Sunday 19th January 2014

On behalf of Dainty Lady TV Genevieve Suzy and I gained the Press Brunch for the London Art Fair on Tuesday. This was my first Press Brunch, identical in fact to Press Breakfasts taken previously, except for the miniature bacon butties, which, although normally also a breakfast item, here must be presumed to confer Brunchhood.  The Classic Press Breakfast is also issued to those taking early morning ‘curator-tours’ of exhibitions at the big museums for which they’ve paid ££££s.  Who conceived this breakfast concept and where is the central brain that produces it? It would be interesting one day to find out.

The Art Fair was barely assembled. Important gallery people were still pinning up labels and oiling their Barbara Hepworths. A massively important dealer known to Genevieve was outrageous. He twanged the wires of someone else’s Barbara Hepworth (the piece was later put in a glass case) and wasn’t awfully nice about Howard Hodgkin, who is adored and known to many Poor Little Rich Gays. Indeed Robert Nevil once sat in the back of a limo with HH while he wept (HH, that is, who was having a Private View at the time). Another, who also mends the Queen’s curtains, was in charge of washing HH’s priceless collection of oriental rugs.

But the greatness of this dealer’s wares was unsurpassed.

Genevieve and I passed on to other galleries. Such gems at this Fayre, unlike all the horror at Frieze Art Fayre. At London Art Fayre you see works by 20th Century artists of the second rank (only drawings and prints by the 1st rank), many dead, of known and established value. Such discoveries and delights! Maximum price about £100,000. We were thrilled by Jenna Burlingham of Kingsclere’s offerings. Very good taste. Many pieces, highly covetable, only £8000. Do take her webbage and lick your lips: www.jennaburlingham.com.

I was digging deep at another stand for Dainty Lady TV. The scheme was to photograph the eyes of all the people in the world and project them onto a pillar on Aldeburgh beach. They’d started with Diana Quick. ‘Eyes say so much,’ a menacing witch-like character, apparently the artist, murmured. ‘If someone won’t look into your eyes there’s usually a reason for it…and not a good one.’ Crikey, I thought, that’s not quite right as Genevieve  barked: ‘I’ve really got to get round this show!’ ‘Might not our viewers like to have their eyes photographed and projected on Aldeburgh Beach?’ I protested as we pounded away. ‘It’s a complete sham. You’ve got to pay £20. Viewers will be furious.’

‘Have we got to go down there?’ Genevieve cried at the prospect of yet another corridor of Art. Art is wonderful but completely shattering, perhaps because, even at this level, so much of it is rubbish.

Anyway we’d seen enough for a colour piece.

Later in the day (after an interlude, for me, in my home, viewing Tuscan villas online) we forged out for the De Chirico Exhib at the Esoterick (very hard line). Then we taxi-ed about until we pitched up at the Warehouse apartment of Fergus Strachan and Angus Willis. Angus made a Pasta Primavera out of M & S ingredients left over from a packaging shoot. Then we watched Nigella’s show on TV.

‘Sand at Tenby ‘ by Reginald Brill

‘Snow at Putney’ by Carel Weight: I had Never Heard of this Artist Before: Lovely

Your Very Own Sickert? I Must Admit It was ‘POA’

This Ceramic Ware Interesting: This is the Wreck of the ‘Costa Conconcordia’

A Susie Hamilton: Excellent Artist at the £10,000 mark

A Dealer had Unwisely Left a Hammer on the Desk and Gone Away: I was Tempted to Smash Up some of the More Awful Art

Friday 17th January 2014

Last Saturday, as I said, Robert Nevil and I dined with one of his old boyfriends and a vicar in Maida Vale. I should mention that Robert Nevil faces a week in Malta from Monday with his mother at £242.69 for the week each, flying out from Mingham. It’s a package.

