Monday 24th November 2014

Harry Rollo is part of a matching pair, but the American half, who is named after a quite specialist kitchen appliance, is not as well-known here as Harry is there and would never, for instance, tend towards music then tend away again at exactly the moment the audience is thinking, ‘This IS music.’

But Harry said that every year on his birthday this American team-mate of his – his mother phones up and does an imitation down the phone of the original event. i.e. considerable birth pangs performance. Unusual but a useful reminder, I would have thought.

Otherwise, I dined Joshua Baring, Patrick Lockyer and Robert Nevil at Bethnal Green Town Hall, now a restaurant. There was much talk of someone called Missy who recoiled in horror at the Chinese film RN and Joshua had seen in Streatham the week before even though no sex took place and Joshua said afterwards it was because both the people in the film were 100% b…t..m, an expression RN had never heard before. At one point Patrick talked in Russian. It turns out the Sexual Health Clinic in Soho is like a Design Hotel although NHS. Someone they know had to go there. This someone is someone we know as well, not least because he was in ‘Hello’ the other day but also through a typical Poor Little Rich Gay multi-directional web of connection. Afterwards Robert Nevil said most of the talk of the young people was pure filth. I prodded Patrick Lockyer, who is accused of growing fat, for investigative purposes. Astonishing revelation! He’s rock-solid, has obviously been secretly pumping. Well, come to think of it, one who takes prostrate cancer medication to prevent baldness is not likely to allow himself to run to fat.

Other diners at the restaurant either left or were reduced to little heaps of ash by our talk.

The other big news: it’s nolonger necessary to brown the meat…

Come back later for more.

Monday 17th November 2014

I did Roasted Loin of Balmoral Venison (the guests participated to the full extent of believing it really came from Balmoral but it’s only what it’s called in ‘A Royal Cookbook’); a self-invented Royal 1st course of smoked salmon, oeufs mollet and what was meant to be caviar but Whole Foods were out of the cheaper American caviar so I had to settle for that awful lumpfish roe stuff. I would have had salmon eggs but they are the wrong colour. I had to have a black element in the dish. The plate was garnished with watercress and there was an ill-conceived dollop of yoghurt and lemon juice. My self-invented Royal ‘starter’ isn’t quite there yet. For dessert, it was a Royal rhubarb parfait with white chocolate. It was meant to be dainty individual ‘portions’ with layers of chocolate meringue cake encased in a upstanding band of white choc but I could see breakdown looming if I tried that as well as £70 on equipment not likely to be used again.

Now we teeter on world recession’s brink – yet again. The money time could be over.

So my Royal dinner could prove the last such of this era. It was intended to be a perfect miniature, perhaps a tiny Meissen button box, with just 3 guests – Stephan Jäger, the international organist and DJ, Mercury, Mr Kitten and Harry Rollo.  A concentrated block of distinction you could never hope to rival but these people love ‘Hello’ magazine, the Royal Family and trash TV. Harry arrived in an enormous fur to resemble Diaghilev, whose slot he now fills although he does more on the performing side than Diaghilev did. I forgot to mention that the week before, after his astonishing latest London perf (the one where, just as you thought it was music, it was movement and vice versa) Harry told of how one of the movers clicked horribly in her bones during a rehearsal. There was talk of an Xray but Harry said, ‘When she lifted up her top I could see there was no point as she was already an Xray.’

Anyway at dinner Harry knew all about the unorthodox sexual practices of a huge figure in the Cabinet. Apparently he’s been in touch with her, praying for silence presumably. But I don’t think they could print it in the Sun. The other thrilling revelation was that Stephan Jäger played the organ at the memorial service for Mrs Hector Barrantes, the mother of Fergiana, who in the front row alternated between hugs and horseplay with her daughters. Elaine Page was engaged to render ‘Don’t Cry for me, Argentina’ (Mrs Hector Barrantes lived in Argentina with Mr Barrentes and indeed met her end there in a road accident) but cancelled at the last minute.

