Thursday 5th September 2013

The New Season has opened and that 100% divinity Lord Arrowby, my former love interest, has hurtled across the sky, shoulders broader than ever, in fitted plum shorts and a flowered summer shirt.

Meanwhile there have been a number of mishaps.

There’s a strange smell of feet near my desk. Not my feet so whose?

A nasty stain has developed on one of the duvet covers. Not even bleach applied with a Q-tip will shift it. I put more bleach and washed at 60 degrees. Am praying for result. But accidentally a pair of pants got into the 60 degree wash. They are only meant to be 30 degrees. Ruination.

Then I broke a plate. One of my best ones from the harlequin set. Cost £60. Went up to the antique lady yesterday and got two more, quite similar. £90.

Come back soon – I’m going to do fragments from the New Season’s opening and then Gardens.

My Broken Plate: But it Will Rise Again Like Helen Burns

Replacement Plates: Actually Better Quality than Broken One

Replacement Plate

Tuesday 3rd September 2013

The cucumber-bottling idyll is over. Robert Nevil has succumbed to the lure of the Pony Club and returned to our sceptred isle.

Last week was his sister’s mother-in-law’s 100th birthday. She received a card from the Queen but will not be attempting any further ‘Knit-your-own-Royal Family’. The Queen Mother in powder-blue duster coat and off-the-face hat, in fact a seamless whole of knitting, accomplished in her 99th year, was enough.

Robert Nevil’s Sister’s Mother-in-Law on Her 100th Birthday

Card from the Queen to Robert Nevil’s Sister’s Mother-in-Law on Her 100th Birthday

Monday 2nd September 2013

Villa Wednesday was the day – the Western Australians lunched at the villa. Brunt, never met before, was driven down from Florence by his son, Clay, a friend of Prince Dmitri’s from the Accountancy firm.  With pugnacious physique, a curl to the lip and a slow suggestive smile, Clay has gay-porn-star quality. In fact he is hitched to a senior woman from the Accountancy firm where he nolonger works. He hosts poker parties, although not with guns. On this occasion, however, Brunt was the star turn. The man was epic. Hearing that Angus Willis was planning to light the villa pizza oven for the pizza evening, he said, ‘I’ll tell you about pizza.’ So it began, like one of those gargantuan movies of yesteryear, ‘How the West was Won.’ The bringing of pizza to Western Australia: the seizing of a failed restaurant premises at knock-down price, the amazing novative business model, now adopted by all the major chains, where the pizza parts were prepared in one location in the morning then van-ed out to the restaurants, who merely had to assemble and cook (try it yourself). All Brunt’s own invention. The spirit that made Australia. The competition was crapping itself. Their nudgers were shrivelled to dried shrimps. Brunt himself developed the pierced oven floor to ensure a crisp bottom. He drilled in person. His margins were up by 40% in the first six months and after a year he had developed the multi-phase pizza or pizza wheel offering in one pizza all known pizza toppings and more including tandoori chicken.

Otherwise Brunt encompassed metal prices, antiques and his son’s nudger (more later). ‘Are any of you Jewish?’ he enquired. Laura Malcolm said, ‘I only look Jewish.’ This was encouraging. ‘Sitting in Chicago,’ Brunt explained, ‘in their spiders’ web, little black spiders. That’s our Jewish friends who fixed the metal markets in 2007 as we’re all paying for now, thank you very much.’ ‘Aw, Dad,’ said Clay, ‘we’ve been through all this…’ ‘We have and we will again,’ Brunt forged on. ‘Your Mr Solomon and your Mr Fishbaum…I think I know where to point the finger….’

At this point, Brunt, who had taken a little salami pre-lunch elegance prepared by international food stylist, Angus Willis, removed himself from the table which was situated on the villa lawn. With my back to him, I feared to turn round . For sure he would be vomiting, like that nice Conservative lady in Little Britain. Only in this case it was worse because he had actually eaten a morsel that had been fingered by a poofter. No choice but to spew conspicuously mid-lawn.

