Tuesday 17th December 2013

The functions! Saturday was the Multis’ pub lunch for 30 in the country – a chance for Poor Little Rich Gays to mingle with those less wracked and living in calmer waters – apparently. I drove the 120 miles with Prince Dmitri Hersov who’s criked by overwork at the Accountancy House. He was supposed to mastermind a take-over of one multi-national company by another during lunch but just didn’t make the call.

It’s all too much.

I was back in time for Psychopath Evening on Channel 4. I don’t think I’m one but I’m not sure. One imagines one has empathy but on the whole I empathise in order to be seen to be empathising. Psychopaths are out for themselves and will never be criticised.

Last Thursday was Ed Jasper, the bed linen expert and Roland Mainflower’s ‘Swan Lake’ by Matthew Bourne followed by buffet at their home. A lovely blood-red and wood feeling to their Christmas decor for their dining room. Ed was cross with Ottolenghi because they said, ‘You’ve bought all the salads. Now there’s nothing left for anyone else. Why didn’t you order in advance?’ ‘Bitch!’ Ed said, ‘when I was spending £160.’ Earlier in the theatre, there was drama over the interval drinks. A nice man from a horse museum at Newmarket  (one of the party) bought champagne and thereby killed off Ed’s own bottles of red and white. ‘That was £70 on wine and it’s going to waste,’ said Ed, pouring vigorously into his guests’ plastic cups. Back at the house we were gloriously compact, no lingering this year as last. As I clucked forth Ed and Roland were well underway with the washing up.

But my second dinner was the Friday before. It was high, high but such marvellous warmth. Harry Rollo, who really is a world-figure for all time – you might as well have Boudica to dinner or Monteverdi – dined, accompanied by Mercury, Mr Kitten, his consort. Mercury, Mr Kitten said, ‘Did I mention the time I met Diane Keaton?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you danced with her.’ ‘No, that was Jane Fonda.’ I only got some chopped up bits of the story about Cate Blanchett because of interruptions.

‘I don’t mean to name-drop,’ said Mr Kitten sweetly and I believed him. There was such warmth as well as such height. It was amazing and rare and warmth did not become gloop, which we can’t bear. There was rigour. Simeon Bond dined also and knew all the same people as young Joshua Baring who gave and gave . The star turn was his bravura account of his brother, Bovver’s, stag weekend in Amsterdam. ‘Do Gays not drink beer?’ one of Bovver’s ‘mates’ asked, meaning to be nice and understanding. Another said, ‘Do Gays not like grey socks?’  The hotel had scratchy carpet tiles and room spray. There was a whole wall like a lava lamp. Poor Joshua was in a triple room with Bovver and Lord Banger Castermaster. Really it was a martyrdom. They had a bike ride which Joshua escaped, then a normal dinner, then a vodka-tasting medley or a shot-bar or something like that. So they were hammered and lowed and bellowed in the street like cattle. The Saturday morning was therefore very white and glaring and speechless. Perhaps they had the bike ride on the Saturday rather than the Friday in which case it would have been very quiet and quivering. By dinner they were somewhat restored and asked the waitress about the Rave. She said she was too old to go. ‘How old are you?’ the mates and Bovver inquired. ’23.’ ‘But we’re 35!’ Still they were hell-bent for the Rave which was miles away in a shed. Quite what happened when they got there is not at all clear. I think sadly something is pushing them to the side of their own lives, as old dear Largs put it. Joshua had to be carried back to London.

Harry and Mercury, Mr Kitten’s important Hollywood insight: Tom Daley’s possible boyfriend, a script-writer, is thought madly ambitious and very marketing-minded – in Hollywood, in Los Angeles, that is.

Frankie-Doreen May got on famously with Harry Rollo and Mercury, Mr Kitten. ‘Her Ivana stories,’ they said afterwards. ‘But I didn’t tell my Ivana stories,’ Frankie-Doreen protested the next day. Ivana – Trump, of course.

