Wednesday 4th February 2015

Anthony Mottram, ‘consultant’ of Prague, has a tremendous new cause. The beginnings are small but it will grow and grow, you can be sure. Not in his adopted country does he campaign, but in his native homeland, in one of our loved cathedral cities as a fact. The Public may be a tiny bit stunned initially. Anthony Mottram, as always, goes against the grain. But how else did he become what he afterwards became, which is world-class with ‘consultancy’ tentacles reaching even into the heart of our British nation, from Prague? Oh yes, he’s been ‘consulted’ about our Mother of Parliaments and they have to do as he says. So Salisbury Cathedral must look to a different future. Anthony Mottram wants the spire off, he wants Salisbury Cathedral spire down. It’s vulgar, you see. It should never have been put there. The rationale is superb. Let’s embrace this wonderful new vision for a Spire-less Salisbury Cathedral and, who knows, substantial improvements for all our other cathedrals too.

Lichfield Cathedral Val doesn’t like at all – from the outside, that is.

Speaking of Val, he is also fighting. It’s Judith Chalmers. Such a worry.  Why is she so pale? Is she in fact dead? Always she was a marvellous shade of American Tan, to match her stockings. American Tan, Val says, is the only  skin tone for a woman of a certain age. So who is this vampire-ised Judith Chalmers on afternoon TV? Can’t be the same person.

Monday 2nd February 2015

I took Friday off to view the funeral on the Parliament channel, broadcast at the exact same time as on Saturday 30th January 1965. So it was as if it were happening all over again. Absolutely broke down when they sang the Marching Song of the Republic. Strange because it wasn’t happening at all but was 50 years ago. I think I remember from the time the part where they went down the river.

But Churchill seemed now more dead somehow and the whole funeral service, which was brief and mainly the robust singing of hymns, a brave but hopeless gesture in the face of the blackness. Suddenly in the pulpit was Dean Matthews. Granny knew him at Exeter and the Gay Mother took tea at the San Paolo deanery during the War. There was a grumpy old man in the corner. Mrs Matthews, who spoke refayned, said he was such a nuisance having to have china tay. It was Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang, born 1864. Anyway, Dean Matthews was still Dean of St Paulo in 1965 and spoke the solemn words offering up the soul of Churchill to Heaven and providing a direct link between me, Adrian Edge, and the State funeral of Sir Winston Churchill.

Wednesday 28th January 2015

50 years since Winston Churchill took. Last week Genevieve Suzy secured entré to a major event in connection held in a bunker of the Stafford Hotel, St James. Visit England were launching their programme of Churchill-related events for the year, at Chartwell and elsewhere. We found out that the Queen had been in the hotel recently for a private dinner given by the Tollemaches. The dog frieze in the private dining room was the deciding factor in Lady T selecting that venue over others. But we had to crawl into this bunker where the American High Command had been entrenched during the War, possibly. Sir Nicholas Soames was no show (would he have squeezed in?) but our Churchill trophies and direct link to Sir Winston were Celia neé Sandys, daughter of the tragic Diana who committed. But I couldn’t place her at the time and told her so. Now I find she was an important granddaughter and actually in the room when Churchill died as well as at the funeral of course. The Gay Mother witnessed her mother, Diana Sandys, in Vincent Square after she’d washed her hair in petrol and got it in her ears. She was seeking urgent medical assistance at a hospital in the Square. Secondly we were honoured by the new Randolph Churchill, a great-grandson, son of the rather unconvincing facsimile Sir Winston Churchill of more recent times. This Randolph was charming, rather an over-grown schoolboy, very keen on Winston’s preoccupation with food which he seemed to share.

But what of Sir Winston himself. Surely one of the great Poor Little Rich Gays of all time. Impossible, content always, as he put it, ‘to make do with the best’, champagne-lover (Madame Pol Roger was invited to the funeral), Clemmie was really a superior kind of kitchen, good at organising everything the way he wanted it, separate bedrooms in order to have reserves for winning the War, amateur painting and writing 10 volume histories, often all at once. Had this highly bizarre figure not been in charge in those fateful days of the summer of 1940, Great Britain would have made some desperate kind of peace with Hitler and Lord knows what would have ensued. In the circumstances it was utter madness to fight on, but thank Goodness a loonie was at the wheel of our great Nation.

Randolph Churchill Launches Visit England’s Programme of Special Events to Mark the 50th Anniversary of His Great-Grandfather’s Death

Randolph Praises Visit England’s Canapés While Its Director Looks On: Top People

Sunday 25th January 2015

Eddie Sedgewick hasn’t been seen by me since he took sixty years in July. Last week he showed with others the most excellent art work. But this is to be rare. He no longer seeks to show but has become an icon to the young instead.  He is now a legend to the young, a living manifestation of the seismic blasts circa 1972, before even Vivienne Westwood and the safety pins. Eddie’s underground world has hurtled complete into the present era. What is it exactly? Andy Warhol doesn’t quite get it but Andy Warhol with added Gays, chronically downtown New York, dangerous, cabaret, new, never main-stream, made happy by creation. Nothing like it exists today when everyone’s so go-ahead.

