Tuesday 29th July 2014

On Saturday Laura Malcolm stepped in a tin of anchovies on the lawn of her Norman Fastness and the whole fabric of her home was threatened. What if she’d tramped anchovy throughout? What hope of recovery?  Would even total razing and re-build get rid of the smell?

Otherwise she’s been ordering 70s garden loungers on eBay. That Laird and Lairdess we glimpsed briefly in March brought them out in their Toureg. There had been epic arrangements for delivery. At once they were ripped untimely from their wrapping and Laura flung herself straight on. What a marvel! The loungers are deeply flower-power and perfect.

O’Halloran O’Marsh and Charis Cameron broke down on the M25 of Rouen and would have drunk champagne on the roadside given half the chance.  Later Charis was thankful to find the International Daily Mail on sale. Laura and I considered marmalade. In our 30s and 40s it was enough that it was home-made. But now not. Unless caught exactly on the cusp of jellification, it’s no good. Heat is the great agony of one’s 50s. There’s one slither of a second when a salmon or a chicken or marmalade are exactly right. But how to find it? Will it ever be found?

When the full party was finally assembled,  we arranged ourselves in a row on the lawn to imitate an old people’s home. O’Halloran O’Marsh told of the extraordinary behavour of Rubella Wax at John Diamond’s funeral and also how Lord Rothemere just ordered another plane for the golf clubs. He throbs at the core of our Nation. Later Laura, accompanied by her husband, Matt Driver, took some dis-used lavvies to the re-cycling centre. But Matt saved the handle of one to put in his shed. Recently the Velux windows in the roof of the Norman Fastness have had to be altered because it has always annoyed Matt that they were different sizes. Later in the twilight facility on the lawn, Matt revealed a criminal past. As a youth, he carried out several ‘jobs’, with accomplices. This fearlessness was doubtless the foundation of his career as a world taste-shaper with a salary out-stripping Smallmeal’s.

On Saturday morning, the Laird appeared at his window stark naked by way of morning greeting. Quickly the Lairdess, from behind, rendered him decent. ‘With a postage stamp,’ she said later.  But by evening she was giving an entirely different account of The Laird’s regions. The Laird tells jokes. It’s extraordinary how many he’s got in stock and none of them are repeatable in a family publication. Laura condemned one, about a small boy taking a bath with his mother, as deeply misogynist but the Laird was just seeing how far he could go and it was quite far. The Lairdess is infinitely patient and loving. He explained how to avoid sexism in the boardroom, with a mirror on a stick, which can be used to gain a good view from above or even below. Somehow the item was produced there and then, crudely sello-taped, and at once fell to bits.

The Laird shows another side in his love for Philip, a pheasant that visits him in Usk for particular hand-feeding. This is a relationship of peculiar intensity and the Laird goes mental if anyone dis-es Philip, who is indeed a cock bird.

Laura outlawed Ottolenghi this year and returned to traditional Norman cuisine. The visit, as always, rested on the menus. The Norman experience is essentially lunching and dining with brief interludes and filthy talk throughout. I helped Laura with a Salsa Verde, chopped by hand, for the poached salmon – which, yes, was caught at exactly that slither of a second. I’ve only just thought of it. That slither was found. Paradise can be known on Earth. Other dishes were Rabbit aux Prunes and Poulet au Pays de Aude, which I’ve tried again and again to reproduce in London without success. The Laird also contributed.  In addition to barrier-dismantling, he is a home gourmet chef. At home, he’d marinaded olives in honey, cumin and chilli. The detail. He’d had them in a restaurant and spent months working out how they were done.

The final dinner was prepared by the Laird, assisted by the Lairdess – seafood, steak and tarte au pommes. We had visitors, an alternative family of good English provenance and complete freedom who are resident in Normandy. There was a son of sixteen and a daughter of twelve. A crackle of sex talk was heard as the dinner got underway and soon it was raging throughout. Finally the daughter of twelve rose from her seat, brandishing a mobile phone, to announce that she was putting her Daddy on Grinder.