Returning to the table, Brunt continued: his early European travels, his modifications to pizza, his switch to antiques, accompanied by his son, Clay, who shipped out the antiques from England, although it was Brunt who made the killing with his beautiful presentation, in his own home: people thought they were buying a part of a stately home. Amazingly Brunt took lunch. Why bother? I was thinking, if it’s all to be vom-ed up later. In the meantime, there was a considerable phase re: the German deli near Clay’s place in London. Bound to fail. Easily £350,000 worth of equipment that’ll be going for a song any minute now. ‘I’m not interested,’ said Clay.

At last lunch was over and Brunt withdrew to the mid-lawn. He’s been saving it up, I thought, for a big show. But then the truth emerged. It was fag breaks he was having.

I said, ‘I must broadcast live from the mezzanine. It’s Dainty Lady TV. I’m doing an item on how table trimmings are looking for the Autumn season.’

I could hear the Brunt voice through the hedge as I backed out. So it was that I just caught the end of the nudger story. Clay had been disturbed by a wasp during the night at their hotel in Florence. The lady owner had come with a can of wasp spray, sprayed so vigorously she had asphyxiated herself as well as the wasp, fallen on top of Clay and the wasp and thus been assaulted by two nudgers, Clay’s and the wasp’s – which, Brunt was certain, was her object all along.

Afterwards, none of us could believe that we had actually heard this.

Sunday 1st September 2013

Oh the vigour and greatness of our Great City: dined (a certain divinity was there) and barbied yesterday, dined on Friday, dined on Wednesday, lunched at Penn on Thursday, was bolt upright at the Royal Albert Hall, closing the Proms, on Tuesday, having forged back from the Country that day. Dined in the country last Saturday, in a summer scarf, after landing at Row from Rome earlier in the day and surging 240 miles in my official car with Xenon driving lights to the Gay Mother’s.

Otherwise have been dead-heading and working on stains: was also kept up all night on Wednesday/Thursday morning by a stray cat trapped on my terrace.

Tuscany a distant dream, as if never happened. All rest-cure benefits evap. I was so well there, sleeping each day until 9 with a one or two hour interval between 5 and 7 in the morning. The air excellent, no stifling heat, and the bedrooms so dark.

Angus Willis, international food writer, food stylist and cook, King of Hastings retail, Creator of the Tudor House, Hastings (feature coming up in Interiors, written by Sid Id, no less) cooked at La Foce: apart from his Pici con Pomordoro Crudo, which I did better the week before at Il Cortile, his vision of Tuscan food was unsurpassed. He respected the origins yet made it new. His achievement was Heaven-high and unsurpassed.

For Angus the Tuscan essentials are the charcoal grill and the wood-fired oven. Fortunately my villa had both. What a miracle!  The other crucial element is the approach to shopping. Angus improvises and seizes chances others would miss. There’s no fixed list. Menus are conjured from what the market offers. So we had quail with figs, done in the wood fired oven, and the famous octopus, frozen to tenderise, then boiled, then finished with spices on the charcoal grill. The classics of Tuscany, papa di pomordoro, were faultless, lifted by what Laura Malcolm called a garnish, but Angus said, ‘It’s not a garnish because you eat it.’ The garnish question was never quite settled.

For the celebration lunch, when we received the Western Australian father and son team, the son a friend of Prince Dmitri Hersov, the father a full monologist and pizza-chain founder, not fond of Jews, taglia di manzo was done on the grill with a highly original salad of rare leaves from the market, grilled courgettes and pecorino shavings. Angus said courgettes should be grilled with no oil.

The pizza evening was attended by the Multis who were so taken with La Foce that they stayed on a whole extra day and took the octopus dinner the following night as well. But the thought of the pizza evening did not please the Photo Multi who dreads carbs in the evening. He wanted the menu altered but nothing could stop the progress of pizza from the pizza oven and the Multis were enchanted finally and even slept well in the simple La Foce B and B despite being full of pizza.