Eddie Sedgewick in an Outfit at his Opening

Suitlette from H and M at Eddie Sedgewick’s Opening

Younger Artists are Interested in Eddie Sedgewick: This One Does 200 Press Ups a Day

Sunday 25th January 2015

Poor Little Rich Gays with their mothers is the present theme: Robert Nevil is tending to his after her hospital spell, I, Adrian Edge, accompany mine in building work and doing chicken with 24 bay leaves (a Church Times recipe). Yesterday Anthony Mottram was in his mother’s luxury sheltered complex as was I, lunching – sheltered from without but within stormy as elderly ladies fight first of all to be 100 years old and then to reign supreme on the Committee.

But at last I must gaze upon Harry Rollo’s great perf. It was nearly two weeks ago. And the after-dinner attended by leading figures… I had to meditate rather than rush into print. As you know the aim was to perform a well-known work with a Winter theme for the last time. And this aim was achieved. Just two performers apparently being quite traditional in performing an existing work. Miss Lamore Cellina, for once of the audience, was dressed as Winter to match. The thing was that Harry Rollo took the performance to the edge of disintegration, where it has never been before. The audience were in crisis but electrified. Would ‘Art’ survive? Somehow it did. A ghostly beauty. Despite years of performing, and being a performance artist, Harry never performs. He is torn apart by each performance, which is not a performance but teetering on the brink. At any moment disintegration could be final. All this despite pages of coverage and world love pouring in. But the artist can know no comfort.

The after-dinner, after the perf – I shall leave to the imagination. How can I hope to convey outstanding figures of our time in a concentrated bloc, at one table, having small plates?

With Reggie Cresswell, I’ve booked for Harry Rollo’s next major perf. which is to be in Vienna. I can’t remember whether I’ve also mentioned that this summer I’m to take Bayreuth. Prince Dmitri Hersov has at last come good in the ballot. Six operas have been offered and accepted and a Schloss-Hotel with hunting trophies booked.

So it’s to be a German summer. A very different decor, cuisine and hotel landscape from that I am accustomed to.

Monday 19th January 2015

Still I cannot gaze on Harry Rollo’s great perf which took place before 3000 last Monday nor the function after at which Rufus Pitman announced that he was to receive an Honorary Degree the next day and that he is surely the first Poor Little Rich Gay to receive an Honorary Degree. His speech, he said, was to be about how his sister, in teenage days, used to infiltrate the student common room of that university in order to meet engineering students.

Last week, also, Eddie Sedgwick gave a show, which I must rise to as well.

Bruce McBain, my private architect, but also architect to Mapp (oh yes!) who I keep by me at all times, has been a miracle. I’ve not mentioned my LED light history: too painful. I went over to LED lights in November because Clive, the electrician, is rather nice and a big promoter of LED lights which don’t get hot like halogen (less risk of incineration) and barely consume any leccie. I was concerned beforehand about the light cast and visited several quite developed shops. They said, ‘You’ve got a choice: warm or not warm.’ So I choose warm. The ones in the kitchen I had Clive remove at once. Absolutely horrible light like a hospital. I don’t much care for the others in the hall and on the stairs. There was some idea that I’d get used to them but I haven’t.

Now at last Bruce McBain, great sourcer of rarities, has found a source of LED lights that aren’t just ‘warm’ or ‘not warm.’ It’s in Kentish Town. We’re going over soon.

He also suggested ‘Jabot’ for my bedroom, which was re-painted by Miroslav last week. It’s a Dulux off-white colour and has gone down well with the other clients, such as Mapp. I’m thrilled with Jabot, pronounced ‘JaBOT’ in the trade. As you may know, agonising over 90 or so different off-white shades is a crucial Poor Little Rich Gay past-time.

Where would I be without Bruce McBain?

Jabot by Dulux: the Perfect Off-White Recommended by Bruce McBain

Miroslav’s Present of Polish Speciality Chocolates: It is a Marshmallow Centre

The Family in Younger Days: Note the Handbag Cast Aside

Wednesday 14th January 2015

For ten days or so after 1st January there is always that terror that the New Year won’t begin, that it will be dead on arrival and nuclear waste will ensue. But on Monday Harry Rollo blasted 2015 into action with a shattering perf before 3000. It was a winter theme and Miss Lamore Cellina came dressed as winter. I cannot yet begin to gaze upon the perf. nor the Greatnesses who were present: Reggie Cresswell, the Ghanian Ceramicist, Rufus Pitman, Mapp, Miss Lamore, Conrad Matheson, René Duplessis, Bruno France Bruno..