The old boyfriend said, ‘Nothing’s changed in thirty years.’ He meant Robert Nevil and me. It’s not quite right because it isn’t thirty years since he saw us, although it is thirty years since he was Robert Nevil’s boyfriend and was a frequent nighttime visitor at my flattie off Portobello Road (the one with the avocado bathroom condemned as ‘rather smelly of damp’ by Frankie-Doreen May) where Robert Nevil was lodged in my back bedroom. ‘No more mature,’ the old boyfriend declared. Robert Nevil and I had been bickering about that Lord Lucan programme on TV which he completely refuses to re-visit or re-consider his verdict. Then Robert Nevil said, ‘Your blog’s pure arse.’ ‘Thank God for that,’ I said, re: maturity. ‘Maturity’s ghastly. So much better to be silly.’ On the other hand, Poor Little Rich Gays must not get set in their ways or, even worse, turn into sclerotic old bores. There is a danger of that, with age. Poor Little Rich Gays are always fresh and new, impossible but miraculously able to change course or open into a new vista. Never for them the narrow self-importance and bleaching out of suffering of the bleached white teeth of the Earls Court Gays.

So I was back-to-back dinner and lunch with Simeon Bond’s catered lunch the next day. I was barely able to stand. Simeon’s home is huge and stripped back to distressed floorboards with massive custom-built sofas in bright velvets. It’s also a kind of commune with spaces for mediation. There are meetings.  I didn’t realise that Stephan Jaëger, who hoops and whoops on the stage, gives and gives, so many perfs, is a frequent guest when in London. He was at the lunch. ‘There are usually advisors here,’ he said. ‘Teams of plumbers, a feng-shui expert.’ Simeon was himself worried about falling out with his designer over the cladding in the massive studio room but he couldn’t pick up any spiritual force from me this time. Not like the other time in the South of France. Maybe physical and spiritual are more linked because I was very weak on Sunday.

Stephan Jaëger had such a tale to tell. He can’t get into London. Property prices so vicious. All his décor love is un-channelled. It could go bad. What is to be done? Someone must step forward with funds, someone who loves talent. Or make a Will then die. Apart from that, a straight man has left his girlfriend, siddles up behind Stephan all the time, massages his neck, strokes his hair – but oh no! He’s straight, couldn’t fully or even partly remove his trousers.

I don’t know. Maybe this is the new way. Maybe this eternal suspension is more delicious and more proper than a full normal relationship. Is anyone defined nowadays?

In the meantime, Angus Willis, the international food writer and stylist has got to graph an M and S Victoria Sponge for a small graph to appear on the packaging. The cake is to have a slice cut out of it and left there. Straightforward enough you would have thought but look how many cakes Angus must have to get it right – see graph below. The trouble is, if the slice is the one you actually cut from the cake, its curves will merge with the main cake and the cut slice won’t show up properly. So you have to use a slice cut from another cake with different curves. But it mustn’t be so differently curved as not to look possible that it came from the cake in view.

M & S Victoria Sponges: More than This Were Supplied for Angus Willis’s Cut Cake Photo Shoot

Thursday 16th January 2014

January is manic with diarising: the year stretches ahead with the inevitable revered programme: Glyndebourniana followed by Tuscany (just gasping for Tuscany by late July: indeed am already gasping now in January). So little time! Genevieve Suzy, of the magazine world, said, ‘Don’t panic book a Tuscan villa!’ But how could I not? They get snapped up. Tuesday I was the whole afternoon villa-viewing on-line (if I saw one more chintz armchair or curtained shelving in a cucina!) Wednesday I closed on L’Eremo for August. It’s encased in woods and has a compromised annexe (only fit for a maid or nanny they said at CV travel: ‘What about a blind over the skylight?’ I said. ‘Look,’ they said, quite cross, ‘a nanny’s getting a free holiday. All she’s got to do is look after some children for a few hours a day. She’s not going to complain.’ There’s also a single in a tower, access through the master bedroom.

It’s astonishing how little a Poor Little Rich Gay can have. Someone’s going to have to go in that compromised annexe. Most likely it will be me. And in that access through master bed single…

But L’Eremo is in Tuscany –  Thank God for that. Who will come? Will anyone come?

Yesterday the whole day almost on the Glyndebourniana ballot. It turns out the Multis have made their own arrangements and are balloting with Stulke Songingsen, the millionaire-ess. Probably it’s easier for them to be with people at their own economic level. So it’s lucky I forked £500 for a Glyndebourniana Associate Membership. Trembling with terror at the expense but you only live once (and even then not very much) so why die with ££££s in the Account?

