Saturday 22nd March 2014

Val (head of Research for Dainty Lady TV ‘s deeply investigative mission to Wales) threatened the Military Museum of the Brecon Regiments but Mrs Frankie Nevil, mother of Robert Nevil, the biographer of the Pony Club, recommended some mid-Wales dams. So we set off from the Laura Ashley Hotel to commune with Nature and Victorian hydrology.

Ghastly lunch at the Visitor Centre beneath one of the Elan Valley dams. That tuna melt panini! But worse was to come at the hands of Le Relais et Chateau, I can tell you. Val had a great deal to say about ‘panini’ which is quite wrong, meaning ‘bread rolls’ if it means anything. But in the bookshop he brought ‘Favourite VW Camper Van Recipes’ x3 – thinking ahead for Christmas presents.

We motored on through the Elan Valley. There are five or six dams. We had to get them all covered, of course. Thoroughness is all at Dainty Lady TV. The biggest and most horrific (I use the term in its true Gothic sense) was only completed in the 1950s. Her Majesty the Queen opened it as one of her first engagements as Queen. I couldn’t imagine her in Norma Hartnell at this remote spot. We stood underneath it and then beside its top. Nobody else there. Just imagine if the dam had suddenly burst. Only one wild road leads to that monster crouching in the hills. Can the Royal car and party really have come along it? Perhaps it was treated as a semi-country engagement like the Grand National and she wore a tweed coat and scarf.

At the 5th or 6th dam we didn’t bother to get out of the car. Leaving the valley we saw a lovely bit of Nature done in just two colours and no trees. It really was pared down and more successful than the Snowdonia landscape we were to see later.

So, with tongues hanging out for hotel life, we approached our next hotel, the Relais et Chateau Hotel of Innisdog. ‘Oh no,’ I shrieked as our Official Car hove into view, ‘I’m not going into that Annexe.’ Val was in the middle of recounting a Barbara Cartland novel in which a milk maid so impressed the Prince Hyatt Regency with her recipe for miso soup they became lovers He did not awake at once to the danger. Then lo! and behold, where does the likely-looking hotel greeter lead us – bang slap into that annexe!

Well, that’s enough for today… our adventures with liquid nitrogen in the dining room, not to mention the 42 Roman blinds in the annexe will have to wait.

This Horrid Dam in the Elan Valley, Wales

Highly Successful Landscape, Done in Just Two Colours, as We Left the Elan Valley for Hotel Life

We Stopped at Dear Moribund Llandrindod Wells, From Whence I Made Calls on Estate Business

The Hydro at Dear Moribund Llandrindod Wells, where Cousin Lunetta’s Nonna Always Took the Cure

Thursday 20th March 2014

Val and I drove up from the Laura Ashley Hotel in Wales to visit Mrs Frankie Nevil, the Mother of Robert Nevil. She is 85 and was found reading a ‘very silly’ novel, owing to illness and not being allowed to do anything useful, such as mucking out horses. Nevertheless she was engaged in classic competitive gardening with her son, despite his absence in London. As you know, all Poor Little Rich Gays are spurred by the desire to outdo the Mother, who often answers in kind. ‘I’ve got my own Scillas,’ Mrs Frankie announced. Her hellebores also were unsurpassed. Val and I ate the chocolate biscuits that were being saved for Robert Nevil’s Easter visit, so a barren Easter for him. The centrepiece of the garden was a rare Cornus, with masses of tiny, whirly surplur yellow flowers, the obvious choice for anyone horrified by the eggy brilliance of  forsythia. At tea we poured over the National Trust catalogue to see which properties had opened for the new season. Frankie made her best remark. She said, ‘What is a …?’ It wasn’t ‘What is a traffic cone?’ or ‘What is a bat-wing sleeve?’ Her question reflected a certain grandeur towards the world. But, horror, it was lost.  Val was without having a fag and later I couldn’t recall Mrs Frankie’s best remark.

We drove back, in a bit of hurry owing to having to broadcast again for Dainty Lady TV (this time on ‘How to eat Crisps’) but, all the same, crumbled into Wordsworthianism on the way. The mountain landscape looked as if it might inspire awe. What does a Poor Little Rich Gay do in a landscape untouched by human hand? I sent Robert Nevil a photograph. He replied, ‘Blue remembered hills.’ I went: ‘They’re not blue.’ He said, ‘You’re being pedantic. They’re blue to me.’ But it’s the Malvern Hills that are blue. These weren’t the Malvern Hills. However perhaps this is the correct, altering attitude for the Poor Little Rich Gay to have.

