Saturday 15th February 2014

Val’s got a new cake-stand. I called last week to collect the Gay Mother’s suede car coat, which belonged to Great Aunt Dangly who died in 1975. Now the Gay Mother is herself 90 in a few days time.

Val had made a cake which he offered. Then he produced a strange metal object, possibly a early radio microphone from the BBC. ‘Just look,’ he said, pulling at the item which at once flowered into a three-tier cake stand. ‘You can have doillies,’ I said. Both our early lives were much taken up with doillies. Later on Anthony Mottram, ‘consultant’ of Prague, thought of another less obvious place where they could cause daintiness. ‘Oh no,’ Val said, ‘it’s self-doillie-ing.’ And so it was. Each ‘plate’ of the stand is fretted like a doillie. So decorative and  attractive.

But Val’s actual cake did not come via the stand which is too good for use perhaps or only for best.

Otherwise Val had Dame Edna’s coffee table book out. We poured over the recipes for Pacific Grill Surprise, which is sausages poked through pineapple rings and Left-Over Quiche, where après party debris, such as half-eaten sausage rolls, prawn sandwiches or contaminated cocktail onions  (‘Be sure to pick out any broken glass or cigarette ends’ Edna purrs helpfully) form the filling for a delicious Quiche.

What a visit to Val!

What is this Strange Object? Could it be an Early Microphone?

Look What it Does! It’s a Self-Doilie-ing Cake Stand

Dame Edna’s Coffee Table Book. Pacific Grill Surprise is Bottom Left: Veggie Mould Just Above It to the Right

Thursday 13th February 2014

We took a peculiar little throw-back red velvet cinema in Hastings on the Saturday night to see a Jacques Cousteau film. Wines were available at the back and Genevieve Suzy determined up  a whole bottle which Angus Willis helped her with. Fergus Strachan had gone to a Spiritualist Meeting with Angus Willis’s sister, he being ferociously against that sort of thing. At first it seemed the audience would be reduced to a minimum and a Scottish lady manager kept shouting from the back. By the time the reels began to reel, though, attendance had reached above-death levels. ‘We’re giving you something extra’ the voice, uncannily recalling the great Muriel MacGlorian, announced. So ‘Rush’ began, the film about the racing car drivers, James Hunt and Nikki Lauda. I’d already seen ‘Rush’ so was looking forward to the taster or whatever it was coming to an end. But it didn’t. It continued.  The ‘something extra’ was a whole film. We were going to be there all night if the Cousteau was to follow on. I had no wild interest in that either. But when, after 90 minutes, ‘Rush’ concluded, everyone left the cinema. That was it. There was no Cousteau. It was for the next night. There was the delicious relief of being able to escape for dinner, as always with ‘culture’. We raged into various establishments. All were sourly about to close. It was 9.30. Then Fergus called by telephone to collect Angus. Genevieve broke down and turned against Hastings. ‘I’m selling. Nowhere’s open after 9.30. It’s useless.’ ‘Your house is the best in Hastings,’ I said, trying to cheer her. ‘You can have it,’ she whipped. ‘I’ll take £650,000. Have you got it?’ When we regained her rocky outcrop she went straight to bed and I ate a packet of prosciutto that was in her fridge as well as some eggs.

But in the cinema I’d seen a shape and the next morning I saw some more shapes as well as colours. See graphs below.

I Make My Own late Turner in Hastings

Another Self-made Late Turner: Here you can Only Just See the Division Between Sea and Sky 

Another Turner with Alfred Wallis Ship

Another Turner

Look! Who is It? You Must Know! Don’t Look Now! As Seen in the Cinema

Alfred Wallis-Type Ship on Beach at Hastings: He was Right about Ship Shapes: Art Goes Back into Life

Sea with Alfred Wallis Ship: Art Goes Back into Life

Monday 10th February 2014

Genevieve Suzy refused to lunch the Saturday before last in Hastings: ‘I’ve only just got up. I can’t face a skate wing straightaway.’ But I said I must lunch, it being lunch-time. Besides lunch at Angus Willis Home Store, Hastings is a pivotal experience, utterly central.