Laura Malcolm’s 70s Loungers, Bought on eBay

The Laird’s Device for Avoiding Sexism in the Boardroom

We Visit Sephora in Normandy

Display in Norman Chemists

Friday 25th July 2014

Now I just carry out engagements in outfits. Inner life is reduced to a minimum. On Thursday 17^th July, I attended, on a non-paying basis, a paying dinner at Fortnum and Mason to launch a Mark Hix venture (I think he’s popping up there for August). Genevieve Suzy and I were on Dainty Lady TV  business. I wore my Zara cream suit, which has completely changed shape with wearing.  We sat with Constance Bunty from the Graph (great friend of Nigel Slater but she’s lost him to TV), her husband, Damien ‘the Demon’ Bunty of the Mail, and, to start with, a dolly with fluffy meringue for hair, accompanied by a lothario who attempted to speak Spanish with the waiters. But Constance Bunty got the PR to move them to another table where they sat side by side looking as if about to set off for a ride. You know how I’ve been in agony all summer about cooking a chicken. Well, Constance Bunty told me yet another method. Tie your bird up tightly so its cavity is closed, rub with oil and seasoning,  then roast in oven at maximum temperature for 55 mins. Only drawback: oven gets in terrible mess. But do try it. We thought nothing of the Mark Hix food for Fortnums, despite the emphasis on vodka made from special breed cow’s milk. The broad beans were mealy, although skinned.  Speeches were given by Mark Hix and a side-kick in the vodka line. ‘Accustomed as I am to public speaking,’ Constance said with flame-thrower irony. Constance and Damien are moving to a Sixties flat in Wanita (that’s Wandsworth). Damien had no expression to begin with but, on parting, was suddenly enthusiastic, hugged me, said he knew some poofs and would take me to Windsor Evening Races.

The next day, Friday 18^th July, I dined privately with Merle Barr at her home. Her young cat was flaked out with the heat but not dead.  We had quite a lot of psychological talk then fell unconscious from drink.

On Saturday 19^th July, I drove to the Gay Mother’s. Her borders are a triumph with Sclary sage (self-seeded), an extremely rare evening primrose, Helenium Sarin’s Early Flower and a mad gladiolus. I see, now that she is 90, when congratulated, her air is more ‘I should hope so too’.  She has been awarded a cup by the village for her contribution particularly to the new flower borders outside the Parish Hall.  At dinner she recited the names of all the doctors in her surgery, as well as quite a number of other doctors we’ve known over the years. The next day, we drove to the family church of the other branch of the family (the church now only in use twice a year) for the summer service. Aunt Lavinia was present, being a member of that branch. It is a romantic spot, quite isolated, just a church and a few buildings in the middle of nowhere. The family house, which stood next the church, was pulled down in the 20s, unfort. Afterwards we picnicked from out the side of the car and Aunt Lavinia gave a piece of the Gay Mother’s best ham to her dog, Bertram. Then we drove back in my official car with Xenon driving lights and on Monday morning I returned in that vehicle to the Capital.

All the while, beneath the smooth run of engagements, I was in crisis over my Tuscan villa, taken with Prince Dmitri, after Val, supposedly coming out, re-sauced and became abusive and Connor Cadeaux and Cesar Kaiser failed to confirm. Also, I have decided to apply bleach with Q-tip to my best white jacket which came back from Jeeves of Belgravia stained in a conspicuous place.

The Gay Mother’s Triumphant Border in Her 91st Year

The Gay Mother has Been Awarded a Cup by the Village

The Other Branch of the Family: Their Church

My Garden: That Touch of Red was a Worry Last Year but This Year I Like It

Thursday 24th July 2014

You’ll have noticed I have achieved an ideal state of a machine carrying out engagements. Friday 11^th July was dinner with Dennis Tanner from Coronation Street.  He was utterly charming and not at all like Dennis Tanner.  Aunt Lavinia was present at the dinner given by Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowski and went to great lengths to conceal that she had never watched ‘Coronation Street’.