They must have seeped out somehow, without speech.

Wednesday 11th December 2013

Last week I gave two dinners – one heaven and one hell. Who would have thought dinner giving so dangerous?

Last Wednesday the menu was Jamie Oliver’s baked beetroot with oregano and garlic, filet of beef with three sauces (Ottolenghi) and Nigella’s quince compôte. I was determined to bring in Nigella for solidarity.

First of all Genevieve Suzy, of the magazine world, rings: husband can’t come. Nanny crisis. Could she bring a Maharajah instead? Then Val arrives: cholic. Sits down at the laid dinner table straight away, clutching stomach. I administer peppermint oil in hot water. Laura Malcolm arrives, sits down with Val at table. The Multis arrive: ‘Why are you sitting here? Why aren’t you in the drawing room for the champagne? It’s not right.’ I rather agree. There’s something common about sitting at the table for 45 minutes before the dinner served. I say, ‘Do go up to the drawing room if you’d like.’ They don’t move. Genevieve arrives with the Maharajah who almost falls over in the hall. It takes 15 minutes to persuade him to take his coat off. He keeps on saying, ‘Thank you so much for having me.’ But on his face look of fury apparently stuck there some years before and now permanent. This normal with those fond of refreshment. The dinner begins. They like the beetroot. I don’t know what Val’s up to but there’s no sign of brilliance. The Maharajah, it emerges, is a dandy. He wearing fur and leather. He’s a specialist in dandies. He as good as hurls himself at the Blond Multi because of his (the BM’s)enthralling window-pane check suit in pea-green and red. The Blond Multi is desperately trying to slam up the barricades. Somehow a furious argument erupts about who is a dandy and who isn’t. Matt Driver is probing the Maharajah. ‘I’m not a dandy.’ The Maharajah is shouting. ‘You’re shouting,’ says Genevieve Suzy. ‘I’d like you to eat up your beetroot.’

There’s a calm patch where we discuss the Tom Daley affair. The Photo Multi makes a thoughtful point when I suggest that the very act of making an announcement is a concession to inequality. ‘What you have to see,’ the PM said, ‘is that, for him, it’s a big deal.’ This rings absolutely true. No young person is going to waltz into Gaydom as if it were nothing, not even today.

Now a new geyser opens up: Genevieve says the Daily Telegraph has the best news desk. Laura and Matt – their left-wing side comes out. They won’t have it. There’s fearsome squawking and chicken noises. Val lurches to his feet: ‘I’ve got to go. Feeling so rough.’ It’s before the pudding. Later he texts, ‘The charming maharajah didn’t help.’

Speaking of whom, this figure, still toying with the beetroot, plunges off in search of his coat. ‘Are you leaving?’ I say. ‘So we can start enjoying ourselves,’ says Matt Driver.

I think they were enjoying themselves though – or enjoyed in retrospect.

One thing: if you do three sauces (as I did with filet of beef as suggested by Ottolenghi) guests will inevitably like one of them more than others.

Monday 9th December 2013

It’s on Channel 4. Docu about Liberty, the London shop. ‘We get a lot of queens in here,’ says one of the queens working in Scarves. An example is Lord Arrowby who’s always managing discounts on designer frockage at the great emporium.

Truly you’ll never see such queenaria again. ‘I went to business school. I hated it,’ drawls the Managing Director with weird half-shaven head. ‘It’s a really old building. It’s like hot or damp or really cold. I hate it,’ groaned the Floor Manager with completely shaven head. ‘I really hate those cushions,’ flounced another, actually a woman desperate to keep up.

The receptionist was a dream: she’d got a Liberty print named after her. All staff do. She was planning to wrap herself in it in her coffin. That’s how she put it. Her favourite colour: black. ‘I’m quite brassy with this blond hair so I’m banking it down with black,’ she announced.