Otherwise it’s been a light programme of engagements with sales shopping in between as well as getting the ‘invites’ out for the Gay Mother’s multi-faceted 90th birthday in February.  I’m going to have to be tranq-ed from now on.

On Saturday Robert Nevil and I dined with an old boyfriend of his and a vicar in Maida Vale. ‘Thank God we didn’t stay together,’ the old boyfriend said, mirthful.

Sunday Simeon Bond gave a vehicular catered fork luncheon at his new desmesne. He’s had a ruin put in the garden. Guests were either from the Spiritual World or Film Composers. What a treat for me that Stephan Jaëger was present and full of news. Come back later for more.

Tuesday Genevieve Suzy and I, on behalf of Dainty Lady TV, took a Press Brunch and View at the London Art Fayre. I was back in my res for online villa viewing in the afternoon, then out again to the Estorick for the De Chirico Opening. John Tusa robed and present in the Chancel. Also Candace Allen, formerly Lady Rattle. Genevieve furious at latter’s failure to recognise her even though they’d had two six hour dinners with a publisher who tends to provoke the interest of terrorists.

Otherwise, I’ve been diarising, as already mensh, making marmalade and ironing. So typical that my crazy ironing lady returns to Bulgaria the minute Bulgarians become legal here.

The Photo Multi has just announced 1059201 Avios Points.

Saturday 11th January 2014

January used to be a quiet month. Whatever happened? In middle-age, far from ascending the sunny uplands of peace and resignation, one is more and more frantic. Estate affairs, the official car with Xenon driving lights to be MOT-ed, the Glyndebourniana ballot form to be submitted, the invitations to the Gay Mother’s multiple 90th birthday parties to go out, seeds to be ordered, the missing stair rail to be replaced, not to mention Christmas present thank-yous. I can’t even think about Tuscany. And marmalade! And Dainty Lady TV, of course. By rights, at this moment, I should be revising the Harrods, Harvey Nicks and Selfridges Sales.

But my meditation on Greatness’s Nature: at the New Year’s Eve party were some young people, brought by Harry Rollo. They didn’t like me. Both seemed to be in the costume-making line. To one, I said, ‘My friend, Val, that’s what he does. He’s unsurpassed. Jasper Conran gave him some sketches.  But it took Val to make them into frocks for lovely actresses to wear.’ ‘Oh I’ve passed that stage,’ the youth announced. ‘I’m more on the designing side.’

So my meditation on Greatness’s nature. What is achievement? What is this ‘stage’ this person claimed to have passed? This morning I re-arranged my china cupboard slightly and took a bed valance to the cleaners. Some would say these were chores of great dreariness. But I see no difference from passing Acts of Parliament or writing novels. One does what one choses to do. By irony, if you’re keen on becoming Shakespeare, Tolstoy or Nelson Mandela, that kind of greatness will probably elude you if you take no pleasure in small things. Most have greatness thrust upon them and really are only interested in whatever it is they are interested in.

By the way I forgot to mention two important recent observations by Poor Little Rich Gays. Prince Dmitri Hersov (blasted by ‘achievement’, wracked by Blue-Chip responsibilities)denounced blue Christmas lights. I so agree. Cold. And the Blond Multi: he was prostrate in an armchair at the new country demesne. I said, ‘What is your January diary looking like?’ He signed: ‘I’m retiring from public life. Like Princess Diana. Such a good idea.’

Wednesday 8th January 2014

I didn’t feel well at all but set out for Harrods anyway. Aim – to revise the sale and get invitation cards for the Gay Mother’s 90th birthday. Called at Peter Acharya’s on the way. He ill, in a beach outfit. It was 3.30. He said, ‘Have a glass of wine.’ Well, I was there until 7.30. He revealed the true goings-on at his party at November’s end. In the bathroom he found three abandoned £20 notes, not left by Nigella. ‘I made £60 at least. But I think they might have asked.’ As for the congress in the walk-in wardrobe….  More to come later.