Saturday 12^th I took ‘Boyhood’ with Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver at a cinema. It is a three-hour film about a normal boy growing up. The unique feature is that the actors grew in real time the same as in the film which is the first 18 years of the boy’s life. It was hard to sustain interest in people so ordinary (unlike Grace Monaco). Strangely, though, I was fascinated… as well as deeply bored.  There was always hope that the meaning of life would be revealed. The boy constantly encountered adults who thought they knew best. ‘You’ll never get anywhere in photography without discipline,’ the dreary photography teacher hectored. A nicer lady said to him when he left High School: ‘You’ll meet your sort of people at College. It’ll all work out.’ In the closing scenes he gains College and meets some people who like to go out in the wild and scream.

Sunday 13^th Bruce McBain gave a lunch. He’d barely cooked his salmon but it worked.

On Monday 14^th I attended a launch at L’Escargot in Soho. Some of the Earls Court Gays from years ago re-surfaced. Taudanant, who frocked Diana, was present and Skippy Lancaster also. The crush was so great the waiters could penetrate with neither champagne nor canapés. Strange how a poison can gas an occasion. Somehow there was that nasty Earls Court taste although Taudanant and Skippy are perfectly charming. On Tuesday I dined privately at home with a musical lady who said that a friend was so rich he didn’t know his own National Insurance number. Wednesday was the Grace Monaco film, followed by Joshua Baring at Rosa’s Thai Restaurant and then at his club, Quo Vadis. He told how an important widow (her husband’s interviews are all-time classics), even though over ninety, was quick enough to get the phone slammed down the minute she’d denounced the ghastly Dhiren Dutta as a prick.  Well done! old girl. Patrick Lockyer has had further adventures, never quite coming to fruition,  shall we say. The truth is Patrick and Joshua should marry without further delay and become what they afterwards became. It’s no use questing for the perfect boy.

Wednesday 23rd July 2014

I’ve gained Normandy for the annual visit. Heaven. But the Grace of Monaco film! I never knew that General de Gaulle blockaded Monaco, did you? But he did and it had to be saved. Desperate times in 1962. How to save that darling principality and delightful tax haven, with such gambling facilities as well as a Grand Prix race?  First of all, Grace of Monaco tried advancing on the barricades in Dior with a simple basket: ‘Here’s some food I thought you’d like,’ she said to the guards. Meanwhile Aristotle Onassis was closeted in a smoke-filled room with Prince Ranier and other men. Nobody was getting anywhere. General de Gaulle did not care for the tax-free facilities of Monaco and Grace was unhappy at her lack of role. She was taking lessons in Royalty (mainly deportment and carriage) from Derek Jacobi. Then she had a brain wave. So she invited General de Gaulle to the Red Cross Ball, where, in yards and yards of tulle, with chignon hairpiece and diamonds, she made a touching speech, touching any heart re: peace and sacrifice and the terrible struggle of the beloved people of Monaco. Of course, Gen de Gaulle was bewitched and immediately called off the tanks. Monaco was saved.

Frockage, jewels and ball-giving amount to something after all. I always knew it. So there.

Saturday 19th July 2014

Fortune brings contempt. I’m plunged into one of the greatest crises of my career. The first week of our Tuscan villa is under threat. A villa for six occupied by only two looks the likely prospect, even though that other person is dear, philosophical Prince Dmitri. Val came back from Bulgaria on Monday where he made crowns for the orphans for their big-time show last Saturday. I can’t remember the theme this year. In previous years, it has been Bollywood, or Chinese. Maybe this year it was San Francisco. A San Francisco theme. Anyway, the plane bearing Val and Robert Nevil back from Bulgaria circled so many times above Row that Val had no choice but to pour a stiff Scotch on regaining and then another. Now he’s sending abusive messages to me, Adrian Edge. I’m afraid I must replace him for the first week in Tuscany. Flights are paid for but will a single available last min emerge? This would not be the absolute end, except that the other guests expected in the first week are Connor Cadeaux and Cesar Kaiser who undertook to take 4 villa nights but have still not booked flights and don’t communicate. Torture.