Thursday 5th December 2013

At Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowski’s party I survived well in a spray-on outfit by Zara. Somehow I had the strength for conversation. In fact I was radiant. As Enid Blyton said: ‘You’ll never get anything back unless you give in the first place.’ Robert Nevil, Bruce McBain and the Multis gave huge pleasure to Laura Malcolm with their cheek and bizarrerie. I had conversation with Matt Driver, Laura’s thrusting husband, except that we philosophised on the ghastliness of work, what a mistake it is. ‘There’s only so much interest I can take in a new yoghurt campaign,’ Matt said. So draining the office life – the low-level bickering, the boredom that drives round the same complaints about certain colleagues for years and years. Much better to stay at home and take the occasional lucrative project for diversion.

Except of course that work is vital to the Poor Little Rich Gay who gives more to it than anything else. Perhaps to have worked is the ideal position for the Poor Little Rich Gay.

Otherwise I was thick with Philip Vitrine, who ran the Elizabeth Arden salon in London for years. He told me that new products to be taken internally for the face are now available. And they’re fabulous. His skin at 60 is superb and he hasn’t started on the pills yet.

Of course work on the face is worthwhile. Of course products work.

Oh I was buoyed up.

Then on Monday I took the Russian Ball at the Royal Albert Hall with Arabella von Gardendoor. She was my plus-one, having been up at Ford with the Blond Multi. It was a Dainty Lady TV assignment. At first the PR people tried to kettle us in the lobby but we bust out and got into our box with champagne. There was a young man of Prince Harry’s age. He said he was from the Belgravia Residents’ Gazette. Very good hair, a Brideshead feel. ‘What’s your story?’ said Arabella. It was a bold approach to one just met. If there were any false starts they lasted on more than 10 seconds. Within 30 we were fully bonded and hearing everything: he’s got three girlfriends but he was hurt twice in the past. He began in finance, then moved to the Marines but got kicked out because some pals were having a fight in the King’s Road, he was nearby and found by the Police to have a picnic knife in his bag. It took 8 years or months to clear his name. The knife was legit. He’d been using it while camping in Ubezbecistan. Then he took the path to ordination but didn’t care for it after a year. Finally he was reincarnated as editor of the Belgravia Residents’ Gazette. Emerging from a lake at a grand house party in the country, a girl who’d had the hots for him for some time happened to be nearby. ‘I was in boxers,’ he explained. He became involved with the girl in some way. Arabella grew concerned that he didn’t eat. Many exquistions were being offered in the Box. He self-bought a vodka. ‘I’m having neat vodka,’ he said. Then it was departure for the British Fashion Awards after-party.

We couldn’t have loved it more.

The ball was fabulous too, once you’d overlooked the speeches about how it was to commemorate ‘400 years since Romanovs’. ‘I’m reminded of a Fascist rally,’ I said to Arabella. ‘Didn’t Sir Oswald Moseley hold rallies at the Royal Albert Hall.’

The best bit was the Quadrille, open to all, with its Russian kicking steps in one part. I was in floods for the Old Russia.

The debutantes were a dream. The tulle!  Yards and yards of tulle! A misty dream of tulle.

Tickets were minimum price £470. Nobody had a fat stomach.

Greatnesses Gain for the Russian Ball at the Royal Albert Hall

The Debutantes are Introduced to Society at the Russian Hall at the Royal Albert Hall

The Magic of Debutantes

The Ball Committee and Dox Priest from that Church at the End of the Raised Section of the M4 at Chiswick

The General Scene: the Russian Ball at the Royal Albert Hall: Min. Price £470

Monday 2nd December 2013

I’m just leaving for the Russian Ball at the Royal Albert Hall – I’m covering for Dainty Lady TV. My Plus-One is Arabella von Gardendoor, who was up at Ford with the Blond Multi. I could be heterosexual by the end of the eve. Tickets are min price of £470. We are going free of course but must enter by the Stage Door. I’m not sure what this means.

