Thursday 20th June 2013

At 11.32 I could have been happily hospitalised: hands shaking, unable to email. bilious. The carpetmen came at 8. Stairs the worst place to have new carpet put down because you can’t get up or down. Trapped in one room, unable to get out and on. There’s so little you can do in one room.

Today I’ve seen such an expanse of underpants. The carpetmen exposed, of course, as they bent over. Then the neighbours are up in folding and their builders are showing big time.

But a call came through from the head carpetman at 9.30. He was at the factory where they put on the border.

They’d done it wrong. Done a 2″ border when I wanted 1″.

Almost, almost I caved in. Almost, almost, I thought: Let the waves engulf me. Let’s have it all wrong, let’s say it’s just human and charming. But, great mercy, oh merciful, I just had the strength to resist.

So now I’ve got partial old rose stair carpet – the part with no border. I’m just a little bit wondering whether the colour isn’t tending to hotel.

After the carpetmen had gone I could hardly vac. So weak. But after lunch, a sudden miraculous surge, life coming back. I was out to Waitrose and really making inroads into the Glyndebourniana picnic for Saturday. Such pressure because tomorrow the Multis buy a country house and Prince Dmitri and I visit it at once. I’m so worried we’re to be there for lunch. I just can’t manage it.  The Multis could execute me at any moment, refuse to see me for good – if I can’t lunch.

We overnight in the new house then go on to Glyndebourniana from it. Hence picnic today. Of course, the Multis could throw away the new house on Sunday or even on Saturday. It might be the most expensive one-night stay ever. They might take against the house and just chuck it out.

Then on Sunday I go to the Gay Mother’s. But what about all my seedlings? I’ve got plants to get in now the garden opening is over, as well.

There’s another thing – thinking of underpants. Dreadful news from Val, who has massively de-bottled and become hideously aware of London Fashion week. The most awful thing – high waists might be back. And pleats. Trousers with pleats. You know what that means. The death of the jackette. And having to wear horrible sacky, baggy slacks.

‘You’ll have to throw away all your little peggy leggy trews!’ Val warbled with thrill down the phone. He’s always been against the dolly look.

Well, I just won’t believe it. They tried it before, but everyone loves the low waist and the narrow leg – so flattering and such an opp to show the pants.

It’ll never happen. No, no, no.

Oh no! Look what’s happened. I never got round to Joshua Baring dining with the gosling Poor Little Rich Gays. Nor the Garden Opening and how Lord Arrowby man-ed my door in paisley panels.

Come back! Come back soon!

Wednesday 19th June 2013

Just back from day out to Ham House with Harry Rollo, the impressario and performance artist. He made the most brilliant remark but I can’t remember what it was.

Wracked.

He hears music in the simplest conversation overheard on a bus.

More, more to come: so much. Head absolutely spinning and now I’m worried about summer tops. All my peace has gone. The Joshua Baring dinner to cover, plus my garden opening.

But must dash straight out again; then tomorrow at 8 a.m, six months since envisioned, my old rose stair carpet goes down but I’ve got to beat through the carpet men with gardening and Glyndebourniana picnic work, not to mention boarding for the Gay Mother’s on Sunday. Not to mention covering my events in blog.

Can barely breathe. It’s like 1940 – that summer when threat of Nazi invasion was unceasing. The people could barely breathe.

Meanwhile, here are the Photo Multi’s glorious pictures of Kastellórizon, gem of Greek island. You must board at once.

Just the Bare Earth

Saturday 15th June 2013

Tomorrow is my garden opening for charity. I’ve got a cake in. There’s a possibly that Lord Arrowby, my former part-time love interest, might lunch. He’s going to help on the door at any rate, along with Robert Nevil and Bruce MacBain (one’s architect, so useful). The old foods are my craving just now. A fruit fool for summer, a Victoria sponge. Comforting.

The 1st Lady Curzon, Vicerene of India, was a chronic invalid. Her main purpose was Chicago railway money, provided by her father. She had to be carried to the carriage for a State dinner at which she could just about manage a quarter of a teaspoon of brandy before being carried back again.

She didn’t live long. The second Lady Curzon was apparently a moron, judging by her memoir. Once she got lost in the Black Forest.

But the 1st Lady Curzon – my feelings exactly. I’m crushed by functions and Poor Little Rich Gay life. My hands are ruined from bleaching. Last night I was at Miss Satisfaction’s for her 76th birthday. Tonight it’s Brabazon Brigadier’s 10th anniversary of being with Roddy Edward. They don’t appear to be married and certainly don’t live together – brill! But I’ve lost my zest. Three and a half years of fury have had to be relinquished. Still distance though and matters to be resolved and terrible wracking strain. Being furious more bracing. I could have had a normal life with caring types, leaning over, dripping with concern but chose instead the hard flinty path of the Poor Little Rich Gays.