Harry Rollo, the Impressario and Performance Artist, Dressed as His Part-Predecessor, Diaghilev

Thursday 13th November 2014

My diary for November was barren. But Harry Rollo gave a perf on 1st November and afterwards I dined at Harry’s invitation with a world-shattering actress. From that grew another engagement the following night, where Harry again gave a perf. And then sprang a dinner last Saturday at my Official home for Stephan Jäeger (I offered a Royal menu). In between I attended at private fund-raising Breakfast at the Royal Academy (one contributed no funds) with curator-lead tour of the Anselm Kieffer exhibition, followed the next day, by Press View at the Queen’s Gallery (‘Morning pastries are being served in the Michael Redgrave Room,’ the footman announced) of ‘From Cairo to Constantinople’ and ‘Gold’, followed immediately by Rembrandt at the National Gallery, where I was so overwhelmed I had to sit down in the foyer for some time afterwards.  Unbearably moving and great. On both Thursday and Monday I was at Canada Water Cafe, on Monday after Olympia Antiques Fayre, courtesy of Merton Silverwater who was running a jewellery stall there. Don’t imagine I wasn’t on a train to Tring for a function on Sunday wearing a tiny Topman suitlette. Finally on Tuesday I went to Genevieve Suzy’s husband’s gallery for a Private View and was whirled into a blow-out from the drink point of view chicken supper with Peter and Susan Coindrop who it turns out have a daughter. Robert Nevil was at uni with Peter Coindrop. Goodness knows what they got up to. Anyway the daughter has never loomed. ‘We’re really only interested in your sons,’ I said. But the daughter came down in her jim-jams for the chicken supper although a media lawyer of 26 or so. Her boyfriend came round. He’s in shipping finance but comes from a long line of vicars. The daughter in fact is what used to be called a ‘stunner’, ie. an international beauty. She has also a link to the dark web through her work i.e. for work purposes.

But look who came down my street yesterday. Public visit, although unannounced because of security, to our community gardens, then toilet stop with a friend who happens to have a house on the street.

A Member of the Royal Family was Within

He Emerges in Greatness

At the Moment of Boarding His Car

Monday 10th November 2014

Val was shattered on a bench. A huge yacht, Kismet, was moored in the Thames, right outside the Museum, but Val was having one of his cigarettes. This is no ordinary smoking, you understand, but a tragic tornado beside which Medea chopping up her children or Oedipus with his eyes out are as nothing. We were there for ‘Women Fashion Power’, an exhib at the Design Museum about how powerful women dress. It started with a picture of Eve, wearing nothing at all, but quickly progressed to Queen Victoria. ‘She was more like a piece of furniture,’ I said, thinking what fun it would have been to pin all sorts of different and random bits of fabric to her immoveable form according to mood or whim. ‘Yes, a sofa,’ Val said, recalling his advice to a great actress playing Queen Victoria many years ago. Then Val bucked up a bit because ‘paletot’ was spelt wrong on one of the labels. There were examples of rational dress, early cycling and bathing outfits, followed by the looser look in the 1920s, shorter skirts, ankles etc.  The familiar story. We enjoyed the Marks and Spencer blouses from the 2nd World War. When it came to the modern times, thrilling to find so many pieces belonging to people we know. There was a Roland Mouret dress: Cousin Barley’s wedding dress was made for her privately by Roland Mouret. Zaha Hadid’s cream Prada wrap – well, we know her in several ways, most importantly through Bruce MacBain of course. Val was very impressed (rare for him) by Kazudout’s black beaded frock for Diana. He’s known also, rather too well. Tremendous gasps to be actually before one of Margaret’s suits by Mansfield, a horror exactly the shade of an unnatural green blancmange we had a school with orange and brown facings (the suit not the blancmange). But Val by this time was slumped at the side, shattered. ‘It’s all rather random,’ he was saying, if he could speak at all. I did agree. Sam Cam’s cotton frock from M and S was all very well but is she a powerful woman? She’s the wife of the PM. Ditto, Mrs Clegg. What’s more the red Zara dress of hers on display wasn’t the same as the one she was wearing in the photo. As for dear darling Princess Charlene of Monaco… lovely grey ball gown. So three women who are essentially wives. Otherwise you were looking at some quite nice frockage belonging to an unknown female CEOs of companies one had never heard of. No clear picture emerged. Nevertheless Val was ecstatic about a pair of shoes and also a gymnastic outfit his mother might have worn in the 1930s, when she was in the Daughters of the Empire (I think that was the name) and they mounted mass gymnastics in Hyde Park and elsewhere.