Otherwise much has been happening and the telephone wires have been crisp with drama re: Peter Acharya and Ned Czenowski’s party on Friday which was a triumph. More to come.

But what about Tom Daley joining? During the Olympics he was officially designated ‘rat-faced’ by Robert Nevil. Now we’ll have to think again. We’ve been studying the background to the You-Tube announcement and can see room for improvement. There’s a brown cord sofa and 60s psychodelic wallpaper. It is strange though and I do feel for him. Everyone seems to think he’ll suffer for it. He’ll have to go niche. Perhaps it would have been better not to have made the announcement which in itself seems to concede to inequality. No straight diver of 18 in the public eye would announce the acquisition of a girlfriend in such a way presumably.

Did I mention that Lord Arrowby’s new best friend is …..the Queen?

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to get a nice straight line in my bathroom between floor-tile grouting and wall. The wall got stained by the shower as did the grouting so had to be re-painted. But look what happened when I took off the masking tape.

I’ve it all to do again.

Now must go up and clamber into my Japanese dinner suit made of fine jersey. I’ll wear Green Irish Tweed by Creed with it.

Jagged Edge in My Bathroom Left After Masking Tape Removed

Wednesday 27th November 2013

Joshua Baring has experienced his brother Bovver’s Stag Weekend in Amsterdam. A full report is expected soon.

Last week the sample sale at Alice Temperley was attended by Aunt Lavinia and myself at the invitation of Cousin Barley. We picked out a purple cardy for the Gay Mother with tight cobweb sleeves for her to wear for her 90th Birthday. For Aunt Lavinia it was a fantastic evening coat, sculpted, complex, unique cut, in azure. The cardy was £50 and the coat £80.

A superb, glowing, honey-skined man appeared in a German hunting outfit, nippy, whippy and trim, huge at Temperley and known to Joshua Baring. Joshua dined with him at the highest level only the other day. Which I mentioned. ‘You have to be so careful,’ he said.

Over lunch at Zedel, Aunt Lavinia mentioned that she’d found a short mink coat at the back of a cupboard. Must have been there for years. She’d no idea.

I’ve been in the country since Sunday, outlining to the Gay Mother plans for her 90th Birthday. ‘I hope I live,’ she said. ‘It would be a drawback if you didn’t,’ I said. She’s only got to carry on until February. We listened to the news. They said last winter there were 31000 excess deaths owing to the cold. ‘Good way of weeding them out,’ the Gay Mother said. At 89, you’re probably entitled to speak like this. She has tried on the cardy and might just wear it. It suits. In the process a button fell off (unique faceted jet) and could not be found. Later it suddenly appeared for no reason. Creepy.

Tuesday of last week Val came up for ‘Philomena’ which we loved. Not at all sentimental as feared. Killing time in Waterstone’s we bumped into a massive publishing figure. Val said, ‘Who could think Tom Sharpe funny?’ We agreed that what we find funny nobody else does: the ‘hard-wearing flowers’ always placed under the portrait of Marcia Blane in ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’. Also the musquash coats of the Edinburgh ladies that would ‘see them all their days’.

But most people like knockabout and banana skin.

Wednesday Ed Jasper and Roland Mainflower gave a dinner. I self-invited for their garden opening in June. Am also having a wale of a time picking over luxury B and Bs near their house in Suffolk where I will stay for Roland’s 50th in July. One gets so picky over radiators and cushion covers after looking at 50 or 60 photos of luxury B and B rooms called ‘Quadrille’ or ‘Under the Beams’. One of the guests at the dinner seemed somewhat brittle. Later I googled and found he was the one who organised the ‘Marchioness’ party. That was the boat that was mown down in the Thames in the 80s. He’s never got over it, poor thing.

I should also mention that Lord Arrowby is getting incredibly intimate with the Royal family. He had Wales last Thursday and her Actual Majesty on Monday in Private Audience. She is a useful contact for him and a good person to be in with. I thought maybe she would rock on with him to his next engagement at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Unfort a snoop graph of Majesty at home for the Poor Little Rich Gays was not possible.