Today the only beam has been Waitrose Essential Baby Frozen Broad Beans – they’re all right. Quite succulent. The two halves inside the skin a little bit mealy. But they’re good enough. Waitrose loved me enough not to crush me with bullet-like broad beans, passed off as baby.

Friday 14th June 2013

Poor Little Rich Gays are in much pain. I have thrown away the hair-grip on my front door step but it keeps coming back. Recently I’ve relinquished, or begun to relinquish a great grief and resentment. So I’m flat and without zest.

Last night Joshua Baring, of the Youth Branch of the Poor Little Rich Gays dined in my official home with Jesus (Bogatà via New York, known to Lord Arrowby), Patrick Lockyer (on the line to Bermuda, issuing injunctions, throughout), Robert Nevil, biographer of the Pony Club and Miss Mina Shivaratnam, of Bengal, who said she always slept well and has a male cat called Lucy. She also does pictures of dogs making deposits but she doesn’t put it like that.

But more to come – useful stain removal tips especially. Removal also of liver spots.

On Sunday, my garden is shown for charity – one poppy has flowered, and one of each of the roses. It’ll have to do. I’m not going round with a hairdryer.

Meanwhile, the Multis have cast aside their pain, often very bad early in the morning, and gained paradise. No more menus, no more suites, no more open-top hire cars. Just a blackboard with the offerings chalked up, a simple brown double with the view from the window the glory, a chapel of love remotely gained…

They’re on a visit to Ariana Chronicopoulos in Corfu and have stopped off first at Kastellórizon, a remote island of Greece, way, way along the Turkish coast almost to Antalya. You fly there in a by-plane from Rhodes.  The Photo Multi’s graphs have pitched up to a new inspiration – absolutely superb. The elements: sun, sky, rocks with scrubby bushes, sea, the little harbour town, cubes for houses in different colours. The Blond Multi, in daring fuchsia shorts, has posed in doorways and on stairs competing ably with Marilyn for appeal. Heat just blasts off him. They climbed up to a castle and walked miles to a tiny chapel of love. They forged through a blue grotto in a row boat.

Tuesday 11th June 2013

On Saturday Connor Cadeaux of the Australian branch of the Poor Little Rich Gays Gained 50 years as canapés pulsed forth at rate of one every 30 seconds. I mean at his party. The canapés were unbelievably detailed and wrought, done by Lord Coughforth’s grand-daughter, so detailed I couldn’t grasp a single one of them.

But you must have her for your canapés. No-one else will do. Absolutely winning.

Connor has suddenly embraced domesticity, although it’s a miracle he can even open a door in the home  he’s so undomesticated, or was – or really never at home, always out, exploring, or at the opera or the Ivy. Now he has Giuseppe Hermantini with; they’re inseparable.  Very keen on each other, which is such a gift because on the whole Poor Little Rich Gays find a lot not to be keen on and hope for better or to become Royalty unexpectedly. Giuseppe is adorable – extraordinary deep voice but bounces slightly and makes throwaway remarks. No-one ever thought Connor would settle down.

He works for a golden financial house. Some rather terrifying blocks of money were at the party that winter in South Africa. But all the wild boys were there, still going strong after all these years, gardening by day for the Hoover people to leave the night without limits and a fair bit of the next day as well. One was talking faster than I’ve ever heard anyone talk before which could have been an effect. Dear Sonny Hammond had come over from Rome. He’s one of the Australian Poor Little Rich Gays but lives in Rome – can’t stand the Italians, or Rome.  I rode on his Vespa to Prada in Rome one time. He was staying at the Stafford Hotel with a Doctor who was assaulted in a hotel car park in Geneva and given a free weekend at the Stafford as compensation. Sonny thought little of the Stafford. It’s been neutralised, he said. We had quite a confab. We quizzed the party location (it was the home of one of Connor’s friends) and were bewildered by the fire in the middle of the carpet, with a glass fence around it. We agreed, though, that the high-end houses are so dreary at the moment. Prada just a few grey slacks. Zara and Topman infinitely more thrilling. The trouble with Zara, Sonny said… and I thought he was going to say something absolutely final (I’d just bought a Zara outfit, remember) … the trouble with Zara, Sonny said… is that it never wears out. You’re stuck with it for years. It’s like those plastic bottles which even when buried only start to degenerate after 100 million years.

Marcus Cargill, England’s leading clock mender, was also present. I mentioned my agony with that coat rack that fell down in my home. ‘You need ‘No More Nails’,’ he said. It’s a kind of glue that would glue Michelangelo’s David to the ceiling if required. Well, would you believe it but yesterday I had agony under the floorboards (Poor Little Rich Gays do DIY when no-one’s looking because you can save money when no-one’s looking). That old rose stair carpet is going in at last! Oh yes! I’ve such carpet news. So I was desperately trying to fix a hole in the floorboard before the fitters arrived. Tormented trying to screw in a piece of wood underneath to give support for a plank above. Can you imagine? Then I thought, ‘What I need is “No More Nails”.’  So I got some. Indeed, ‘No More Nails.’ Perfect.