Big Yacht Outside the Design Museum: It’s for Hire

The First Lady’s Outfit

Queen Victoria: A Sofa to Which Pieces Could be Pinned

An Early Bathing Costume c 1890

I did Like This: So True: She Pranceth Amongest Real 2nd World War Bomb Damage

The Daughters of the Empire Gymnastics Wear, as Worn by Val’s Mother, pre-War

Val Liked These Shoes Especially

Marks and Spencer 2nd World War Pinny-Type Garment

Zaha Hadid’s Actual Prada Wrap – Somewhat Grubby

Margaret’s Suit by Mansfield: The Colour of School Blancmange

Kazudout’s Frock for Diana

Roland Mouret’s Frock

Friday 7th November 2014

I must rest with flowers after being wall-to-wall exhibitions and performances all week. I can only note how infrequently one pays an entry price these days or is admitted with the general public. Briefly it’s been Anselm Kieffer, Cairo to Constantinople, Rembrandt, Olympia Antique Fayre, plus free lunch with Vin Santo and two visits to Canada Water Cafe. Tomorrow I’m to give a Royal dinner.

Two other developments are of interest: on rising I’ve a new policy of shrieking, ‘I’m in residence.’ This is wonderfully uplifting. Then, on editing my wardrobe recently, I decided that my green suede jacket by Peau, which was half price at £700 in 2007, and was once returned to Japan by air for cleaning after a salad leaf (dressed) dropped on it at Cafe Rouge, Greenwich, is to be a life-piece.

So here is my garden on 1st November, full of flowers.

Not Bad for 1st November

As Seen on 1st November

Sunday 2nd November 2014

Because of the newspapers. As so often, Poor Little Rich Gays dominate on a Saturday. Word came through from Hastings first thing: Angus Willis’s Home Store Restaurant was once again massively featured and some mysterious gentlemen had been observed there by the reviewer ordering champagne ‘but not in a flute’. We know who they are, don’t we? Yes, the Multis, becoming more and more like themselves. See graph below, if you don’t believe it.

Harry Rollo was ruled the airwaves all week in fact with a glare of publicity for his latest run of monumental perfs. Never has such a thing been attempted before. But last night was the last night, a perf to end all perfs; now he will not be seen again on the London stage for quite a few weeks.  Where does music end and movement begin or where does music start and movement end? Harry, as we know, as tended at times towards music.  So, just as we thought we were on sure ground, he whisks off towards movement. Innumerable greatnesses were ‘in’, including a world-shattering actress and an older man with round milky plastic specs of freakish aspect. Awfully well-known. I thought it was Terry Farrell, the architect, but it wasn’t. Maddening. Who was it? You must know. Do tell.

Maybe it was Terry Farrell, the architect, by many thought the greatest of the three: Richard Rodgers, Norma Foster and Terry Farrell: these three, but the greatest of these is Terry Farrell.

Mystery Gentlemen: Who Could They Be? If You Never Believed the Multis, You Can’t Deny Them Now. They’re in the Graph

Thursday 30th October 2014

The Laird’s other great interest, apart from weed-killer and solar panels, is gourmet cooking. So while Laura Malcolm, Matt Driver and myself were climbing up that mountain, he was immersed in detail to a remarkable degree in the kitchen. The new features are a smoke-machine (great concern as to the covers keeping the smoke in over the dish: should they be monogrammed or is a full Coat of Arms required?), a device, frankly recalling the equipment brandished by Maggie Smith in A Private Function when she said, ‘I think sexual intercourse is in order,’ for making spagetti out of white chocolate, and another chemistry-set type contraption, not dissimilar to those trays of pipettes where they keep diseases or embryos in laboratories. I can’t quite recall what it was for as yet, but I’m sure it will come back to me.