Now I look at the photograph, I think it might be all right. Val said, ‘You haven’t got the sheep.’ So I had to get out of the car again to re-graph. Now the sheep could be said to have been arranged in the landscape by the farmer. Also, I think, there were fields and hedges – so we escaped undiluted, raw Nature.

For the time being at least…. the next day it was another matter.

Escape – just – from Wordsworthianisation – These Sheep Are Styled Into the Landscape, Aren’t They?

Is This Nature? Fields and Hedgerows Save the Day – For the Time Being

Found in an Antique Shop Near Mrs Frankie Nevil’s

The Judge’s Lodgings at Prestaigne, near Mrs Frankie Nevil’s. Saucy Historian, Lucy Worsley, Appears on Promotional Material for this Property, Peeking out Delightfully from behind a Charlotte Russe

Houses in Prestaigne

Tuesday 18th March 2014

Last week Val and I were on Dainty Lady TV business in Wales. We achieved a level of luxury never before known. Then on Friday in another part of the country altogether, I attended a Ground-Breaking Ceremony, before returning, on Saturday to the Capital, to resume my Gorgeous Life – so far, one lunch, one dinner, one Fraü (that’s an opera) and one Press Preview.

At the Laura Ashley Hotel in Wales it was paradise. Val said, ‘This suite’s the size of my entire flatti.’ There was moderate ill-feeling because his had two tellies. But I had second-hand books for atmosphere and he didn’t. My suite was a veal and powder-blue scheme, with four-poster bed and antiques. My own luggage and accoutrements looked so dog-earred in the suite, even though Val had altered some of my clothes and we had a fitting there. There was one stain in the veal carpet though and the radiator was noisy. But it was paradise. One just hovered in a state of paradise in the hotel. My God the other guests looked dog-earred in the public rooms! Their clothes! So rough and boil-washed in the Clough-Williams-Ellis drawing room beneath the Augustus John drawing. We had a little lunch in the corner of that Drawing Room, off the white and silver china, not the gold and white set used for tea. Val explained about Melton, of which military uniforms were made, and how the sleeves of tunics were set. As usual in a country house hotel, the other guests were so much in a state of paradise, they had no conversation so eavesdropped on ours. ‘So fitted, the military uniforms of the Napoleonic era,’ Val exclaimed. ‘Clamped to the body. People today have no idea.’

In the day-time, Val carried out research work on my behalf, while I was ensuite broadcasting to the Dainty Lady TV audience about table decoration. There was a mix-up about Whistler.  Every time Val referred to the Whistler muriels on the stairs (the same stairs, very possibly, where Laura fell to her death), the managers said, ‘The Whistlers are in the Whistler Room.’  They couldn’t or wouldn’t see that there was Rex Whistler and then another Whistler with a Mother.  The Sickert, they said, was on loan, but Val had learned not to believe a word they said and tracked down the Sickert on the upper bedroom corridor where the Dame Laura Knight was.

I don’t know what the other guests were doing in paradise but they weren’t looking at the art. Norma Lamont and John Major had stayed in the hotel and their Collinses were framed and on display. We toured the other drawing rooms, the Whistler Room, the modern conservatory extension. Who would have thought there was so much to do in a hotel? We toured the gardens, without flowers but with a heli-pad and a maze. I was frantic to get out of the maze because suddenly we heard a helicopter landing. I absolutely dashed to the pad to see two men, not gay, in leisure outfits emerge and take morning coffee in the hotel. They had no particular sheen of greatness. Val and I inspected the outside of the building, trying to see where Clough-Williams-Ellis began and the old Jacobethan ended. There was a craggy coat of arms carved on an outside wall but the Latin motto stumped us.

My God! we were investigative in the hotel.

The dinners cost £175 a head or A la carte the minimum price for a dish was about £35. But never fear if you’re on Dainty Lady TV business and not paying. Val couldn’t take any of it on account of his delicate stomach. ‘I don’t want the celeriac on a bed of Abergavenny hay,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a poached egg, no toast.’

At bedtime, Val said, ‘I’ll just take this carpet off the bed.’ He meant the bedspread. In the suites one was enveloped in upholstery. Ten-million-ply curtains, cushions, throws, covers. In bed you could die under the weight of inter-lined fabrics. Last thing, I reached for the complimentary bedtime chocolate. Can you imagine? It wasn’t a choc but a knob of the furniture.