Then Genevieve Suzy of the magazine world texted proposing lentils and Italian sausage at her gaffe with husband. We watched Celebrity Big Brother. Liz Jones didn’t get evicted.

So I never got to Harrods nor finished my meditation on the true nature of Greatness.

Come back tomorrow. Come back, come back!

Tuesday 7th January 2014

At Conrad and Valèry’s for New Year, as is now customary: also customary that one world greatness after another looms in their décor. Reggie Cresswell loomed, very careful to reveal little after a rag claimed that he likes white boys as well as black. Harry Rollo loomed. He and Mercury, Mr Kitten have got chummy with another Hollywood Great – but it’s not Diane Keaton nor Jane Fonda. So who? Kathy Lette somehow involved. Rufus Pitman loomed or rather bounced. ‘Gays! Gays!’ he boomed as I sailed through the door, nearly hurling me to the floor. It’s astonishing how exciting the mere fact of Gaiety is even after all these years. It’s still new and different, even to other Gays. Lord Arrowby loomed in an elaborate floral weave jacket, absolutely sensational.

Poor Little Rich Gays are not only looming, but booming, along with the Economy. I’ll say no more. Valèry did dips in different colours, giving a provencal feel. There was a black, an orange and a green. Raj Zoroaster had brought the shepherd’s pie round from his place. He and Rufus have put a big emphasis on left-overs this Christmas. They could do a TV show.

What of the conversation? I said to Lord Arrowby, who runs the country, ‘You’ve got a nice new Defamation Act coming out in January.’ ‘The latest Dries collection demands attention,’ he replied. I tried again, ‘Perhaps you rather overdid the Police nabbing cyclists in London before Christmas.’ ‘Well indeed – do you think it’ll be prints for Spring?’ Rufus Pitman was full, not of Proust, but of how shin of beef must be cooked at a high temperature to get the sinew to turn to jelly.

Guy Bostock had so much swagger he didn’t show at all. His news is that he’s three kilos of sculpted muscle heavier in 2014 than in 2013. His mass is now an erection-inducing 200lbs plus.

Lord Arrowby couldn’t have been more solicitous though, so concerned for my journey home. Bruno-France Bruno, the great mystery Poor Little Rich Gay, was remarkably confidential. Somehow he’s attracting the attention of Russians, he’s worried it’s for the wrong reasons. Great plates have moved in his life that can’t be spoken of. Now he’s at an international level.

Harry Rollo bought some young people and one not quite so young. This latter was in no particular outfit, perhaps a denim shirt, incredibly democratic, very friendly, Australian in fact. Turned out to be the producer of Radiohead, which is a pop group, absolutely huge.  The others seemed to be in the costume world, one in fact possibly working in latex. Harry said he had been graphed from underneath, as in up-the-skirts, I assume, by a renowned grapher I’d never heard of which gob-smacked Lord Arrowby.

That’s enough for now. I haven’t got round to my meditation on What Makes Greatness?

Come back tomorrow for more! Come back! Come back!

Friday 3rd January 2014

So a New Year is ushered in but Poor Little Rich Gays sweep on. No time to gather and replenish, the relentless round of lunches, teas and dinners unceasing. I’m refurbishing at once (Miroslav is in the bedroom as we speak) double lunching and dining today, back to back dining and lunching Saturday and Sunday.

Every function requires an outfit.

As well as the Sales, of course, and new bath mats to think of.

We pray at this year Poor Little Rich Gays will have fewer opinions but remain impossible.

New Year was at Conrad and Valèry’s. More to come. It was massive. The talk! The outfits! On Monday we lunched in Brighton with Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock restorer, and Hamish McCory. One Poor Little Rich Gay (big in the gold world) had been given a half-full bottle of gin for Christmas. There was outrage because I took an already opened box of chocs. Horace Sophy, the bond dealer, on the other hand, provided a tin of caviar reputed to have cost £600. Luckily the cat only got it when it was almost finished.

How the Gays talked in Brighton! Such life!