Which was a massive mercy, for if the Multis were alienated…

The Gala closing ceremony was a tomato soup followed by the grilled octopus with roasted potatoes then a knock-out salad of fennel and radiccio.

Angus introduced tirelli which are little biscuits made with olive oil. You can buy in packets and they will lift your pre-dinner drinks/nibbles phase to another sphere.

Laura Malcolm revived her True Bellini, made with real peach juice.

So endeth our Tuscan dream for this year: but do not despair. On the 3rd day he rose again. You’ve read and you’ve learnt. Now you too, no matter how wretched your simplicity, can follow in Poor Little Rich Gay Tuscan footsteps.

Angus Willis: Western Australian Lunch, the 1st Course: Fresh Cannellini beans, Prosciutto and with Wild Fennel Flowers

Pizza Evening at La Foce

Papa di Pomodoro Lifted by an Angus-Willis-Created ‘Garnish’

The Actual Octopus, Styled by Angus Willis Himself, With Roast Potatoes and Rare Leaves

Fontalgozzo, on the La Foce Estate, My Self-Paid Villa: A Good Solid Box, Restyled by Cecil Pinsent

Fontalgozzo, on the La Foce Estate: Her Pool

The Most Famous View in Tuscany, As Seen from My Villa at La Foce: Now We Say Farewell to Tuscany for Another Year

Friday 23rd August 2013

Prince Dmitri Hersov is threatening to run away because of the octopus. He is in his suite earning millions for the blue-chip accountancy firm. Laura Malcolm condemned the Angus-Willis-bought cactus fruits at luncheon. The Multis came over from their villa, the famous Il Cortile, yesterday for Angus Willis’s pizza dinner, took a simple bed and breakfast facility on La Foce estate for the night (found out from the maid that AK was here! Yes Anish Kapoor in villa for 20. Princess Margaret as well) and are doing us the great honour of staying on today for lunch and dinner, even though it’s octopus. The strapping 6′ Blond Multi, in hot fitted turquoise shorts and plunging t-shirt, is taking a conference call. There’s a drama back home with the Estates Committee. The fellow directors won’t listen to the Blond’s thrusting dynamo.

Matt Driver was obliged to return to the UK on Wednesday to reshape consumer tastes in that country. Laura Malcolm is now his Company Secretary. She mentioned that her friend in Paris, Ulbussa Famous Champagne House (that’s her name) had staffing problems: she discovered that a handyman had been wanking into her knicker drawer.

That was the end of him.

Laura came down one morning looking totally international: we all swooned at her frockage. ‘The Gap,’ she said, ‘at least 11 years old and never ironed.’ Yet she had a silhouette and was making a statement. We agreed that willpower is vital in styling of all kinds. The results are one thing but the projection behind them is the crucial element. As Diana Vreeland memo-ed to her staff at Vogue, ‘Green will be looking new in the Spring.’

And it was.

Laura Malcolm has just this minute re-joined the iron ring of willpower that is the Scrabble trio of herself, the Photo Multi and Angus Willis. The other game they play is Swabble after which Angus Willis and Fergus Strachan, who have been yoked for 20 years, have to be taken to the vets for facial re-construction. On market visits, Fergus sits on the doorstep of the macelleria reading his book, which is either about the Cosmos or Islam. He is an intellectual and likes the world to be clearly delineated. Last night he spoke of personality disorder and people who deviate from normal. But Laura Malcolm and myself did not care for normal. At lunch he said that it had taken thousands of years for us to get used to milk. Really we should be on berries and the occasional road-kill or something like that. He thinks of adopting that diet, despite living with one of England’s most famous cooks (as well as knowing Sid Id and Muriel McGlorian). I said, ‘You’ll get too thin. You’ll get stringy.’ He said, ‘I can correct that with cosmetic procedures.’ He is divinely contradictory, thank God, and the only Poor Little Rich Gay so far to have actually undergone procedures.