The Veal and Powder Blue Scheme in My Suite at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

One of the Drawing Rooms at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

The Augustus John at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

Have you Got the Right Whistler? This is Rex on the Stairs (Could it Be, the Very Laura Ashley Death Stairs?) of the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales. Just Maybe Laura’s Last View was that White Peacock

Rex Whistler Muriel on the Stairs of the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

Now We’re in the Whistler Room at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales, but It’s the Other Whistler, with the Mother

Laura’s First Garment, on Display at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

The Dame Laura Knight at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

The Grounds: the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

Un Grand Moment d’Arrive at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales

The Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales: Outside View

A Gay Arrived at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales, One of a Pack of Four

My Bedtime Choc at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales. It wouldn’t Come Off. Was Part of the Antique, Unfort

Tuesday 11th March 2014

In this glorious Spring, Val and I are covering Wales for Dainty Lady TV. Already he’s condemned Captain Scott. ‘What an idiot,’ he said, in the Official Car with Xenon driving lights, as we swirled from London. It was because I mentioned Slimbridge, where Peter Scott the son used to look at birds and was often on TV in our youth. Slimbridge is somewhere on the Severn and we were about to cross the Severn Bridge.

Before engaging with our hotels, we carried out a luncheon engagement on Sunday at the Laird’s in Usk. The Laird is a life-long friend of Laura Malcolm’s, who also lunched, with Matt Driver, after herself being engaged on the Saturday night in Caerphilly. In his Usk home, the Laird offered a scratch lunch. Fellow guests had dined there the night before (apart from Matt and Laura) and were wrecked. Amuse Bouche were served on knees. It was a trio, herring marinated in coconut and star anise, a clear tomato jelly with fennel foam, and smoked duck breast with bresse bleu. At table, the 1st course was also a trio: a fish mousse showing all the fishes, self-pickled ginger wrapped in smoked salmon and a third I’m sorry to say I failed to grasp. You’ve got to have your wits about you with this level of detail. The meat course was the finest steak with three asparagus stalks (but Val said he had four), a styled creamed potato disk topped with a mushroom shaped to fit and the Bearnaise sauce in its own cocotte in the top right hand corner of the plate.

Well, really I can’t catalogue it all. There was a printed menu, two more courses and all the cheeses described with illustrations on the back. Coffee came with lavender biscuits made on Thursday night.  This Laird isn’t even gay. In fact rather the opposite. I explained that I’d been briefing Val, who’d never met him before, and wasn’t quite sure whether it was true that he had a slot machine in his bedroom as a boy. ‘I’ve got one now,’ he flashed. ‘It’s the Lairdess.’

Can you imagine? In fact he had a bar in his bedroom but his father was the national supplier of wooden framed cigarette vending machines.

‘You must come again for a proper dinner,’ the Laird said as we drove out, ‘not just a a quick lunch.’

Val and I forged on for the Laura Ashley Hotel north of Abergvenny, agog to see the staircase where the great mistress of sprigged cotton crashed to her death.

Did she Fall or Was She Pushed? Were These the Stairs where Poor Laura Ashley Met Her End? Yes! That’s a Rex Whistler Muriel in the Background

Stairs at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales. Is This Where Laura Ashley Met Crikation?

My Suite at the Laura Ashley Hotel, Wales, Which We’re Covering for Dainty Lady TV. Val Said His Suite was the Size of His Flatti

Saturday 8th March 2014

Today is the 52nd birthday of the Blond Multi who is presently in Quinoa (it makes sense if you pronounce it ‘Keen-Whar’) on Safari where he is mainly preoccupied with posing lithely for photographs despite the danger of rhinos, lions and leopards. It is thought a special shot is planned for his birthday that will be sensational. Possibly he will hug an Elsa-type lion in a bikini.

Last night I heard from Joshua Baring who is on long-term leave in New York to plan a network show with no connection to the ‘I Love Lucy Show’. At night he is working through the UN (‘dinner for ten/elderly men/ from the UN’) and other sources as well as bonding deeply with a female head of books. They bonded in a het bar where she, far gone, stuck her tongue out at Joshua. They are to lunch and he will recommend that she lives for Art and puts Love on the back burner. Otherwise he was set upon by a former lover of Mrs David Bowie at the end of a raké-fueled evening (ugh!) with Enrico Igelsias  and the Widow Ono.  Sex, sex, sex.