We were at Chef’s Table, right in the kitchen at Angus Willis Home Store. Thus it was that we didn’t at first see developments in the main dining area. We were there at the burning core. Angus invented the dirty food movement. You read about it everywhere now. It doesn’t mean the food is dirty. It means your drink comes in a jam jar and cutlery is from a charity shop or car boot sale. Angus Willis invented this mode. The hamburger chain Byron have copied him.

I ordered winter asparagus with cod roe, and fennel and blood orange salad. Fergus had Buckler on Toast. It’s a less well-known fish. He was still keen on higher taxes on capital despite being up all night with Genevieve.

Somehow Angus magicked the dishes out of nothing in the small space. Their names are simple but their composition is not. This is some of the best cooking in the country. New, fresh, zinging and great. Suddenly, as we consumed the miracles, at the other end of the kitchen there was a jolt. You couldn’t have put your finger on it. One of the staff came in from the dining area, Angus was muttering and glancing. He disappeared and came back, shooting a bolt through the kitchen and chef’s table area: Gizzy Ezzy was in. Gizzy Ezzy was in the outer dining area, ordering. Gizzy Ezzy, of the Sunday Times, huge in the food world, drawn inevitably to lunch at the back of Angus Willis Home Store, Hastings. The week before it had been Terry Farrell, the architect of world importance.

I forgot to say: not only has Angus Willis revolutionised lunch: he’s transformed window display. His latest window for Angus Willis Home Store, Hastings is as never seen before.

Completely New: Angus Willis Home Store, Hastings, the Current Window Display: Rush to See this World-Shattering Window: Passers-By Stopped in Droves to Read the Old Bills and Receipts Featured in the Display

The Dirty Food Movement, Founded by Angus Willis: the Knife is What Makes it Dirty

Little Pots in the Angus Willis Home Store Kitchen

Fennel and Blood Orange Salad in Prep

Rare Wild Leaves, Perfectly Sourced by Angus Willis in Person

A Plaice in Prep, Possibly to be Eaten by Gizzy Ezzy Herself

Thursday 6th February 2014

We completed important estate work this morning. The Gay Mother and I went to some offices and signed 100 times. Nine copies of everything. The Gay Mother said, ‘I want a gold pen to sign with.’

But now that terrible dread of unexpected disaster when fortune strikes.

Best back to Hastings last weekend. With Genevieve Suzy and Angus Willis we attended a Private View at the Jedward. They’re showing their main collection. 20th century British, not the best examples of artists of the second rank. Two Christopher Woods, both no good. Lovely Horace Manley thought so too. He was there! Run into by chance. Eton. Wears half a suit, often no clothes at all. Always covered in paint from creating artworks. We didn’t like any of the people at the View nor any of the speeches. Genevieve said the Alfred Wallises lent by Kettle’s Yard were sub-standard and kept in a cupboard there. She wasn’t having anyone look at them, especially when hungry which she was, so we bolted for the Thai Bookshop Restaurant.

Never have I dined in such a small space. It really is a second-hand bookshop. The owner hitched with a Thai lady and her thing is cooking. We were poked near Debrett’s People of Today 1990 which I longed to get down to see who I knew in it. Felix Still, of Symonds and Symonds Hong Kong, Fergus Strachan’s old friend, and his consort, Wasan Bandracouk, joined the party. They were direct from Hong Kong and visiting their newly bought cottage nearby. Finally Fergus himself gained from London. He’s wild for the mansion tax and capital taxes in general. Felix and I demurred. I had a very agreeable conversation with Felix about grand law firms, estate business, leases, rents and covenants. There was much talk of renovation and Felix resisted all claims that his new cott is anywhere near Bexhill.

I had my dinner ordered by Angus Willis. I said, ‘Angus, will you order my dinner?’ It could be a new business for him, for his knowledge of the Far East food is superb. To have your dinner ordered by one of the world’s leading food experts and stylists – £3000?