Sid Id, by the way, we’ve heard, has been outrageously suspected of paedophilia while out walking with his son. ‘Fortunate,’ I said, ‘that he is not also a nudist,’ because Prince Dmitri read something out of the Graph online about the rising tide of nudism.

Lordy! I’ve run on. No time to tell you about the Western Australians who lunched – a father and son, the son a friend of Prince Dmitri, the father never seen before by any of us. Anyone less likely to lunch with Poor Little Rich Gays is hard to imagine.

And Angus Willis’s cuisine! All my food at this villa has been prepared by this leading international cook. So much to tell.

We went to Pienza by the way. Boring. Tourists. We went to Montepuliciano also. Quite nice but main excitement was finding a profumeria where they had Mandorle di Sicilia by Acqua di Parma. I really am moving towards buying some. I used their test bottle (I had a sample previously from Space NK) and it lasted all day including swimming.

It’s a cloying sweet deeply controversial fume.

But we’ve had no need of art and history because of the Angus Willis cuisine in the Villa. We’ve had home art.

Montepulciano Bus Station: Here the Octopus was Bought by Angus Willis at the Market

More Sling Backs at Montepulciano Market: I Failed to Buy: Other Pairs Were Good as Well, in Brown

Angus Willis Sets Fire to my Villa: It’s Pizza Evening: the Multis Graced Our Villa for the Occasion

An Angus Willis Re-Envisioning of Italian Cuisine: Part of Yesterday’s Lunch

Tuesday 20th August 2013

We made a massive entrance into the Olive Oil Dinner. Angus Willis, Hastings’ Retail King and International Food Writer, was in Jean-Paul Gaultier. More later. At present, he is setting fire to my holiday villa.

Meanwhile, yesterday morning, we evolved a whole new approach to Tuscany in these days. No more dreary old picturesque 14th century hilltop towns with their ancient wiggly ways. Completely finished. Now you must seek out the railway station. Park in the station car park. Wander forth through streets lined with modern apartementi and filled with the Monday market. Buy frutta e verdure as well as a pair of brilliant white, deeply classy, sling backs for 18 euros. Then take caffé on an attractively situated cement corner with traffic on all sides and a full view of the railway station (the most marvellous international connections). Your morning will be complete. You’ll never know such happiness.

In the evening we were back in the old Tuscany, at the Olive Oil dinner on the La Foce estate, only open to occupants (on a paying basis) of apartementi and casa of the estate.  Four sorts of olive oil to be sampled with different foods. We enter the  massive courtyard where the dinner is held, the last to arrive. Heads swivel. Several schoolgirls possibly from Fulham clamp their napkins to their mouths. I’m in a white Topman suitlette, Matt Driver’s in Paul Smith, Angus Willis, international food writer and stylist and Hastings’ King of retail, is in Jean-Paul Gaultier topped with small Homburg hat.  I sing a little Schubert and, ensemble, we rendered very delicately the Pinã Colada song; otherwise our conversation is entirely unsuitable, being mostly less than respectful about  the affaire Jimmy Savile.  We very quickly get bored with the olive oils, even Angus Willis.

This afternoon, we took a tour of the famous La Foce garden, as seen on TV with Monty Don. A lady from Canada sidled up. ‘Are you Guys in a band?’ she inquired. ‘We saw you last night at the dinner. You were singing, weren’t you?’ She showed on her iPhone a poster of us pinned up in Montepuliciano, seen there by her this morning. We’re the Foot and Hip band or something like that. Marvellous. Can you imagine the thrill? There was indeed a resemblance. The Canadian lady had plainly thought of nothing else all day.

Of course we were too modest to say who we really are, massive figures with fingers on every pulse or indeed the pulse itself.

