the Head of Volkswagen and the like. Boycott if you see sacky, baggy trousers, please. Waists have been low for 20 years and jackets tiny for five. I want it to stay that way for my lifetime at least. No look has ever been more flattering, even if difficult to wear.

Speaking of Gucci, I don’t know whether I mentioned the re-vitalisation of that house. They’ve got in a new designer, who’s had a brilliant brain wave: why not make Menswear more like Women’s? – so frills, rouche-ing, lace, all at £1000 a piece. Otherwise the high-end houses are as dull as ditch and over-priced as they’ve been since the Banking Crisis in 2008. I scoured them all for a grey slack. I would have spent up to £400 – but nothing. Absolutely nothing. Separate trews that aren’t jeans have just been abolished apparently.

Zara and Topman rule the roost, with Paul Smith the only designer house of interest these days.

Dramatic housecoats, as championed by Lord Arrowby, scarves, weaves, embroidery are important this season. Suits and jackettes remain tiny with trousers as narrow as possible. Trousers are functional, just clamped on, with excitement confined to the upper body. Knits are textured and colours rich: push beyond grey, black and navy. Raspberry and cream are expected to dominate this winter as well as sumptuous autumn red-brown. I have to tell you, though, I’m facing the autumn at rock bottom in the fine knit area for those balmier days – only one grey Balanciaga cardy two years old and a Jil Sander black cardy, which is a luxury item but awfully dreary. Let the graphs below speak for themselves.

This Season’s Gucci Blouse: Yes, it is Menswear: £1200

Another Gucci Blouse for Men for Autumn/Winter 2015: £985

A Lacy Confection from Gucci Menswear Range Autumn/Winter 2015: £1475

Gucci Pink Fur Slippers for Autumn/Winter 2015

Gucci Fur Coat for Men: Autumn/Winter 2015 About £9000

A Prada Fur Coat for Men: Autumn/Winter 2015

Utter Drear: Prada Autumn/Winter 2015

Thrilling Range of Colours and Barrier-breaking Fashion Shapes from Prada, Autumn/Winter 2015

Prada: Exciting Shirts: Autumn/Winter 2015

Prada Fun Wear: Autumn/Winter 2015: Sheer Hell

Dries at Liberty’s: Embroidery and Texture Very Important This Season, But I don’t Agree with the Matching Trews

Dries at Liberty’s: Key Piece this Season

My Purchase: a Cream Textured Knit from APC at Liberty’s

A Raspberry Knit by Paul Smith in Lambswool: Just Acquired for my Autumn/Winter 2015 Wardrobe

A Velvet Jacket to Lift my Wardrobe for Autumn/Winter 2015 by Paul Smith: an Incredible, Rare Red-Brown

A Zara Grey Soft Tailored Suitlette in Stretch Fabric for my Autumn/Winter 2015 Wardrobe, Just Acquired

My Version of Lord Arrowby’s Embroidered Housecoat: Bought in the Summer Sale at The Library, down from £900, a blue Crepe Frock Coat, Key for the Evening in Autumn/Winter 2015

Thursday 8th October 2015

It’s one week almost since Lord Arrowby took 50 years in a Dries housecoat of ultramarine with terracotta rope embroidery. Two hundred thronged his apartment for a speed-dating event from 7 until 9. Those with enough stamina were go on to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern by 9.30 for a perf by Lipsinkers (I believe that’s the name). Unfortunately I didn’t have enough stamina. The great thing was the range of guests. Many were frankly alternative if not underground, yet Lord Arrowby is one of the top ten most powerful people in the country. What a span!  Is this what makes our Nation? Some were from the sex world, others from the tiny corner stages of queer pubs or the slightly larger performance area of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern itself, where they execute devastating acts of artistic savagery and have been preserved in these pursuits by among others, Lord Arrowby himself. For the Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been saved from being turned into flats and market forces and is to go forth for ever more as a great bastion of anti-Establishment, anti-Capitalist Gay culture. I’m all for it and when I go there I always have a limo at the door. At the party I was briefed by Finn Magnus, the hot boy doc, on the state of the National Health Service. Apparently they’re persecuting the junior doctors again with an eye to privatising certain hospitals, it is believed. Rather depressing. I thought we’d got over all that. But really what can I do and how much am I prepared to sacrifice as a poor little rich person wracked with the worry and expense of being rich – or not rich enough?  Then I showed him my pilates exercises which involved lying on the floor in my Topman Limited Edition powder-blue mini suit. ‘Who told you to do that?’ he said. Reggie Cresswell was there direct from Barbara Hepworth – only a few pieces not dated – at the Tate. Other leading high-end Poor Little Rich Gays sped by – Rufus Pitman, of course, who tends to the Right and his husband, Raj Zoroaster, who does not – typical…Conrad Matheson…Valèry Duplessis….. the full bouquet although Harry Rollo and Mercury, Mr Kitten were detained abroad and Bruno France Bruno has simply evap. There was only time for a brief encounter with raunchy Guy Bostock, who is yet another of Lord A’s unlikely friends. ‘Are you a sadist?’ I enquired and Guy Bostock growled in a masculine way then made some remarks about a lithe young man crawling up the radiator on the opposite wall. Finally Lord Arrowby climbed on a chair and addressed the gathering: he wove a complex metaphor of weaving the life and the different parts meshing together and the words themselves were weaving – so clever. All done without notes or apparent rehearsal. You could see how he became what he afterwards became. Addressing 200 from a chair, he said he was shy and would never marry which made everybody wonder when the event will be announced.  So dear Lord Arrowby launches on his 50s. He will either change or remain the same. For now he is such a hope for many with his trusteeships and committee work and community contribution outside and beyond his great striding through power’s corridors and massive circle of friends and huge account at Liberty’s Men’s Contemporary Fashion department and love of India as well as art buying.