Fergus quite failed to regain his own place for bed but came back with Genevieve to her wild outcrop. She and Fergus sat up all night discussing how Felix and Wasan were going to manage when they come to live permanently in their non-Bexhill cott. In Honkers they buy recipe books by Nigella etc and give them to the Cook, with the pages marked where she is to operate.

Next day neither Genevieve nor Fergus were up. It was a brilliant clear morning, the light having that hard, steely quality of winter. I self-breakfasted out, then thought to achieve a possible Lutyens house on a high promontory: ‘I’m the King of the Castle’. Later we were to lunch at the Angus Willis Home Store but the glory awaiting was not yet revealed nor the staggering manifestation in the outer restaurant. In my Marc Jacobs cream jeans and Prada fantasy golfing shoes, I had trouble with the muddy path up. The night before it had lashed with rain and wind. But finally, with frockage unmarked, I gained the summit and the Lutyens House (not in fact but William Morris interiors). Then descending in the winter brilliance and clarifying wind, a clutch of hidden villas leapt out, never seen before or known about. So thrilling and uplifting. What’s more I was blessed with a high level of outfit satisfaction. Cream overlaid with tweed.

A Sudden Villa Seen in Hastings

Not in Fact by Lutyens But William Morris Interiors

Another Sudden Villa in Hastings: Later Angus Willis said: ‘You don’t want that one: Dallas’

Tuesday 4th February 2014

Friday set out from St Panc by public train with Genevieve Suzy for Hastings. On the Ashford leg, we sat with a student who’d come nine hours from Aberystwyth to see his girlfriend. ‘What a fabulous boyfriend you are!’ Genevieve shrieked. ‘How long have you been together?’ ‘When do you have to go back?’ ‘Couldn’t you stay over on Monday if you’ve got no classes?’ The boy, not the brightest, looked confused and pressed his earplugs more firmly in. Didn’t he realise what an op he was missing? Genevieve could have got him a film part, presenting work, a record deal… We did better on the Ashford to Hastings run with two schoolgirls, one of whom received free advice (worth perhaps £3000?) re: her dilemma of Armani wallet or belt for boyfriend’s Valentine gift. Genevieve (known to every magazine fashion desk) said, ‘Paul Smith belt. He’s bringing back those stripes’.

Gaining Hastings we hissed and spat with the taxi driver re: route and where to turn round. Genevieve’s wild rocky house, right on the cliff, was thrillingly lashed by wind and rain. Oh the sea! And the elements!  The gale forced water through the window frame in the bathroom. Over the weekend, I bonded with the sea and gained new insights into the shapes of the sea. You shall see.  Alfred Wallace. Turner. They came back into life.

You wait.

But first we had a Dainty Lady TV assignment at the Jedward Gallery. This Private View the Multis had refused to attend. The last time they were at the Jedward the Blond Multi slumped and all but wept: the struggle to get there from London; the run-outness of champagne once gained; then, last straw, not used for dinner by Bertha Manning-Webb (also of the magazine world) who brazenly advertised her booking for two (with husband). The Multis had mainly come to dine with her. It had been understood they were to dine.

Well, that’s it for now… just fizzying with new life, given by Hastings, after January. Hard to know where to begin…

Genevieve Suzy of the Magazine World at the Jedward Opening

Important Black at the Jedward Opening: This Lady is In Fact a Massive Foundation

Monday 3rd February 2014

Actually I’m just back from Hastings yesterday. But that’s yet to come. Oh, I’ve such thrills for you. A world figure lunched at the Home Store. Genevieve Suzy gave a tea for further World Figures. Angus Willis has done a new shop window.

But I have not finished with January yet. I dined with Aunt Lavinia. Cousin Barley was in, saying that the doctor is sending her to a dietician because she’s too thin while pregnant. I said, ‘Didn’t you explain that you’re in fashion?’ Incidentally she’s come up trumps with tickets for the Alice Temperley Show on Sunday week. So we’ve that to look forward to.