Over Christmas the Gay Mother and I lunched in the North Lodge of the Abbey and dined in the South. The Abbey itself is National Trust. We also lunched by the sea but actual Christmas Day was with Aunt Smidge and Cousin Smurry. Aunt Smidge said the Christmas cards had been awful this year. She meant the look. Cousin Smurry did Ottolenghi’s chicken with clementines and arak which the Gay Mother adored. She really is brewing up to plunge into Ottolenghi at nearly 90.

I gave a selection of perfumes by Frederic Malle, supposed to be the world’s best. I decided to upgrade from Jo Malone which I usually give. Aunt Lavinia said, ‘Is this Jo Malone?’ when opening hers. ‘I so liked the Jo Malone,’ she added.

I specially selected a lily of valley based fume for her and the Gay Mother. Neither have taken to it as yet.

The Multis dined here on Saturday and gave Sauce Beneden and their own 1st pressing of apple juice from their new desmesne. Or ape juice as Miroslav calls it. As it happens I can mix it with the strange Polish vodka he gave me for Christmas.

Other big news is that Joshua Baring brought off the wedding cake for his brother Bovver’s wedding on 21st December. Surely he would have won the Great British Bake Awff, if entered which is unlikely. There is a graph but  it’s low res and disorders my posts. Also, to add to the glory, he’s had a very good sales: shoes at Bott Ven, two trews at Paul and Joe as well as knitwear.

He leaves for New York, you know. Four months initially. Patrick Lockyer is threatening to actually become American. A whole generation of younger Poor Little Rich Gays could be wiped out.

Dessert Taken at the Multis’ Massed Pub Lunch before Christmas

The Multis’ Christmas Tree:  Self-Decorated.

The Gay Mother’s Table Styling for Our Christmas Eve Dinner

Table Re-Styled by Me, Adrian Edge

Caviar Bought by Horace Sophy for the Brighton Luncheon

Exemplary Belfast Christmas Window Display, Seen by Angus Willis over New Year

Friday 27th December 2013

Rufus Pitman built Falling Water out of lego on Christmas Day. That’s the Frank Lloyd house in America. Joshua Baring has already acquired shoes from Bott Ven in the sales.

My text for this year is from the medieval Provencal carol: ‘He who was rich beyond all splendour/All for love’s sake becamest poor’.

May Poor Little Rich Gays, here and throughout the world, who are tending to get above themselves, grow poor, but may they never forget from whence they came.

Tuesday 24th December 2013

Arabella von Gardendoor gave a party: I lost my trousers, plastic Prada. ‘Gary Lineker’s a mate,’ said an old friend of the Blond Multi’s. No shred of truth in the shagging stories. I couldn’t have been happier. Enjoyment at parties has come to me late in life. I give and give and am given to in turn. Had a wale of a time discussing fashion and body shape with a hot straight boy. The next day Bruce MacBain gave an intimate dinner at which it turned out that Robert Nevil and Sebastian Archer had loathed the Lord Lucan programme. Actually loathed it. Said Rory Kinnear not a bit like. I couldn’t agree. But Poor Little Rich Gays know what they think, of course. I loved the Lord Lucan programme. It was so much more than a ‘what really happened to Lord Lucan’ effort. Curious tone; one was appalled but oddly neutral. Participants shown as animal-like in the true sense of the word – running on powerful instincts, without conscience, in a pack, weak and easily led. So in the end you felt about them as you might about animals.

What is less often mentioned is that John Aspinall, key-player in the Lord Lucan affair, was a rellie. Oh yes! Granny’s 1st cousin, although never met by her. Speaking of connections, at last night’s Carol Service (my 2nd so far), aristocracy were present. I gained the Gay Mother’s through storm and rain yesterday and we went to the private chapel of a nearby Stately for the service. I had quite an amusing exchange with our land agent, also the agent for the family of the chapel, in the pew behind about £25 million of insurance cover that is required. I used a fairly loud voice.