I am reminded of how once, taking a large party to Glyndebourniana to see Tristan, in the days before Glyndebourniana became one’s way of life (even though the man who built the Channel Tunnel was of the party and the picnic had been prepared by Lady Norrington’s kitchen staff and Liz Whipp, the struck-off oncologist, also was expected but had been inexplicably air-lifted from the Glyndebourniana neighbourhood by the Authorities the day before) – to convey the large party I failed to resist the opportunity to replace my in those days modest Official Car with no Zenon driving lights, to substitute a large limo-type Mercedes, hired for the day.  The look of utter contempt and hatred, even at Glyndebourniana, spat in the car park at one’s assumption of a Mercedes level! Fortune brings contempt. So with the Tuscan villa.

Bulgarian Foyer Plant: Robert Nevil Reports It has Acquired Three More Leaves Since Last Year

Wednesday 16th July 2014

So I regained in time for the Men’s Final which was thrilling. Could I have borne more drama?

On Monday the Gay Mother arrived 1st class by train and was driven to my home. The next day, through connections at the highest level, we were admitted free to the Hampton Court Flower Show free of charge. To begin with, having sandwiches in a non-VIP enclosure, it was really rough white racist: some people made haggard by the sun (perhaps of Spain) were on the phone about their sexual organs. These were ladies. The Gay Mother managed the Flower Tent then wanted to go home. But after tea and cake we were revived and took some show gardens. I was glad because the Jordans Garden ( the cereal people) was one of the best show gardens I’ve seen. No hard landscaping. Just a spiral cut into a field, wild flowers  and a few garden ones. It was outstanding and most original.

Back at my residence, it was full steam ahead for the Glyndebourniana picnic – the agony of cooking a salmon trout. By infinite mercy it was all right. I reverted to the foil parcel method at 180 degrees for 43 minutes, then left it wrapped in its parcel to cool. The fish weighed 1.6 kilos.

So this summer has seen salmon-cooking tackled head on by Poor Little Rich Gays. You could adopt the Angus Willis approach of wrapping in cling film, then a tea-towel, before pouring boiling water over and simmering for 4 minutes then leaving in the water for 40 minutes but I don’t like the result. The fish is too soft.

All my wares were shown at Glyndebourniana as always. All the best silver and china. Only glass was what you might call ‘picnic’. The Gay Mother wore her Alice Temperley coat-cardy and her Ferragamo clucks. Aunt Lavinia mentioned that she’d heard that white vinegar works miracles on greying whites. Slosh a glug in the soap drawer. The weather held out and it was warm after dark. We sat in the front row for the opera and saw the members of the orch pulling faces at each other. The cast looked marvellous and there were some outstanding moments.

On Thursday the Gay Mother returned by 1st Class train to Plymouth. She sat with a dog and a Dutch family who had not reserved seats. 1st Class has now been democratised i.e. there is only one carriage, so more crowded and no quiet carriage so mobile phone threat. Probably 1st class is deemed unfair.

In the evening I attended Screws’ Turn at Holland Park Opera – this work much improved. I crossed out Britten last year but might have to uncross him – up to to point. Parts of Screw are quite lyrical and nice. One can imagine them being howled by old Peter Pears in that cardy to ill-effect. Aunt Geneva and Cousin Barbara hosted me at Holland Park. Aunt Geneva had been to Moxton’s and got a lobster which was slightly nicer than the ones I had for the Royal Dinner. She said to Moxton: ‘I’m not buying it unless you do all the preparation.’

Funny how I only once had a lobster before, provided by loathed Robin Smallmeal at Glyndebourniana. It was from Blagdon’s and overcooked. Then suddenly I’m double-lobster in under ten days.

Friday was another dinner with Dennis Tanner from Corrie. But no time for that now. Am dashing to the Grace Monaco film, then dining with Joshua Baring who’s coming on from a Focus Group. I always tell people I was tremendously intimate with Grace Monaco and have never got over her death.

Hampton Court Flower Show: A People’s Princess if Ever There Was One

Hampton Court Flower Show: Does This Give a Feeling?