White Sling Backs from Chiusi Market. 18 Euros

Olive Oil Dinner at La Foce: All Tasted Bitter in Fact

Matt Driver, World Brand Shaper, at La Foce in Paul Smith

La Foce World-Famous Garden

Monday 19th August 2013

On Saturday we left the Multis and went South.

I won the stock war with Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock mender, by the way. My Risotto Funghi Porcini Secci was a triumph, despite being made with the stock from already cooked chicken bones.

Marcus and MacLeish MacLeish, who returned to England on Saturday, had boarding trouble. They couldn’t check in on-line and had apparently only been allocated one seat in Club although they are two. But once on board, would you believe it – they knew the Purser. Had served them on a previous Club flight. So at once the cabin was re-arranged and they were together. Social kissing with Purser on departure from the cabin.

So on Friday was the final wine-tasting. I didn’t attend as it happens. But made a last-minute appearance and rendered the tasting mistress, who remembered me from last year, ecstatic. Apparently she’s wild for men, of any kind it would seem. Wine-tasting is not such a foolish past-time, despite the adjectives. At these Tuscan wineries you can buy good wine for reasonable prices. It makes sense to taste so you know what you’re getting. But it’s a precarious business. Sometimes the more expensive ones are not as nice as the cheaper  but you can never be quite sure. Will the wine travel? Will it adapt to the Northern climate of our own great country?

There is much room for angst, much agony.

As Prince Dmitri mentioned, the Multis are deeply serious people. They would not undertake an activity with no purpose. Their vision is all encompassing, they are true to their beliefs. They believe in effort and self-sufficiency. Only deficient staff fail to adore them and even staff who are lacking are not ill-treated. There is no snobbery with the Multis, as with me, Adrian Edge. They see a new open field, where all are free to romp to triumph or not as the case may be.

Then on Saturday morning the sad departure from Il Cortile for La Foce, where we’ve at least gained the most famous view in Tuscany, right before the villa, private, no-one else can see it. – even though it’s so famous. Angus Willis is to be my Mrs Bridges here. He’s planning quails and a pizza oven lighting. Fergus Strachan is stretched out in the sun near naked. Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver have also gained.

So my food is to be styled at La Foce by a world-figure in the food world.

But back to those last days at Il Cortile. What bursts of sunshine! At breakfast one morning, the Photo Multi (who incidentally condemned roses as entirely artificial: there are rose beds at Il Cortile) revealed that the maker of Benenden Sauce, now on sale across the world, is a neighbour at their new country house. Princess Anne was at Benenden School, so we wondered about Sauce Princess Anne. What would it contain? Bits of headscarf? Fragments of speeding tickets (the Photo Multi’s idea)? Dangerous dog enforcement orders? (the Blond Multi) and a meagre sprinkling of diamonds.

I omitted to mention that we drove back from the Brolio wine-tasting in the Multis’ open-top car. ‘You’re in the Jackie position,’ I said to Prince Dmitri Hersov. ‘Where’s that pink Chanel suit?’ We were both in the back. The Photo Multi took the wheel. ‘It’s more like stock-car racing,’ I said, as we careered over rocks on the white road back to the villa. Prince Dmitri and the Photo Multi did car noises, including car rounding corner on two wheels.

The Final Wine Tasting at Rocca di Castagnoli

The Most Famous View in Tuscany, Seen from my Private Loggia in the Villa at La Foce

Friday 16th August 2013

Despited wracked nights for the Multis, their reign in Tuscany is pure sunshine. ‘You must not write on Facebook,’ the Blond Multi said to me, Adrian Edge, this morning, ‘that you’re an old bag. It’s so not true.’ I hugged the Multi in gratitude. I have to tell you, he’s rock solid in the torso, a massive hewn hunk. Later his swimming trunks fell out of the window (see graph below).