Then last Thursday there was a second Private View for Eddie Sedgewick’s Retro Show, this time for Society ladies who are also artists. Much botox, fierce ‘Art’ jewellery, alternative unaffordable eye-wear. Mahler’s Grand-daughter was present in black. I haven’t heard of her for years, since the 80s. She was Mahler’s Grand-daughter then. Eddie and I teamed up with a lady who knew Brit Ekland and travelled back with her on tube.  Now she’s in acupuncture. At Knightsbridge she suggested an evening at a Holborn Buddhist cell as well as a visit to the flat of someone who writes for Okay! magazine.

So in the New Year we’ll do all that. How nice to have something to look forward to.

Finally my private stage as Christmas hurtled nearer. On TV I watched Nigel Slater cooking a vegetable casserole so revolting I felt queer. When he put, at the finish, the redcurrant jelly and mustard in I retched. But odd that all the ingredients in the Riverford Farm box for that week. In cahoots? I thought: ‘Dammit, I’ll make it just to prove that it’s repulsive.’ It had carrot, swede, parsnip, mushroom, dried porcini mushroom, chestnuts. The base was onion with juniper berries and rosemary.

Do you know, it wasn’t too bad. But I won’t make it again.

I’m pleased to say I found different Christmas cards this year – at the Geffrye Museum. One is by one of my private artists. Others by Eric Gill, Elizabeth Blackadder and Eric Ravilious. His son the Gay Mother knew. He graphed corrugated iron a lot in the rural by-ways. The Gay Mother loves corrugated iron.

My Christmas Cards from the Geffrye Museum

Nigel Slater’s Christmas Veg Casserole as Seen on Plate

Eddie Sedgewick’s Picture of Pattie Hearst

Viking Jewellery at Eddie Sedgewick’s Second Private View

Great Look at Eddie Sedgewick’s Second Private View

Tailoring at Eddie Sedgewick’s Society Private View

Greatnesses at Eddie Sedgewick’s Private View

Thursday 19th December 2013

Beginning to buckle under the pressure of Christmas.

Last Thursday Eddie Sedgewick gave a Retrospective of his artworks in Earlsy Courtsie. ‘Never look back,’ the song says (which song?). Eddie dared to look back – to Bianca, to Pattie Smith, to David Bowie, to the Blitz Club, to Punk, to the 70s. Eve Ferret came to the Retrospective in a black nightie in honour of Stephanie, ubiquitous in those days, and always her underwear was her outwear. Nobody quite knew what became of her. Ronnie Ronnie present. He was huge at Blitz. Robert Nevil, also, who was at school with Eddie Sedgewick. Sprung from Prep and Public, they took a slum flat in Brixton, were burgled every day, wore furs and mohair and corsets. When the trains were halted unexpectedly outside the window, they staged a strip tease to divert the passengers.

That was how it was going to be, in those days, the new Gay life, then barely legal. Outrageous! That’s the word. Funnily enough I read in the paper a few days after the show that Punk killed a lot of people. But Robert Nevil got huge in the Pony Club, maintains an establishment, Eddie Sedgewick hitched with the MP for Whirly and Lorraine. They get  a Christmas card from Ed Milly, hand-signed. I intend going to Brighton to see it. Ronnie Ronnie also gained a Bruce MacBain designed home.

They survived. Could they have gone on like that, now pushing 60?

It was worth looking back, for Eddie’s early works are divine and still fresh and vibrant.

The Show is called ‘Rip it Up’. I thought it was going to be one of those art ‘events’ where the artist purées all his work in a Magimix or flushes it down the lav, followed by some grotesque sex acts.

But no, we looked back. Now we must look forward. Poor Little Rich Gays reinvent and reassess. It’s not easy because no Poor Little Rich Gay can ever be criticised, will never confess, or admit to error. Improvement is not the word.  Change and growth, especially if achieved through therapy  – yuck! Yet Poor Little Rich Gays never give in. Ceaselessly on they go.

Eve Ferret in Nightie in Honour of Stephanie from Blitz Days

Eddie Sedgewick Himself in Tiny Outfit of Today Looking Back to Yesterday: HIs Speech at his Retrospective

Eddie Sedgewick’s Vision of Bianca, A Work Dating from the 70s

How They Were: Typical 70s Gays of Eddie’s Circle