By the way, do take ‘Last Tango in Halifax’ if you have time for telly. Quite outstanding, especially for BBC1

Friday 22nd November 2013

Sebastian Archer, who once shaped world-taste in words, was having social life in New York, where he spends much time. The circle is Michelle Obama, Jackie O, Sondheim, Lennie, Nico Muhly, the Widow Ono. At a party he met an unassuming young man who said he was in The National. Sebastian was like: ‘The National what…?’

Well, the long and short…it’s a Group, fairly massive, a Pop Group. The young man from the National had read all the books Sebastian selected for the world; he gives Sebastian two comps for a concert to be given by the National at the Ally Pally as part of their world tour – with Backstage Bar access.

We couldn’t not go. Sebastian kindly used me as his plus one. We spent most of the day working out how to get to the Ally Pally and what to wear for a Pop concert, never having been to one before. Really we were completely at sea.

Sebastian opted for his famous goat-coat, by Hermes, now a classic. It’s made of goat. I had my new Zara spray-on waxed jeans and my Guaglianone car-coat with the diagonal silver zip. Somehow we sensed that it wouldn’t be dressy.

We were right. We gained the Ally Pally by public train. Hordes pouring in, all in boil-wash border-line grunge outfits, no colours or glamour. The place like a railway station. We home in on a vast room. I’ve never seen the like. Definitely a room not a hall, but so huge. 12000 people present apparently. This National are big. We timed perfectly because the band arrived as we did. Sometimes, I’ve heard, these pop musicians never arrive.

The extraordinary thing was – there were no seats. Just a massive milling, not a still moment, always someone wanting to get by with a big cup of beer. We had to move away from the speakers otherwise it would have been death. Sebastian said, ‘I don’t think I can stand for two hours.’ So we retired at intervals at the Backstage Bar where you could sit on a pub-type (i.e. plastic leather) Chesterfield.

So we saw the National live. ‘What kind of mu is it?’ I asked Sebastian. He thought for a bit: ‘Indy Pop, I think.’ It was very hard to make head or tail. One of the National had a nice voice. None of them were young. Some words were sung many times coming through a overwhelming blast of amplified sound. The stage was very expensively illuminated with a light show.When it was over it was as if nothing much had happened. I think that was part of the cool – not to be at all worked up. The performers were cool and the spectators were come-and-go-as-you-please. Nobody was going to be shattered at any price.

The same at the after-party. The Backstage Bar was an underground bunker, possibly a half-finished Chinese restaurant. Very red like a pub. Some grunges ambled in and bought drinks. We had pub-type wine. Even ladies had achieved an astonishing lack of frockage. One was not dressed up for the National at the Ally Pally. Sebastian and I sat on a Chesterfield in mottled old-red leathette. A young man from Seattle was a friend of the soundman. He was also quite something in the Starbucks hierarchy but he had to leave for Ascot where he was staying. Thinking we’d had our drama, we rested a little longer on the sofa, then prepared to leave. ‘None of the Band have come in here,’ I said. Forlornly we looked at our tickets. Various options were crossed out including VIP. ‘There must be another party elsewhere,’ we cried. But near the door, at the door almost, Sebastian suddenly lit up  like a whole town’s Christmas lights being switched on by a celeb. ‘That’s him! That’s…. of the National.’

It was indeed. We were in casual conversation, just so cool and banked down and un-mega band with world following.

You won’t believe what happened next. Who could think that one moment we were almost at the level of a Harvester on quiet night and the next…. ‘Over there… that person over there,’ the National member said, ‘do you see… that’s the American Ambassador.’

An overgrown schoolboy in blazer and open-necked shirt was apparent, talking to some people from the Guardian, indeed taking down numbers on his iPhone.

The American Ambassador! We were throbbing next the White House. I Googled later. Appointed by Obama, an Internet tycoon, wife the heiress to Jack Daniels.