This is the fifth Tuscan summer in a row given by the Multis. You remember at the outset there was such fear. Would the Multis, like wretched Robin Smallmeal and his lacrymose partner, Simon Limpney, exact a price for their generosity? Would they declare the friendship terminated on a whim, slam down the phone and refuse even to be in the room with… as Smallmeal and Limpney did to me, Adrian Edge.  By money they were entitled to behave as they liked.

But no, the Multis have not crushed, have not exacted a price. They are beginning more and more to purr steadily with their money while remaining touchingly anxious to give the very best to their guests. ‘Are you sure you want to take a wine-tasting? Are you sure you want to dine out?’ Even when we all say ‘Yes’, still they worry that we are not happy or that there is not enough for lunch.

On Tuesday we dined at Papavero, in Barbischio behind Gaiole in Chianti, the chemistry master’s delightful artisanal summer restaurant . Eight Poor Little Rich Gays were stared at by other diners from the Central of Europe. As well they might: they were looking at 50 million solid block worth easily, including pensions. We were 50 minutes ordering (to match the 50 million solid block worth) with three wines to be tried (although all ordered rather than whittled down) and the specials to be carefully revised and re-explained by the chemistry master. Then César-Kaiser, the great new love of Connor Cadoux, of the Australian Poor Little Rich Gays, said, ‘What about the labels?’ His vision was two-fold: which was the best label and which best reflected the contents. He insisted on having them all lined up for examination.

Later César-Kaiser took very much against my skirts which are in fact Turkish cloth wraps worn in baths and given me by Anthony Mottram, my oldest and closest friend. César-Kaiser and MacLeish MacLeish, adored partner of Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock-mender, are at this very moment watching back epis of Coronation Street on an iPad in the courtyard. The theme music is just playing for their 3rd epi in a row.

I tried to explain to César-Kaiser the complex web of relations, how I was near-married to Anthony Mottram for 43 years but then he married another. Connor Cadoux came by: ‘He’s filling your head with nonsense, César-Kaiser,’ he said. ‘Don’t listen to a word of it.’

But actually, little does Connor Cadoux know that Anthony Mottram now sees that I, Adrian Edge, was as if amputated when he married another.

There have been developments. We both love the truth and have done all our years together. A certain bracing coldness, teetering on a knife-edge, so easily mistaken for ‘bitch’ or cruelty, is what we have loved.

The Multis would never speak to me in such a way nor would Prince Dmitri, who said this week, ‘The Multis are deeply serious people.’

Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock-mender, loomed at my side on the way to the car park after the Papavero dinner, which was thrilling but draining what with the classic Poor Little Rich Gay quest for perfection. ‘My friend Barker saw you on TV.’ He’d seen me, Adrian Edge, on TV. ‘He thought you were bonkers.’

The Blond Multi has suggested I bring out a book of all the Poor Little Rich Gays who have met crikation in their 50s. That means their lives have gone badly wrong and are unlikely to resume the rails. The Photo Multi prefers that I write on the subject of disastrous holidays. Both are must-writes.

The Blond Multi dwells much on crikation, as it happens. It comes from ‘Crikey’, a common, if old-fashioned, exclamation. Anthony Mottram and I developed ‘crik-ment’ and then ‘crikation’ and finally the condition of being ‘criked.’ When poor June Cut-Deeping lay dying in the hospital in Hampshire, Anthony Mottram said to me, ‘You’ll find her quite criked,’ as I motored to visit her.

Off now for the final dinner of this phase of Tuscany 2013. Tomorrow I self-villa at La Foce.

Dear, Darling Tuscany, Unsurpassed

The Road Down to the Molino di Castagnoli, Taken by Anthony Mottram and Myself in Our First Year of Adult Life, 1976, at £40 a Week. MacLeish MacLeish said, ‘I Can’t Believe You Were 19 and Launched on Tuscan Villas When All Your Contemporaries Were Going to Deep Purple Concerts.’