Three amuse bouche were offered, with prosecco. The Laird doesn’t touch a drop but nevertheless expertly selects the wines for the courses  – another bizarre talent, as a blind person might have a great feeling for colour. Have you ever had a clear tomato jelly? Can you imagine the straining and purifying that would go into making it? This was one of the amuse – absolute heaven, the flavour the Platonic ideal of tomato. Laura was wild for the coconut-marinaded herring which was reconstructed by the Laird from a visit to Iceland. One of the guests was a man whom the Lairdess and Laura had married as schoolgirls, by means of hoola hoops. I think it was quite an abusive situation. Now he is often in the jungle with David Attenborough but still graciously gave his two wives a box of chocs each. We moved into the dining room for the main event. Of the other guests, one favoured Abergavenny as having many women’s groups but she admitted to having hung around Waitrose in the hope of running into the Laird  and thereby securing an invitation to a gourmet experience.

It’s come back to me now: the bacteria-pipette thing was for making the honey caviar to go with the goat’s cheese. That was the 1st course. Then came the ‘Smoking Haddock’ – an exquisite haddock in cream sauce with smoke. Well, look, I can’t go through all the courses. We’d be here all day. But when was such a dinner ever offered in a private home before? There must have been a total of 50 or more different preparations and procedures undertaken. The white chocolate spagetti in ‘tomato’ sauce was in fact a pre-dessert – one wriggly spoon of total innovation and complete newness. After Laura had had a few (wines, I mean) there was a danger that she was going to attack the Abergavenny-women’s groups woman over the Welsh language. I’m afraid the Welsh language, however hard we try, along with other languages that sound like someone slapping wet washing on a rock, bring out the worst in many a Poor Little Rich Gay. Also the pineapple main dessert was a worry because Laura had withered it in advance from the menu ”I don’t like pineapple,’ she’d scowled. Her mortars could be seen on manoeuvres behind the line. But mercifully, in the event, she rated it a triumph along with all the rest.

By the way, I should mention before you go round the bend: The Laird didn’t just boil cabbage for the main. He dissolved 5ml of agar to 100ml water, in which his steamed cabbage was then tossed so that it would hold its shape when removed from the individual moulds.

The Laird’s Menu: Even the Menu Card is Specially Created with Specific Software and Correct Card. Worry About Listing the Wines if a Wine Were to be Repeated Even Though The Laird Wasn’t Repeating a Wine

The Amuse Bouche, the Keynote Signature Tomato Jelly: I Forgot to Mention the Basil Foam, About Which the Lairdess was Quite Rude as to Appearance

The Smoking Haddock, with Smoke Cover

The Lamb Meat Main: Note the Cabbage Moulds: Be Assured that that Little Blob Would be Styled Out Before Service

Butter Styled with Volcanic Ash

The Spag al Pomadoro – Or White Choc Spag with Sauce au Frais. A Pre-Dessert

The Laird in Person with His Chocolate-Spagetti-Making Device

Tuesday 28th October 2014

Yes, I weekended in Brookside but it wasn’t what it seemed. I refer to the Close of that name in the TV soap opera which Twirly Godfrey used to say was as good as Shakespeare. This is where the Laird and Lairdess live, but their Brookside is in Usk, which is a town in Wales. They’ve cut back on the home in order to release funds for luxury travel, which occurs frequently. The Laird was known to Laura Malcolm in girlhood – his money comes from cigarette machines in the toilets of pubs in the 60s. Laura and the Lairdess were at school together. The Laird always has a crab salad before boarding any transport, except a bus, or his own Toureng, usually in the Silver Club lounge. He is interested in weed-killer as well as solar panels. With the Lairdess he was entwined in youth but they failed to marry and instead married others. Then they were reunited through Friends Reunited. The Lairdess flew to Scotland, where the Laird was truly a Laird at the time. He hid behind a pillar at Edinburgh airport in order to observe without being observed whether she was in adequate nick after many years. Fortunately she was. The Laird showed us his toilet paper cupboard at Brookside, stacked brickwork-style for extra stability. The Lairdess refers to herself as the Laird’s third and current wife and also mentions frequently a considerable asset of his person which is not on general view.