Lord Arrowby – Typical Weekday Evening Wear as He Attends an Official Dinner – Unfort I Failed to Graph Anyone at his Party So He kindly Supplied this Substitute

From Fabric of India Show V&A: Ordinary Street-Carrying Get-Up on the Streets of India Today: Is This What Lord Arrowby Will Become in his 50s?

Sunday 4th October 2015

Lord Arrowby gains 50 years tomorrow but the function was on Friday. Owing to my own birthday having been the day before and not being in top condition, I failed to take any graphs of his Dries housecoat, so now there’s a studio crisis with after-shots required and copy must be delayed. I’m hoping to persuade him to pose very suggestively with perhaps exceptionally sheer foundation garments. So many other outfits as well as coiffures, jewels and embroidery, some from deep underground, from the most extreme strata of society or not in society at all by choice. Extraordinary, when Lord Arrowby is one of the most powerful people in Our Nation.

So I revert to Wednesday which was Press Preview of the Fabric of India show at the V&A. Enthralled as was Val, who was well enough to accompany me. The printed pashmina gloves! The boy Prince’s jacket of silver thread! Fabric is the foundation of India. Fabric is to India what porcelain is to China. Because of having a ready supply of cotton from earliest times. Also Lord Arrowby loves India and sometimes dresses Indian, which is to say heaped with ravishing fabrics all hand-made and dyed. People think Indian means gaudy. It’s true there’s a shade of cerise called ‘Queen’ or ‘Rani’ in India but the real Indian cloth is brilliant, exquisite and festive and, because hand-made and dyed with colours of natural origin, not gaudy. One of the best bits of the exhib was the slide-show on the wall of real Indians on the streets wearing fabrics, some of them quite poor but still decked in what Nancy Mitford would have called ‘yards and yards of marvellous stuff ‘. There was a superb construction worker get-up (possibly: I didn’t graph it) of loosely-woven trousers in a reddy-brown shade worn with a blue-striped collar-less ‘blouse’. The colours and variety of textures in the hand-made cloth – no fashion house could have achieved that, even at the highest end. Actually fabric got quite political, you know, which goes to show decoration can go deep. The reason the Mahatma was mad keen on home spinning and weaving was to counter the dominance of Western imported mass-produced cloth which was crushing the Indian textile workers.

We were so buoyed up and I felt a lot less awful about the Poor because of the Indian Fabric Exhibition.

The Fabric of India at the V&A: Pashmina gloves from 19th Century

Fabric of India at the V&A: Beetle-wing Embroidery: 19th century

Boy-Prince’s Silver Coat: Fabric of India Show at the V&A: late 19th century

Fabric of India Show V&A: Men’s Hunting Waistcoat: 18th Century: Let’s Copy and Wear Ourselves

Fabric of India at the V&A: 19th Century Export Fabric: Ravishing

Fabric of India Exhib at the V&A: Contemporary Wedding Outfits: Idea for the Forthcoming Strachan/Willis Wedding?

Fabric of India at the V&A: Fabric on the Streets of India Today: These Ladies are Pleased with Their Fabrics

Fabric of India Show at the V&A: Photo of Bicycle-Wallah in Sensational Fabric on India’s Streets Today

Fabric of India Show V&A: Ordinary Street Get-Up on the Streets of India Today