Our Private Wine Tasting at Brolio: on the Mats was Printed ‘The Photo Multi’s Party’

The Blond Multi Met with Crikation: His Swimming Trunks All that Remained

Wednesday 14th August 2013

The new Dukes of Tuscany are announced: there’s nothing Tuscany will not do for the Multis now.

‘When your Global knives arrive in Tuscany,’ the Blond Multi said to me, Adrian Edge, ‘it’s as if your standard has been raised over the roof.’

I always bring my own knives to any hired villa: the ones provided will fail to be sharp for sure.

Later the Blond Multi, or Captain Blond Multi as he is known, declared my look for cooking to have reached perfection. Great irony, for in fact I was wearing a fake Lacoste white polo shirt bought in Bodrum, Turkey, six years ago since when it has languished in my housework wardrobe and has never been ironed. Suddenly the other day I decided to take it into the main wardrobe.

There’s quite a lot of wine talk. Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clockmender, declared a Chianti ‘flaccid.’ ‘Depends how much you’ve drunk,’ Connor Cadoux, of the Australian Poor Little Rich Gays, quipped. He’s shattered because working for a massive financial house but now suddenly co-habiting, fully in love with César-Kaiser Kaiser-Ferro, which is a big surprise for his path has been exceptionally various heretofore. At the last moment, he has been saved. César-Kaiser can’t stand Abba.

The Blond Multi sees great ripeness for the Poor Little Rich Gays at the moment.

On Monday we took Volpaia and lunch at the simple trat there with million dollar Tuscan view, where, in 2009,  Prince Dmitri and others tipped the waiter 300 euros when the Multis first started to get big in Tuscany. But that waiter must have bought a flat in Bucharest in the strength because he’s never been seen again…. The Blond Multi was unhappy about the sausages. ‘Last year there were two,’ he protested to the new waiter. ‘On the menu it says salsicce. That’s plural.’ His choice of dish was salsicce with beans. But the waiter only shrugged. The Blond forged into the kitchen and spoke to the daughter of the proprietress. She said, ‘Last year you got two sausages at 40 grammes each. Now you get one at 80 grammes.’ The Blond Multi sought out the Vecchia Donna herself who said, ‘You can believe me or you can not believe me.’ The Blond Multi self-funded an extra sausage.

After lunch we had an improvised semi-formal wine-tasting of Volpaia wine. The tasting mistress was half Manx, half Italian, as the Blond Multi found out, engaging at once with staff. ‘Has your tail been chopped off?’ Marcus Cargill managed to refrain from saying. Then she complained of nose discomfort. ‘Too much cocaine?’ Marcus enquired. Later, back at the villa, Marcus began a stock war. I saw it coming. He’s made it known before that stock can only be made from bones not previously cooked.

The Blond Multi’s Self-Funded Extra Sausage: Lunch at Volpaia

View from My Tuscan Villa Bedroom: The Bars Frame My Poor Little Rich Gay Life Now in Full Ripeness

Tuesday 13th August 2013

The Multis have never been more benign, more summer of love, more radiant… wine of highest quality pours forth all day to the great delight of the other guests. Tuscany we’ve seen before of course. The Blond Multi has all the elaboration of a Renaissance prince offering endless tender care…

Just now there’s discussion as to where the aperativo is to take place. The Photo Multi is against Gaiole on account of its being at the bottom of a pit; he doesn’t want Gaiole to be so low sited. He wants it raised up high. the Blond Multi favours a place above Gaiole. I said, ‘You mean that Colorado-style Tuscan-type country club…. ‘

Yesterday there was sausage-trouble, Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock mender, launched a stock war, amongst other things. They all agree, Prince Dmitri, Marcus Cargill, the Blond and Photo Multi that all money should be confiscated by the state upon death and nothing inherited by heirs. They are totally against inheritance.

But I’ve no time now. Must dress for the aperitivo.

Come back tomorrow for more.

I’ll wear a summer scarf for the aperitivo. Then we’re to dine at the chemistry master’s restaurant in the village above Gaiole.