Hampton Court Flower Show

Hampton Court Flower Show: Vital Ornament 

Hampton Court Flower Show: The Gay Mother Said, ‘I’d Never Have a Garden Designer.’ Especially Not If It Looked Like This,’ I said

Retirement Garden at Hampton Court Flower Show: Horrid

The Jordan’s Garden at Hampton Court Flower Show: Really Good. Loved It

Sunday 13th July 2014

Monday 30th June I closed the Summer Season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Prince Dmitri had been at Lady Riblat’s. She gave a drinks party for his Committee but departure was under-scored for 7pm. ‘John will be home soon and I think we’ll dine outside,’ she said to the Filipino. He’s also got a new client with $2 billion of her own money but an interest in a Trust worth $25 billion. Ariadne was nice. We had the Rich Ladies’ small table and pre-ordered dishes in the interval. I wore an outfit.

Tuesday 1st July was the Royal Dinner already described. Wednesday 2nd was the launch of the Savile Row magazine in a brown marble tomb in Mayfair. Genevieve Suzy and I met a man who does bespoke jeans and showed us his crotch to illustrate the leather reinforced fly. A spider was the star attraction – a poet called John Cooper Clarke. He made a speech saying he could rarely afford Savile Row but it was great.

Thursday 3rd was Rufus Pitman’s launch already described. On Friday 4th I was conveyed to Mallory Cottage, Biddleston, Suffolk for B and B  before Ed Jasper’s party for Roland Mainflower’s 50th birthday the next day. Lord Arrowby was distressed I missed his party held that same evening. Guests were in bathers apparently. I dined alone at vast expense at the Crown, Biddleston, listening to drinkers at neighbouring tables covering the following topics: roadworks on the road to London, No Claims Bonuses and finally House Prices. It was supposed to be a gourmet dinner. On Saturday I scraped my Official car on a bollard and went antiques shopping with no success, except I bought 10 white wine glasses for £70. Then Genevieve Suzy and Lord Suzy arrived from London, not speaking owing to road map rage. When Genevieve found out the party was to be lightly catered she went straight to bed. Ed was going to send a taxi for us, but, after a massive hunt for a phone signal, we asked for it to come later. Ed got to hear about this and went mental. We could have walked to his place or self-car-ed. Eventually Genevieve was prepared to board, except she biffed her bee-hive on a beam in beamy weamy nooky Mallory Cottage. Fuming she gained the party in a turquoise kaftan. Unbelievable: Patrick Lockyer was there – with that young barrister who was in the Groucho Club with the Lord Justice of Appeal having passed the evening with him and later almost gone clubbing. That was back in April. Later Aunt Lavinia’s youngest son showed at the function. So many coincidences. What a web! Genevieve bucked up when the Deputy Editor of the Mail on Sunday loomed after putting the edition to bed. Also various star columnists. We took hearty sandwiches, cold sausages and tea-cakes, with lashing of fizz. Some of the Gays as well as Straights started confiding about their emotions. Aunt Lavinia’s youngest son was going to gain £12,000 if Costa Rica won the World Cup. Ed begged me not to graph him but I did and caught an extreme El Greco crossed with Münch of a hostess in the last throws. There was no question of Genevieve leaving the party. She was in a gazebo in the extensive grounds with the Deputy Editor of the Mail on Sunday – and others, including Patrick Lockyer, who represents celebrities, but not Rolf Harris. Finally the young barrister wanted to leave. He and Patrick were staying in the same village as me, Adrian Edge. He insisted on not waiting for the taxi but walking across the fields in the pitch dark. I felt I might meet my end. This barrister is alluring but somehow lethal. At six in the morning, Genevieve and Patrick appeared in my room at Mallory Cottage, it being the only access at nighttime. Patrick sat down on the bed then keeled and might never have got up. They’d been ejected from Ed’s desmesne. By 10, Genevieve was completely fresh and at breakfast with quite a deal to say. I returned at once to London for the Mens’ Final and missed the chance to hang out in Lavenham with Patrick and the barrister.

At 3pm Genevieve and Patrick made friends on Facebook.

By the way, Genevieve accused me of not having been at the Sales. But I have!