It was time for the Ambassador to leave. A perfect diplomatic departure, swift but all he’d spoken to courteously bid farewell, then out with lanky son to the car and away.

As were we, as high, high as could be.

The National at the Ally Pally: Frockage not the Main Point

The National at the Ally Pally: Their Light Show

The National at the Ally Pally

Limited Wildness in the Audience During the Encores by the National at the Ally Pally

It’s All Over at the Ally Pally: Aftermath of National Concert

The Back-Stage Bar at the Ally Pally

A Member of the National, Said to be a Twin

Sebastian Archer’s Famous Goat-Coat

The United States Ambassador at the Court of St James: Back-Stage Bar at the Ally Pally

Not VIP: Almost the End

Tuesday 19th November 2013

With Genevieve Suzy this morning, I toured the Isabella Blow Exhib at Somerset House: her old frocks and hats and bags and gloves. We were there for Dainty Lady TV.

Isabella Blow is a figure I’m surprised I haven’t more frequently embraced. But I have a suspicion she wasn’t much fun. She was more on the lethal side. Nothing wrong with that. I’m not criticising. Simply she wasn’t Poor Little Rich Gay. No pull-back, just the one perspective. She homed in naturally on Alexander McQueen, who also fascinated with his danger and cruelty.

A Prep School Fashion Look for Attendee at Isabella Blow Exclusive Preview This Morning

From Alexander McQueen’s First Collection

Cruel Lace: Alexander McQueen’s Opening Collection

Hats by Philip Treacy, Of Course

Another Hat: How Does It Stay On?

Isabella Blow: Her Clucks

Isabella Blow: Her Burka. Convenient for When Hair and Make-Up a Mess

A Greatness at the Exclusive Viewing: But Who is She? She’s a Name, For Sure

Inspired by Nature: Novelty Swimwear

Saucepan-Head

Lizard Coat in Apricot

Isabella Blow Interviewed with Wreath of Barbed Wire Round Head: She Overcame It Perfectly

Thursday 14th November 2013

It’s time to make a special corner for Harry Rollo’s intimate performance, which was given last week to launch a new venue.  Harry opened the Recession in November 2008 by launching another venue and afterwards Reggie Cresswell and I drove in the chauff-ed limo of a Lord who had wrecked one of the banks and therefore brought about the Recession (Poor Little Rich Gays are always at the core). I sat in the front seat amongst the Chauffeur’s debris of The Sun and cardboard coffee cups with a whiff of cigars and fart gas. We drove to a restaurant where Harry was fêted.

Now Harry closes the Recession by launching a different venue. Happy days are here again.

How to describe the perf? It was Harry and friends who had begun together as nothing and now are something. They’re in their prime. Most members of the audience were world-class in their category. I bought almonds at the bar to keep the wolf from the door. ‘Will they make me cough?’ said Reggie Cresswell, the world-renowned Ghanian ceramicist, when offered one. ‘It would have been better if you’d bought the wasabi nuts.’

First class Poor Little Rich Gay behaviour. In the interval, for there was an interval, Finn Magnus, the hot boy doc (in pink Ted Baker jumper),who accompanied Reggie, was duly holding a pot of green wasabi nuts for general consumption.

Finn is a miracle, because he’s not like other young people, riddled with commitment phobia and always on the run. No, he reaches out to tend to your wounds. Also, he loves expensive hotels.

But what of the perf? It was lyrical, jagged, entirely new, not a bit like anything on TV. The Strictly audience would have been completely at sea. Harry is in ag because it’s all been done before, beauty’s old hat yet the perf goes on and beauty and shape with supreme struggle can be wrested forth. Nobody knows what Harry’s given for his Art. Stephan Jaëger too, who was in the perf and hooped and whooped as you wouldn’t believe. But he is never at home  because of performing so is terribly behind with home improvement.