Last Sunday the Gay Mother and I went quietly to Greenwich after her Shoreditch House luncheon the day before. She wanted to see ‘Turner and the Sea’ which is a glorious exhib there. I’ve been twice already on Dainty Lady TV business. We loved the show utterly, especially the late one of the Golf Course at Weybridge. For lunch we crawled into the raucous cafeteria of the Nat. Maritime Museum where they sell apple juice in tubes to resemble a urine sample for the doctor. Crammed at tables, our neighbours were agog at our conversation because one of our annies knew Turner and kept a diary. So there.

Tomorrow Val and I are to enter Wales, never before visited, on Dainty Lady TV business. We are to lunch in a modern house in Usk  first before proceeding to the Laura Ashley hotel. All our hotels are Gobbly Welsh Word HALL. Five nights in Halls.

I forgot to mention that on Wednesday I broadcast to the people of London by telephone from my bedroom. By accident I said that a lady had been rummaging in her drawers. Luckily I realised in time. ‘Her cupboards, you understand.’ But when I put the phone down, London was blackened all the same.

With the Gay Mother to Greenwich for the Turner Exhibition. That Building in View is
Sacred to Those in the Know. It is a Sacred Home to Some V. Important Poor Little Rich Gays

Urine-Sample-Type Presentation of Apple Juice at the Nat Maritime Museum, Greenwich – Their Cafeteria

Thursday 6th March 2014

Lord Arrowby texted. He’s my former part-time love interest. What’s more he’s agreed to come to Glyndebourniana in May! Anyway he texted on Monday morning. You won’t believe from whence. Somehow I was reminded of how Edmund Gosse and another were looking at unsuitable postcards in the back row of Browning’s funeral.

Do you know where? Where was that funeral held? What ecclesiastical building has shuddered through the history of our Nation? Why was Lord Arrowby sat next to not one but two former Prime Ministers? In fact his seat should have been occupied by Tony Blair who is apparently nolonger a former Prime Minister.

And who was sitting next to the second of the former Prime Ministers? In a special stall? And why were they singing ‘Guide me Oh Thou Great Redeemer’.

Scarcely breathing, I can reveal that on Monday morning Lord Arrowby was texting under the desk as it were – from the choir stalls at the Abbey. Yes, the Abbey! He was taking massive precedence at the Memorial for Nelson Mandela. Only two stops now from Prince Harry lui-même.

I snapped on the telly at once. Three times Lord Arrowby was shown, rolled in with the permitted glimpses of Prince Harry of Wales, who was pretty but frockage oh so square. Then two greys, John Majeur and Gordon Brown, looking a lot better after his prolonged illness. Finally in the corner, designer specs, bronzed, a figure from another planet, your actual Lord Arrowby, a kind of starburst although fully visible, self-illuminating like the Baby Jesus at Christmas in a painting.

Once I saw by chance Princess Margaret visiting privately a performance of The Winter’s Tale at the Barbican. I thought then that even if you’d landed from another planet you’d have seen at once that she was not as others. Her hair, fabrics, jewels and manner would have shrieked imperial even to one furnished with no model of Royalty.

So with Lord Arrowby in the Abbey. If the Queen should ever give up, it’s more than plain who the next Sovereign should be. Lord Arrowby for King!

His level now is such that a car came the second the service was over and he was back at his desk in two minutes. Gordon Brown, he said, only mumbled the hymns, whereas, he, Lord Arrowby, belted them out, to the alarm of the former PM.

When not struck down by His Lordship, I was greatly moved by the Service. Nelson Mandela was not really a Poor Little Rich Gay. Had he been he could have brought an entire nation to its knees. But Goodbye Dadda! The long years of The Struggle! During the singing of the South African National Anthem in their language I was in floods.

Finally on Wednesday, Robert Nevil was seen by Rufus Pitman conducting a very difficult meeting of the inner Committee of the Pony Club. Members are seething and internecine to the maximum after the recent floods. Their paddocks are knee-deep, their ponies are damp. Gymkana Grounds are in a wretched state. Doris Body blamed Iris Connie in no uncertain terms. ‘I was trying to promote a more water-proof hoof years ago but you had your refined objections.’ Iris Connie was all glowing and philosophical with goodness up to the point where she decided to give Doris Body a black eye. The meeting broke up in chaos.

Tuesday 4th March 2014

All last week was the Gay Mother’s 90th Birthday. There were three functions, the tea for village, church and neighbours on the Sunday, the lunch for rellies, old friends and advisors on the Tuesday and finally, the London lunch, on Saturday, at Shoreditch House, on the back of Aunt Lavinia having her 80th party there two years ago, arranged by her granddaughter Cousin Barley, who’s in fashion and on the Committee.