On the Saturday Laura Malcolm and Matt announced that we were to climb a mountain. I almost didn’t go. We motored to a dismal car park and there were appalling scenes of them putting on walking boots. I almost committed on the spot. There was nothing for it but to continue. ‘It’ll be five hours,’ Laura announced. We went all round the bottom of the mountain, then through a wood and down a ravine before beginning the ascent of the Sugar Loaf mountain from the lowest possible point. I was actually wearing an all-Zara outfit with a Prada ski-wear zip-up top. It bore up very well to the strain but even so, gradually I was becoming outdoors in mentality, quite an expert on bracken. Laura looked Islamic with much black head-covering. Of course it was thrilling to reach the top despite a terrific breeze up there and frightful other people and nearly dying in the final stages of the climb. What an achievement and what views! I won’t mention the effect of one of the women there in all-weather tights it would seem. Laura knew the name for the unfortunate effect caused by the tights. We descended rapidly, with only mild lashing and snarling between Matt and Laura as to exactly where the Bronze Age ditch was, and resumed at once our life of luxury.

Meanwhile, back at Brookside, the Laird was busy in the kitc. You won’t believe the upshot…

Horrific Scenes: Walking Boots are Put on for the Ascent of Sugar Loaf at Abergavenny

The Ascent Before Us

The Sugar Loaf Comes in View: We Went All that Way

Saturday 25th October 2014

I met Genevieve Suzy outside. We were to be the only Press because everybody loves Dainty Lady TV. You remember the Gov of the Bank of England gave us his last rolo – i.e. his last 4 minutes at the Reception. Once again recalling the great days of Helen Gurlie Brown, Genevieve had an up-do, a Chanel bolero jacket in eau de nil with grey mink tippet, a cameo brooch, pencil skirt and nude kitten heels. She looked completely imperial and great, like a zenith.

The reception was for Brunel. There is a new initiatve, something is being launched. Bristol was the theme, because that’s where the SS Great Britain is, Brunel’s iron ship, and now apparently the fount of Brunel in our time. I’ve mentioned before, we like Brunel because of that photograph of him before the chains looking hot, his name and his defiance of death with so many of his projects still in use today. Also, the Gay Mother was mentioning when we were in Cornwall, he had an estate near us in the West and our family must have known him, not least because one of them was big in the Great Western Railway.

The room at St James’s Palace was red and gold. It is much photographed as the scene of weddings of minor relations of the Queen. Many times she has posed in a group graph before the double doors. They were flung open when Prince Andrew appeared but that was later. First of all, we met all the people from Bristol. There was a distinct Bristol burr. Connie from Bristol said she had walked the coastal path from Minehead to Land’s End. I formed a distinct impression. Then she let slip that her husband was cooling and refrigeration for almost all the supermarts in the UK. The husband was pointed out, in brown tweed jacket and flannel slacks. Frockage was reduced to a minimum, quite frankly, but can you imagine the squillions? Next an unassuming couple, she in highly inflammable shiny print frock. There was talk of lifts. ‘Our lifts are all over the SS Britain,’ Mrs said. ‘It’s Mr and Mrs Stannah,’ Genevieve hissed. Of Stannah stair lifts! The actual golden fount of stair lifts!

I didn’t notice the doors opening. It was clear that the men were wild for Genevieve and had never known such grandeur. But Prince Andrew had come into the room. Then there were speeches. His was awfully good. I can’t remember a thing about it now but there was much ingenious weaving and threading together, a natural speaking voice and no notes, very informal, leaning against the podium and speaking quietly, no great stiff thunder. With hair and better frockage, he’d be quite a miracle.

Prince Andrew did not give us his last Rolo which was a mistake. On the way back in the taxi, Genevieve said to me: ‘Let’s just face it, you’re never going to see the Rembrandt properly.’ She’d been to the Press view that morning. I couldn’t go because of being on the way back from Cornwall. Rufus Pitman was shown privately the previous day. I’m to go the week after next with the general public, so as Genevieve said, I won’t see it properly.