I’m slightly getting a ‘Nothing to Wear’ feeling. Tweed trousers are lacking. But there’s a Designer Warehouse Sale next Thursday so hope.

Merle Barr dined, formerly Head of Children at one of the Councils – except that’s not quite the right title. She couldn’t believe my salad shaker: ‘It’s got a brake,’ she shrieked.

Val and I went fabric shopping before Aunt Lavinia’s and had nasty toasted sandwiches near Ladbroke Grove.

Another day I took ’12 Years a Slave’. I did love this film. I thought it would be terribly arty and contrived which it is in a way but the odd thing is I’ve never had such a sense of the past come back to life. These seedy, flimsy Southern homesteads, with their wooden porticos, weeds growing in the dust all around, small places really, were got back to being alive again through the intense almost magnified effect and the colour saturation of the filming. Also presumably real and true to history. Slavery carried on in these back-waterish, insignificant places, vaguely familiar to us. It was all horribly casual and normal, not vast, epic gangs of slaves on a darkening plain, as might be imagined by some crass film-maker who’d only seen other films.

Thursday 30th January 2014

Today I threw away all the post and paid squillions to the tax people. In a way a relief to slough off a great slab of money. One feels lighter.

So, amidst a slight programme of engagements, Prince Dmitri Hersov’s delayed 50th birthday function (delayed almost to the point of its being his 51st birthday which is today) was in another class. As you know, the Prince is one of the few Poor Little Rich Gays to approach a state of Goodness. Very Russian, he contemplates the vast rolling Steppe of this life and despairs: so much treachery, greed, selfishness and cruelty, although not in his orbit.

But he’s got an art collection and, more importantly, a vinyl collection. That’s records. Not just floor to ceiling but from top to bottom of his three-storey residence. So many groups and solo artists, rare ensembles, underground collectives. He does not reject the mainstream but it has to prove itself. I can’t remember what he thinks of Britney.

We foregathered in his mews for Bollinger. Many of his friends from the vinyl world or the accounting world I’d not met before, all distinguished by warmth and friendliness, as you know not classic Poor Little Rich Gay qualities. I felt I could have pushed out a little more, given more instead of being in a gang with Elsa Hodgeman, the Gertrude Stein de nos jours, the Multis, Arabella von Gardendoor  (last seen at the Russian Ball at the Albert Hall) and Bruce McBain, my private architect.

But of course we had so much business to discuss. The Multis were charming after their refusal of all invitations in Abstainuary and the Blond Multi so concerned not to hurt. Of course Elsa tends severely to the Left and the Photo Multi in particular gets very cross. On the other hand, splinter and conflict are essential in friendship from the Poor Little Rich Gay point of view. Princess Irina Hersov, sister of the Prince, spoke to the Multis for the first time in many years, more than spoke, was radiant. She has always feared that they might criticise her decor.

So there was much healing.

Then we removed to the Taverna, astonishing in itself, a real landmark, perfectly preserved from the 1970s or even the 60s. The owner does not always incline to open. The kitchen is just inside the front door. They’ve rigged up a garden extension out of rough wood. Many would be repelled by the peeling brown dilapidation of the outside from even entering, but they’d be wrong. Excellent food, unique atmosphere (it takes you back). Prince Dmitri had the whole thing and entertained 50 plus to a sit-down Greek slap-up. Oh the lavishment. Every known course. After the 5th main, it was rumoured that pork was still to come but it wasn’t which was a mercy because of so much food. But excellent, the real thing.

We were so happy at our table. We met a Lesbian couple, neighbours of the Prince’s in the mews, one of them not that keen on the Queen. We discussed Palestine and the possibility of making marmalade with less sugar.

The Prince was enchanting with the gift of enjoying his own party. He made a cute speech, every heart melted. He hates speeches. For the finale, the schoolboys who wait in the restaurant, brought in a cake surmounted by an icing vinyl record and with a roman candle stuck in it and alight. Their glee was a glory for the world.