I’ll be very cross if it turns out that this was not the first 90th birthday at Shoreditch House. I quizzed the staff and they thought there might have been a 50th.

Overall, assisted by me, the Gay Mother entertained 95 people for her 90th Birthday. ‘I’m not a hostess,’ she said, struggling with the Shoreditch placement the day before. Indeed, in the entire 1960s, she and my father gave one dinner party as I recall. But she has the old-fashioned grace, spotting anyone stranded at once and homing in to mix them and save their lives. My God, she worked at her parties at 90 years of age! Glamour and self-drama she has always refused. From earliest days, at 3 or 4 years old, I struggled in vain to get her to adopt more jewels, furs and heels. But she is formidable, a great lady even though, unlike me, she would never lay claim to position. But if you are a pheasant in the wrong place or one who has left a gate open or lit a barbeque and left debris, you will know where you stand. She had all the heaters switched off at Shoreditch House.

The lunch at Shoreditch was my first £2000 a head affair with flowers at £120. Mercifully in the graphs I don’t look too wracked. I made a speech. Lord knows what it was about and whether anyone could hear. Full poise and soigné regality elude as always.  I sat with Cousin Corin and we had family therapy. Her granny, my aunt Olive, long gone, was really awfully criked. Her own father had committed when she was two. Cousin Corin brought an unexpected toddler with her, who turned out to be a huge asset. The unexpected is often the thing that makes the party.

Speaking of babies, the day before the Gay Mother and I visited another baby, provided by a young relly in January. I’ve decided to be bitter about babies, apart from Cousin Corin’s. It really is a stark choice: either decor, hair, gloves and bags: or babies. You can’t have both. Although the Gay Mother claims now to care nothing for carpets, at the time there was a dread of desecration in the drawing room. Sticky fingers on the damask, the flower vases knocked over, spillage, breakage…

But back to Shoreditch: I visited the other end of the table and found Laura Malcolm talking dirty with the one of the young cousins, Cousin Sampson. He’s a very driven young man and was loving it. Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver, her husband, had been out at Annabel’s until 3 in the morning for reasons unknown. The Multis were exceptionally gracious. We’d been so worried about their placing but they accepted the wines and foods although they’re used to Claridges and pushed out towards unknown companions.

Towards the end it was so romantic. The sun had shone throughout and began to sink at 4pm. Lovely nostalgic light, rich and golden.  On the rooftop, members of Shoreditch House ,not in the peak of fitness, dashed through cool air for the heated outdoor pool in their swimmies (that’s trunks). Cousin Corin’s little girl insisted on a pool tour, just to look, not get in. In the street below, as we parted, Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver were graphed by the Photo Multi as ghosts in the blasting rays of the setting sun.

But I forgot to say: Cousin Barley gained late from Paris Fashion Week, in full fashion rig. She’d had an encounter with one of the great Glossies to whom she’d tried to explain that she is expecting. ‘Is that what that this? I thought you’d eaten too much bread,’ the Glossy quipped.

Also Robert Nevil was going on to address a mass meeting of the Pony Club at the Methodist Central Hall.

The Luncheon About to Forge Forth at Shoreditch House on Saturday: graph, the Photo Multi

Frockage for the Gay Mother’s 90th Birthday Party. This isn’t Her Though: Graph, the Photo Multi

These Flowers were Done by Rikki Mikki at £120: Graph, the Photo Multi

The Simple Scene, at £40,000 a head: Shoreditch House for the Gay Mother’s 90th Birthday: graph, the Photo Multi

Quinoa on the Menu: Pronounced ‘Keen-Whar’: graph, the Photo Multi

View from Shoreditch House As the Sun Began to Set on the Gay Mother’s 90th Birthday Party: graph, the Photo Multi

Shoreditch House: Her Pool at Sunset: graph, the Photo Multi

Goodbye, Shoreditch House: graph the Photo Multi

Friday 28th February 2014

The Gay Mother’s 90th Birthday has been going on all week. She said that Mrs Trematon had said she’d never enjoyed a birthday more than her 90th. ‘I rather see what she meant,’ the GM declared. So far she’s entertained 54 people at a tea and a lunch. In her rural fastness, you might think of ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’. But among the guests were a brigadier, the ex-wife of a High Court Judge and a QC. Although, with age, position, always marvellous, fades. To be at a tea, or opening cards or admiring a pot plant quite equal a starring rôle at the Old Bailey. The Gay Mother spent the actual day, which was a rest between parties, arranging her floral tributes, opening millions of cards and pricking out seedlings.