John Cowper Clarke at Launch of Savile Row Magazine in Mayfair

John Cooper Clarke, Poet, at Launch of Savile Row Magazine, Mayfair

He Makes Bespoke Jeans with Re-inforced Leather Fly. He Showed Us His Own

Dinner at the Crown, Biddleston, Suffolk

Magic: Ed Jasper and Roland Mainflower’s Demesne for Roland’s 50th Birthday Party

Braziers Brought in for Roland Mainflower’s 50th Birthday in Suffolk: But the Weather Held Out and It was Warm

Friday 11th July 2014

Last Thursday Rufus Pitman launched a new work of tremendous ambition in Chelsea where the premises are compact if valuable so much of the party spilled out onto the pavement and into the road. Had a taxi ploughed by too fast many world-class Poor Little Rich Gays would have been wiped out not to mention other leading taste-shapers and cultural icons. Susan Goodyear arrived by taxi. ‘I’ve had taxi trouble,’ she announced stepping down onto Dhiren Dutta, the two-time novelist who once gave a cake-party. He offered himself as a footstool for her descent. I took sides against him after he was beastly to Robert Nevil, so there were lashings of leccie flashing across the throng between us and him. Joshua Baring, the youngest-known Poor Little Rich Gay, also lashed leccie at Dutta before leaving early for a meeting of a secret society.  Friends of Sid Id were present: ‘I’ve not played Poker with you,’ I said to one who was also discussing with Crumply Flower, Rufus’s producer and a deeply sensitive heterosexual, where they would watch the next World Cup match.

These Intellectuals: their level of conversation would surprise many ordinary members of the Public. Robert Nevil, by the way, was wearing a purple striped shirt with bees embroidered at the neck. I, on the other hand, was picking over Glyndebourniana picnic options with Finn Magnus, the hot boy-doc, who is going up in the world in the manner of really good lift ascending a Manhattan skyscraper. Otherwise he is seen at incredibly central dinners at Our Nation’s burning core in white tie and tails as the guest of Lord Arrowby. Of course, it would be too dangerous to take me, Adrian Edge, to such a function. I rather blew up Crumply Flower for not commissioning more feists for the Queen. He doesn’t take the world of Dainty Lady TV seriously at all, despite its lavish profitability.

We passed to a restaurant. Passers-by were extraordinarily good-looking that evening. I mentioned this to Harry Rollo, the world-renowned impressario and performance artist, who was on the verge of doing a song-cycle and gardening evening in Tuscany. He said, ‘Yes, but they’re awful people.’ At dinner was the gorgeous Ed Radz, who is a completely new type of person – chronically heterosexual and chronically ambiguous. He tried to persuade Reggie Cresswell to make an analytical ceramic of one of John Donne’s poems, but Reggie wouldn’t, perhaps because he was so busy trying to work in ‘La Pietra’, as a word, at every opp. ‘La Pietra’, Harold Acton’s Tuscan villa, was his destination for the crack of dawn the following Saturday where Harry Rollo was to garden and render a song-cycle. On the Friday night was Lord Arrowby’s party which this year, for the first time ever, I was unable to attend. Anyway it turns out that Ed Radz lives near an establishment called ‘The Hoist’, which hosts Gay ‘nuits de cuir’ and so on. I’m not sure whether it is just the proximity but Ed likes to attend. His girlfriend is only miffed when he insists on taking ‘Lube Night’. Maybe this is research. Ed was also photographed on a train, discussing modern Britain with Nick Clegg. Later Harry Rollo slid over and said that Bruno-France Bruno had recently lost his bag on the Underground but it was all right because he’s got a direct line to the Head of Lost Property.

The evening broke up in glory and Raj Zoroaster paid the entire bill. Hurry up, Rufus Pitman, and launch another work.

Saturday 5th July 2014

So extraordinary! The day before my Royal Dinner, with the menu selected from the new Queen’s Cookbook and to be shown on Dainty Lady TV in due course, Genevieve Suzy of the magazine world and I took tea in Mayfair at an hotel. I thought we were being hosted by a PR person to promote the bees on the roof of the hotel. Which we were, except that PR person turned out to be a grandee of great grandeur. ‘I knew Queen Elizabeth,’ he said, which is how her friends refer to Her Late Majesty the Queen Mother. I couldn’t believe it: Munroe of Munroe is the chief of the Knights Templar and had actually taken Oeufs Drumkilbo with the QM – and been given the recipe by her communist chef.  The very oeufs which were to feature on my menu. Of course I asked him to the dinner and like all powerful people he was free last min. What’s more he is an old friend of Marmion Beaufleasance who is close to the Throne and was already on the list of Royal diners.