Prince Dmitri’s Birthday Cake with Icing Vinyl Record

The Cake Afire

Such Glee of the Waiters, who are Schoolboys, over the Fireworks Cake

The Taverna Scene for Prince Dmitri’s 50th Birthday Dinner

Tuesday 28th January 2014

At 8.20 am the Poltizei knocked on the door and said there’d been a break-in at Number 27, across the street. So reassuring. Coming up the stairs after breakfast, I notice a little pile of white debris at their foot. I glance about, trying to fathom. Has a burglar been in here? Then I notice something not right with the stairs. A gap has opened up, a gash, a split. On the angle of the first landing…I look in the cupboard underneath. A wedge holding up the staircase seems to have broken.

Last night, just as estate business was going well, it was biffed back. People are flying all over the world in some kind of emergency. On Sunday, on the phone, Cousin Monica said we’re related to George Osborne. Quite closely as it happens. His grandmother was Granny’s 1st cousin. John Aspinall we already knew about. That same 1st cousin was his mother, but a different father. So she spawned two Satans. The week before a leak sprang in the ceiling of one of bedrooms in the night – creepy because the ceiling was not even wet, but water dripped through. The week before that a radiator pipe leaked but not badly.

Oh – and the washing machine’s thumping and banging in spin.

If only we’d known about the Osborne connection in the 80s, when one craved Osborne and Little, we could surely have got a discount.

Otherwise the light programme of engagements has continued. Last week, Tuesday was ’12 Years a Slave’ with Fergus Strachan and Angus Willis. Thursday I dined with Aunt Lavinia after fabric shopping with Val, Friday Merle Barr dined here. Saturday was the show-piece: Prince Dmitri Hersov’s delayed 50th Birthday party in a unique Greek Taverna at Maida Hill.

As it happens, Bruce McBain, my private architect, this morning produced at once some hefty Poles, not Miroslav who I didn’t feel was specialist enough, and they bolted the stairs back into place. But then I could not find dear Sheila’s clematis catalogue. An absolute Bible. I needed it to confirm which clematis are which and what their pruning regime should be. Hunted high and low. Checked every pile of books and leaflets all over the house. Nothing, nothing, nothing. How could it have disappeared? The one catalogue I can’t be without and now irreplaceable because Sheila has evap – retired or died or both.

So, slogging through putting the contents of the cupboard under the stairs back after the bolting, sudden inspiration. What about the heap of stuff on the Empire chair in the dining room, embroidered as it happens by George Osborne’s grandmother’s aunt? Yes! Oh blessed! There it was.

So that which was lost was found.

Happily also Robert Nevil has regained from Malta.

That Which Was Lost Was Found: Dear Sheila’s Catalogue was Wrongly Filed in the Dining Room

Saturday 25th January 2014

Lord Arrowby wanted to see that Dries mac for himself. He was toying. This morning he launched for Liberty; just the floor in my graph in previous bulletin was enough for him to know the shop. This man runs the country. Why should he not love fashion? Tomorrow he’s in a skiing chalet with a Lesbian couple. Watch out for headlines if he crashes on the slopes. We pray for his safe delivery and continuing loveliness of body and mind. Instead at Liberty he bought some Dries trousers to wear in the chalet. I don’t think he can have been in a chalet before because they’re not dressy, I hear. It’s a fish-oil and bare boards level. I said, ‘Which trousers and how much?’ ‘I’m not telling,’ he replied.

I’ll find out anyway. We can all imagine the cost of a Dries trouser at full price, can’t we? Except that Lord A always achieves a discount, rather in the manner that he runs the country.