The ex of the High Court Judge was furious that presents were banned. ‘I spent ages choosing mine.’ She left it in a bag hanging on the front door handle – as a kind of protest. Thank God though for her present, an really excellent jug and sugar bowl showing sheep on the cliffs near Lyme Regis. Pottery, craft, usually horror but these absolutely excellent.

After the lunch for 14 we drove over our lands in the Agent’s ocean-going vehicle and discussed the failure of certain individuals to shut let alone lock gates behind them.

Tomorrow is the Shoreditch House party; then the great birthday will be over. When the Gay Mother was born Thomas Hardy was alive. The Gay Granny’s Granny lived in the time of Napoleon.

Shoreditch is my first big-budget catered function. I shall be glad when it has safely docked. What if Shoreditch burns down over night? Or they phone up and say, ‘We’ve changed our minds. We can’t have a 90th Birthday here. Besides you’re not worthy.’

I’m to wear red velvet and pale grey.

A Pudding Option at the Gay Mother’s 90th Birthday Luncheon

We Toured Our Lands after Luncheon

100 Years Since the 1st World War: Our Lands as Seen Today

Our Lands: These Once were Shower Blocks

Sunday 23rd February 2014

We begin the 90th Birthday for the Gay Mother in one and a half hours. I’m to fetch Cousin Paquita from Reddon, whose fastness she now rarely leaves. She would only come if fetched. Her husband and sister-in-law, Cousin Teddy and Cousin Lunetta, have not gone down the drive in 20 years, not even for a funeral.

This afternoon’s function is in fact for the village, Church and neighbours. The Gay Mother has banned all speeches and outfits. Tomorrow is the actual day.

So in the meantime, here are some shoes from last week’s Alice Temperley Show. Upper frockage is of little importance apparently, judging by what one saw, but shoes are everything.

Difficult Clucks: As Seen at Alice Temperley Last Week

Wedges!

Bondage-Style

Gold-backed Clucks

Tuesday 18th February 2014

The Alice Temperley Show was given on Sunday at the Savoy Hotel. Aunt Lavinia and Cousin Lavinia and Cousin Bart couldn’t believe the state of Polpo where we lunched at my suggestion beforehand. ‘Those cracks have been painted on,’ I explained. ‘It’s the dirty food movement.’ Aunt Lavinia came back from the lavs gripped by horror. After, Cousin Bart said, ‘Is it different from any other tapas bar?’ But it’s Venetian not tapas. He hadn’t grasped.

Then we gained the Show. This time the room was square and the catwalk carved a path up and down the space. We couldn’t get near the Greatnesses who were lodged in the middle. Joely was said to be in. Also Pixie or Frou-Frou or whoever. The great ramming of the Greatnesses by photographers seen in former years did not take place. Fashion’s massive spurt was not quite so massive, that heroic surge against death, with Greatnesses pouring into the salon for 45 minutes beforehand, then 15 minutes of hems and sleeves and draping and prints then everyone out, all over.

This year, the real story was elsewhere. Strange that fashion is the fight against Death but a look can die in minutes. The jackette, which I have championed for four years at least… could it be dead? Jackets have gone in, they’re nipped in and they’re longer. Possibly.

The big sensation was outside in the street. I actually saw those Givenchy floral shorts displayed at Harvey Nicks after Christmas. Someone was actually wearing them. Never before have I seen an outré look pushed by a shop actually worn

The Givenchy Shorts in Action!

More Unknown, to Me, Greatnesses in Front Row at A. Temperley

These Were Singled Out for Graphing but Who?

A Front Row Greatness at Alice Temperley but Who?

Yasmin Le Bon’s Daughter!

Yasmin Le Bon Herself, Après Show, About to Go Backstage

Yasmin Le Bon’s Group of Greatness, Lingering after the Show

Another Clutch of Frocked Figures After the Show: Don’t you Just Long to Hack Six Inches off that Black Man’s Jacket and Render it a Jackette?

Fashion Journalist of Limitless Greatness

The Crucial Feather Coat by Temperley

My Favourite Frock by Temperley

Sensational: Alice Designs the Fabrics as Well

A Good Stiff Look for Autumn

These Coats will be Important this Autumn