Matt Driver said: Did you Buy your Bag in a Charity Auction?’ I said, ‘No That’s the Ticket put on at St James’ Palace.’ No Cameras or Phones Allowed. We Had to Show Passports and Utility Bills to Gain Admission

Monday 20th October 2014

The Gay Mother and I drove to Cornwall on Saturday 10th October and lunched in the glassed-in veranda of the hotel. When we came back from our walk down to the Helford River, where we saw a curlew clucking in the mud, and all over the golf course of the hotel (us, not curlew), an elderly couple were still reading the Daily Mail in their corner, possibly on the same page. ‘Have they been there all this time?’ the Gay Mother, 90, enquired.

You wouldn’t believe the hotel. How could such a hotel be possible? It wasn’t so much the decor as the configuration, the terrible jamming together of extensions, the awful crippled rooms and chronic corridors resulting. Oh for a ball and chain to demolish and start again. Staff were down-trodden youth, some of them stroppy and inclined to violence with the furniture. In the dining room, one didn’t like to get on the wrong side of the manageress. With the Express and Mail-reading guests she gossiped in corridors. What about? This hotel was £180 a night each, including dinner which was good. Parts were refurbished – but not the whole. So you veered from swirly carpet and caramel moquette to ice-blue with clattery bare wood floor, no pictures and bare bulb lightning. Our rooms were the latter – perfectly nice but not cosy.

Sunday we drove along the Helford River, a secretive wooded ravine, close and tight – no wonder so many stories of pirates and smugglers. Frenchman’s Creek actually exists. There are other creeks. Of course Menabilly – the Rashleighs have got it back now from Daphne du Maurier. I, Adrian Edge, was at Prep with the Rashleigh in question and his sister is married to one of our lawyers. As always connected.

But our object was the Lizard and a church where the sister of one who became wife to an Edge ancestor was married to the Vicar. A descendent of that Vicar is an old friend of the Gay Mother’s. So it is arranged. We emerged from the wooded fastness of the Helford River into the wild hysterical barrenness of the Lizard peninsular. Oh the horrid rokes blak at England’s most southernly point. The Gay Mother insisted on walking along the coastal path quite a way. Some kind of mesambyanthemum is becoming invasive there. The native one has yellow flowers but an intruder from abroad has occurred with pink flowers.

Then we rooted out the church at Grade where the sister married to the Vicar had been. It’s one of those churches all on its own, tiny little bastion of Faith in a wild place. Powerful from the outside, we worked out that the Vicar in question must have been the one who ruined the church inside – awful pine beams in the restored roof of 1870 approx. After 30 years on the Lizard the Vicar and the sister went to Stanmore where they were witnesses to the scandalous marriage of the sister’s niece, an Edge ancestor.

Earlier in the day, we’d visited Glendurvan. It’s a famous Cornish garden, rather similar to Collaton Fishacre although not in Devon – a vale going down to water. Glendurvan was the Fox family. Of course the Gay Mother knew some of their outer branches, also gardening, with many gardens in fact. At Glendurvan, my interest in conifers took deeper root. There was another  swamp cypress there. Also eucryphia I long for, one of the greatest of the flowering trees, flowering in August. Harry Rollo’s mother has one. They are rarely seen.

But where was Goonhilly? It was on stamps when I was at Prep. I’m sure I had the 1st Day Cover. Goonhilly was somewhere nearby, north of the Lizard according to the map. We had to find it. It’s two white spheres, one bigger than the other, possibly making nuclear power or beaming to outer space – a satellite – or perhaps both. It was massively famous in the 60s. How I craved Goonhilly. All through Glendurvan and lunch there (I left the coleslaw) and the Helford River and the Lizard and Grade church, it was Goonhilly that throbbed below. I described Goonhilly to the Gay Mother. ‘That’s not Goonhilly; that’s Dounreay,’ she said. ‘Where’s Dounreay? Can we go there?’ ‘Northernmost Scotland,’ she said. Still, Goonhilly was not diminished for me. Would not all roads lead to it? Well, one did. At last we were in view of Goonhilly – see graph below.

Our Hotel in 1925

Our Hotel in 2014

Our Hotel in Its Loveliness

The Icy Refurb of the Hotel

My Refurb Room in the Hotel

A Corridor in the Hotel:Pre-Refurb

The Horrid Rokkes Blak at the Lizard, England’s Most Southernly Point

Helford River – Very Secret

At Last! Goonhilly