So last Saturday was Joshua Baring’s farewell dinner, self-given, before he boards for New York to become huge. Patrick Lockyer, Peter Poppy (new) and Robert Nevil (now in Malta and fallen silent: worrying: he’s seen some old male Malta hands in wigs in a bar). Essentially the age bracket for the dinner was 30 to 35, although Peter Poppy might be 25. He was very scientific and comes from Rotherham. Topics were: ‘Have you ever got off with someone your mate fancies?’;  a person called Tom Tristram (perhaps) who lives in a street near where Jill Dando was assassinated and seems to be some kind of Holy Grail, universally yearned for and adored, never met, who always gets what he wants; and Grinder – Peter Poppy said he’d never met anyone on Grinder. So we all got Grinder out and started trying to meet people. ‘Have you given Stockwell 4 stars?’ Joshua Baring, studying his phone, demanded of Patrick Lockyer. Stockwell was where we were. It appeared someone had reviewed it. They all had ‘Hi’s from Yemen who was 330 metres away. Peter Poppy described a film he liked about flamingos waving plastic ducks about.  I said, ‘This is an up-market Celebrity Big Brother.’ Such a web of complicated fancying, who fancies whom, even people who weren’t there. All going round and round and never settling into ghastly stability. Joshua’s met someone but going to see ’12 Years a Slave’ put the brakes on: not a good date movie. Anyway he boards for New York within days. ‘My flat-mate had sex with his girlfriend last night – for the first time,’ Peter Poppy said. He meant it was the flat-mate’s first ever sex. And the girlfriend’s been a girlfriend for four months – must be keen.

Joshua and I toured his parental mansion. Staggering to think that somewhere in there is a couture Catherine Walker Mother-of-the-groom outfit, belonging to his mother, Lady Baring. He showed me his Bott Ven shoes – superb. We fondled them fondly, in fact in hysterics. There’s a very difficult cat in the house called Gilt-Edged Securities which is anything but… the minute the new white sofa came into the house, she pissed it. That was some years ago.

We peered from the back window to try to distinguish, across the gardens,  the back of the house of Sid Id and Muriel McGlorian, with Princess Irina Hersov, Prince Dmitri’s sister, next door. You remember their parapet fell off.

What a web of Poor Little Rich Gays going from house to house, street to street, city to city, country to country and continent to continent, reaching finally to Heaven itself.

Wednesday 22nd January 2014

What doth summer presage for modes?

Today my main aim has been to continue to pot up my marmalade only in jars whose original labels have come off completely – from my collection of jars. It takes several years for some manufacturers’ labels to come off.

The light programme of engagements has continued. On Saturday Robert Nevil and I dined with Joshua Baring and Patrick Lockyer at the Baring family home (Lady Baring is a loose-cover and curtain specialist for TV stars. Her door knobs are utterly deliberate). The dinner introduced Peter Poppy who is a quantum mechanic. Joshua had met him in G.A.Y. when an unknown lurched up and said, ‘My friend wants someone intelligent to talk to… ‘ So Peter Poppy was brought forward and absorbed.

Peter had suffered a ‘red-shirt-in-a-white-wash’ crisis. Colour run. Odd for a scientist. He’s perfectly formed.

But really the occasion was a Memorial. I wanted elements of Mandela’s funeral. For Joshua boards for New York, initially for three months, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he never comes back and gets huge in TV in America. ‘Mama Grace and Mama Winnie are here. Their sorrow is our sorrow…the years of struggle… Goodbye Dadda…Goodbye…’ I uttered these words over the coffin.

So we must switch to Spring and Summer modes. Never was fashion more vital for renewal and the fight against Death.

Lord Arrowby is right: prints are huge for men this Spring. Dries is offering a blue plastic mac exploding with florals. Givenchy suggests strange horizontal shorts, pink flowers on a black ground. I know what the houses are up to. They’re trying to make clothes big again. They’re trying to bring back pleats in trousers.

They’ll get nowhere. We haven’t seen pleats in trousers for 20 years and never will again in my lifetime.

The spray-on jackette look is so flattering.

The great mercy is the Spring florals are hideous and no call to buy any of them. So everything can go into Glydnebourniana and Tuscany.

Floral Mac from Dries for Spring? I Don’t Think So. £700

No, No, No – Florals for Spring with Sack

Givency’s Floral Shorts – Ghastly in Shape and Print

More Voluminous Shorts of Horror

Prada’s Prints for Summer

Thank God the Jackette Goes on at Prada