Can you see the web of Oeufs Drumkilbo and the Queen Mother drawing us all nearer and nearer the Throne?

Then to make the Royal menu. Essentially take 40 eggs and a ton of butter. At the last minute I switched to blackcurrant sorbet because I thought the cake with lemon egg custard and strawberries after Oeufs Drumkilbo, which is really prawn cocktail but with lobster, and Cotelettes Windsor with Sauce Paloise (a butter and egg creation with mint) could kill. So after battling all morning with three lobsters, gelatine, slithers of eggs, making mayo not to mention wondering where I was going to get a silver-gilt set of ice-cream cups (as shown in the Queen’s Cookbook, costing £278 even in 1824), I set out for Wholefoods in the West End, there being nowhere else with blackcurrant sorbet and not having the strength to make it myself. Who should I meet as I came away from that shop but Rufus Pitman, out shopping in the West End and also a guest at the Royal Dinner ? The web was growing richer and richer. ‘How Muriel Spark,’ he said, mentioning The Bachelors where one queen says to another, ‘You went to the West End for herbs.’ I was thinking also of Tabitha Twitchet who glimpsed Duchess on the other side of the street on the same day as she was coming to tea so ignored her. Complicated etiquette.

At last the Royal Dinner got underway. I must say I rather enjoyed it, say it myself as shouldn’t. As you know, I often have dinner-party-giving breakdown and self-hatred. The Drumkilbo was really quite nice and the egg-and-butter sauce with the lamb cutlets old-fashioned (what would Angus Willis say? Almost as bad as having a flour sauce) but delicious.

My service and styling really did gain a feel of Buckingham Palace. I do believe anyone can get a Buckingham Palace feel with imagination and effort. In fact I really thought at one point: maybe she will come, a black bonnet will heave into view with the Standard flying. Instead Marion Beaufleasance told me that recently the Queen found a safety pin on the floor at Windsor and handed it to him. Also she forgot her specs and couldn’t read the speech he’d written for her. Otherwise guests picked over past adventures of an intimate nature with those later awarded a CBE, one of whom talked in a manner  that must have been learned from porn films.

There’s another coincidence I forgot about: that knitted Queen Mother finally came into her own and was on the table.

Oeufs Drumkilbo, Styled for the Table

The Table Styling: Anyone Can Achieve a Buckingham Palace Look with Imagination

That Knitted Queen Mother Comes into Her Own at Last: the Final Coincidence Which I Suddenly Remembered

Monday 30th June 2014

This afternoon I take a bee-themed tea at the Chesterfield – they’ve got bees on the roof and they feature in the tea. My outfit must be suitable for going on to the Garden for Ariadne auf Naxos. Tomorrow I stage a Royal Dinner in my home. I’m to make Eggs Drumkilbo, a favourite of Her Late Majesty the Queen Mother, in fact not eggs at all. It’s lobster in mayo with ketchup and anchovy essence. While cooking and giving the dinner to be attended by Rufus Pitman, Marmion Beaufleasance, Genevieve Suzy, Lord Suzy and Patrick Lockyer, I’m to do pieces to camera for Dainty Lady TV. The aim is to show how my style and food presentation compares to that of Buckingham Palace. In the meantime, I’m to do my usual pieces to camera and live links.

On Wednesday, something is being launched in Savile Row. On Thursday Rufus Pitman is launching his great new work. On Friday I will be conveyed (by ambulance, I should imagine) to Suffolk, where Ed Jasper, the bed linen expert, is giving Roland Mainflower’s 50th birthday at their country home.

Don’t talk to me about plants, potting on, clothes, the Sales (still no pale grey good slacks), stains, my new suit to be got back from Bottega Veneta (yes, I went mad. Have never bought there before. It’s hand-finished. But needs letting out at the waist but only millimetres of fabric allowance. In that kind of shop, you shriek, ‘Just do it! – even at 50% off)