There was an after-party so we were supremely late for the restaurant which had to fling itself open again at closing time. About twenty sat down then another ten mega-figures surged in and staff were required to shower them with true pork scratchings. I sat next to Harry but he was so fêted I never saw him except as a torso whirling in the other direction. Red wine began to pour down from above. Rufus Pitman was on my other side being superb. He always poses a question to which the answer is something you never knew before. More red wine cascaded down. Stephan Jaëger cuddled up somehow (Harry must have moved). He said, ‘Maybe one day, maybe, maybe I’ll meet the Multis.’ He reads the Poor Little Rich Gays, you see, but unusually does not know those Poor Little Rich Gays.

A world-class Opera Director said, ‘You’ll have so much to put into your Poor Little Rich Gays after tonight.’ Oh dear! What did Rufus say? I then myself performed, at Stephan’s request, my version of the Chinese Opera, which I saw at Sadler’s Wells in 1987. It is a strange cat-sound accompanied by ferocious banging on the backs of saucepans which I can suggest with voice. By rights, the one miaowing should be doing a water-colour of a paeony at the same time.

More red wine. Miss Lamore Cellina loomed. She’s gone off her own cabaret – tragic since it was brill. Also has been at Aldeburgh. But we agreed that Britten is finished, never to be performed again.

Otherwise, can’t remember a thing. So irresponsible and awful.

Monday 11th November 2013

Have never known the like: completely failed to take a lunch or dinner anywhere but in a restaurant or the home of another for DAYS. Lunching out, dining out, lunching out, dining out. By the way, Aunt Lavinia reported, in Zedel, that the Wolseley was disgusting. Watery kedgeree.

Robert Nevil, on the other hand, is to be found round any corner, giving a talk. Pony Club business. It’s a busy time because of all the ponies dead in wars. Special Pony Remembrance Services, Pony Hymns, Pony Poems, Pony-Shaped Poppies. Tremendous bickering and bitterness as well as assaults – as usual. Audience members unhinged by the tragedy, shouting out that any pony more loving than a human, dragging in their own pony, of course, as undoubted best. In a Waterloo church, the Canon could only restore order by reciting ‘At Grass’ by Largs, whereupon they all wept uncontrollably, even though it’s about horses not ponies.

So news of Joshua Baring: he dined with the CEO of an utterly central fashion house and his semi-kitchen companion. I’m telling you this house is near the Throne. Amazing lacquer-work in the apartment. Earlier in the summer, he attended a Gala in Normandy given by these people at their country home. Waiters had sashes and pink brocade bodices. There were three tables outside the tent; one had exquisite pastry pieces, another offered langoustines and crab and a third was pure oysters (yuck! But dear precious Lord Arrowby, who tonight dined in the House with a household politics name, loves them). The main, a lamb rack, was taken in the tent.

No doubt there were people and conversation at the function as well although of less importance than the tableau and mis-en-scéne – especially in France.

But Joshua faces a stag weekend in Amsterdam. His brother, Bover, a posh yob of considerable heat, is marrying, not for the first time. A schedule for the weekend has been issued by one of the other ‘lads’. It says, ‘Feeding time at Seven.’ ‘Saturday afternoon bike ride.’ Joshua’s not going on the bike ride. He doesn’t ride a bike. He’s going to the museums instead. At his previous stag, Bover was finally up a pole with no clothes on.

The cake is poor Joshua’s great comfort. He is to ice Bover’s Wedding Cake. I hoped to inspire him with tales of Mrs Titball’s lattice work atop our Christmas cake every year in the 60s. Mrs Titball lived next door and always gave us a cake. Or the time Aunt Olive went on a cake decorating course at Bournemouth. But Joshua’s got his own ideas and has acquired a lavish coffee-table book called ‘Royal Icing’.

Joshua Baring, Seeking Solace in Icing

Competition: Joshua Baring Determined to Outstrip Royal Christening Cake with Own Bover Wedding Cake