So instead here is a fox sitting on a roof near my home. That was last week. The next day some married foxes came into my garden. I had to put up barricades to keep them out.

Elsewhere, Laura Malcolm is using up everything in her store cupboard that is more than a year out of date. This is a January task. She will be serving a dried cranberry and kidney bean ensemble shortly.

Rumbling below the frozen surface, though, sensational bookings are being made – a Germanic theme is emerging. Wait and see.

Mr Fox Asleep on Roof

Mr Fox Enjoys Being Graphed Through Greenery

Mr Fox Prepares to Depart

Sunday 11th January 2015

Just as there is only one great intimacy but no marriage, bitterness and cruelty but no unkindness, poverty but great riches, great riches but poverty, so, at the moment there is only one designer… among many, for the time being. I was one of the first through the Floral Street doors in the late 70s and have been hailed by the man himself, when seen, ever since. For many years, though, after skew-whiff shirts, raging prices, the championship of Tony Blair, I was off the house. The suits were conservative, and the flowery linings suggested a Saturday night posh yob, someone like the Prime Minister, in fact, who might want to flash a more outré side but was only ever going to go so far.

Well, this summer I was stuck down in Floral Street and bought everything off the backs of the salesboys at full price. ‘What you’re wearing,’ I shrieked, ‘I want it.’ And got. ‘I don’t care that you’re 19 and I’m 57.’ Now, in these gone Sales, Paul Smith is the only house that has been able to fulfil my cravings – for a pink jumper and off-white slacks.

I thank Paul Smith with all my heart for the range of colours, shapes and textures, when all other labels have disappeared into a dessert of navy-blue.

The prices are good too.

Nobody Else was Offering a Pink Jumper – Only Paul Smith

Cord Slacks in Ecru – A Superb Cool Greeny Off-White. Again Nobody Else was Offering This Colour

Last Year’s Red Velvet Jacket by Paul Smith, Acquired for £80 at Selfridges: A Fabric is Sublime – So Smooth

Shirt by Paul Smith Bought at Full Price Last Summer: Sumptuous and Original without being Silly

Button Detail on White Shirt: One Thanks the Lord for the Thought that Has Gone into This

Summer Shirt by Paul Smith, Bought Last Summer at Full Price: Peach Jersey Panels with Putty Grey Front

Wednesday 7th January 2015

On the 7th day of Christmas a large proportion of the Poor Little Rich Gay population appeared on TV. Harry Rollo answered correctly before the question had been asked.

On the Eighth day of Christmas Harry Rollo cast a spell on a rival performance artist, who then blocked internally.  This particular artist tends towards music but also possibly banging but is internationally known, like Harry.

On the Ninth day of Christmas the former City Editor of the Express tipped Marks and Spencer shares for 2015

On the Tenth day of Christmas heterosexuals without quite meaning to bared their souls at New Year’s Eve dinner and were fascinating to myself and the Multis

On the 11th day of Christmas, at Harrods and H Nicks, I resolved my simmering sock crisis

On the 12th day of Christmas, at her party, Miss Mina showed her Mother of the Bride outfit although in fact she is Mother of the Groom. It’s a glam, girl biker look, no sign of Val’s vision of the M of the B, tangerine with a cafe au lait lace overlay. Robert Nevil didn’t quite go too far but will do soon

Monday 5th January 2015

So we say Goodbye to Christmas for another year and begin the long but glorious progress up the side of the new year towards Glydnebourniana and Tuscany as always before the descent down the other side towards next Christmas. Let’s just hope and pray that waists remain low, trousers narrow and jackettes jackette-like.

Now I glance back at this gone Christmas, over which arched The Shepherd’s Farewell by Berlioz.

On the 1st Day of Christmas, Anthony Mottram described his perfume. He said he read about it in an Indian magazine. You take Dettol and boil it with cinnamon, cardamon and any other ‘mons’ you happen to have.

On the 2nd Day of Christmas, the Gay Mother said she agreed with Dame Warnock. It’s good fun being old because you can remember so much

On the 3rd Day of Christmas our private vicar as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury were taken with pneumonia: as always connected to the top. We hope for their recovery.

On the 4th Day of Christmas, Mrs Bone, my childhood cleaner, now in her fourth year in the Care Home, asked if I, Adrian Edge, have a girlfriend. I said nothing.

On the 5th Day of Christmas, Rufus Pitman, who among many things is a hand-writing expert, said the President Obama’s hand is dead below the line, which means no interest in sex. Probably why he’s got on so well, except previous Presidents have been round-the-clock bonkeurs.

On the 6th Day of Christmas, Harry Rollo cited artistic differences. One who he performs with is anti-Hapsburg, but Harry is pro. Their interpretation could tend in different directions, even though their perf, about a peasant who dies in the snow (complete with origami snowflakes) isn’t obviously about the Hapsburgs at all. It is vital, of course, to be either pro- or anti-Hapsburg

to be con’t