Saturday 8th June 2013

‘We’re not as happy as we were,’ Laura Malcolm said before launching her triumphant dinner on Wednesday. Tarragon with asparagus lifts that difficult item. Do try it. She also said that Kate Middleton, as was, is no rôle model for young women. Well, she’s dreary, for sure, and not actually outstanding in frockage. But nevertheless Royal and therefore lovely. Ivor Driver came in late from his office. He’s the eldest son, at 24 just launching out in glamour and money and power. He’s gained a supply of Prada T-shirts, on a non-paying basis (I don’t mean stolen) and says he can absolutely see the point of Prada. He was wearing one and it was superb. I looked at the label to see whether Prada White, Red or Black. It was Black which was surprising.

We mustn’t go into a decline, despite glorious youth, now lost to us. I’ve had a tummy ache for a week (not from Laura’s dinner). I fear the fate of Edinburgh – two weeks in the London Clinic with the possibility of never emerging. My coat rack was found to be coming off the wall. It’s been five days and several breakdowns as well as two visits to the screw shop to get it up again. The iron stopped working. No steam. Quite frankly I’ve been putting on clothes that aren’t spotless. Also a great angst has been released, a huge preoccupation of the last three and a half years, a great bolus of frustration – there have been developments but no final resolution. I’m left drained and empty.

So this afternoon, with little heart, I gained Topman. In the street outside I saw an outfit (with person inside). It was a beautiful navy jacket, very swimming, very fine, in wool and silver-grey trousers, very slim and flattering. I wanted that outfit and within half an hour had acquired it at Zara for £103. It’s not a jackette though. It’s quite long. I’m a bit worried. How awful if jackets go back to long, almost as bad as the threat made in the late 90s to revive high-waisted baggy trousers with pleats, which mercifully came to nothing. Low waist and slim, slim, slim is so flattering.

But the Topman summer modes! Absolutely stunning. How they do it! I shan’t be wearing them myself.

Sublime Topman Summer Modes

Topman Summer Modes Give Hope to a Jaded Poor Little Rich Gay

Yes! Yes! Yes! Topman Summer Modes

The Shorts Suit Not Gone Away! Hope Springs Eternal

Monday 3rd June 2013

Yes! The downstairs table at Nopi, the Exotic Garden at Great Dixter  – these small spaces that shatter the world. Maybe 10′ by 6′ – so a Superking bed size really – but the downstairs table at Nopi has had the impact of a meteor upon the Earth. Food will never be the same again. Sprung from the womb of Ottolenghi, which Poor Little Rich Gays were ready to renounce six months ago, but have as suddenly re-embraced, Nopi is the rare, high-end incarnation of Ottolenghi, definitely an evening restaurant in London’s West End. Small plates, of course, perhaps of sea-figs wrapped in Yataan banana leaves, air-dried, pickled pineapple with Maltese mackerel cooked in beetroot wine. The plates are so exquisite and finely wrought you have to concentrate most hard to catch them as they fleet.

Eight World-class Poor Little Rich Gays were gathered around the downstairs table the other day for lunch. It is actually a slab, raised high (you sit on stools), as much for the examination of the food as the eating of it. You can book the whole thing or share with strangers. It is enough just to be world-class Poor Little Rich Gays at the downstairs table at Nopi. Nothing more is required, other than the lifting of fork to mouth. I sat with Valèry Duplessis (Conrad had gone to Brussels to address the European Union) and we compared notes on management of the home spice cupboard and the state of the banks. Valèry runs a superb kitchen at home and reins in a bank by day. His work is maintaining order in a bank – I don’t mean just a branch of Lloyds, either.

After Nopi , we went round to a gaffe where Bruno-France Bruno, the great mystery Poor Little Rich Gay, is currently staying while his own flatti is being renovated. We had chill-out after Nopi. This gaffe is absent-architect-owned and designed, very high-end, known to many other Poor Little Rich Gays independent of Bruno-France Bruno and much loved as a setting for porn movies. On the way there, in Soho, we saw a dainty police horse doing ballet on its own while the policeman-rider was getting a latte at Café Nero. In the gaffe, we settled on sofas and Bruno-France Bruno bought champagne. Then he appeared waving a framed painting. We had to guess who it was by. ‘Picasso’…’Utrillo’… ‘Hildegarde of Bingen’… Some suggestions were a little wild. It was a Bonnard, of course. Rufus Pitman explained that his cleaner is called Vaselina and has been with for years. I had a crisis because I am cruel to my cleaners. We sang some Brahms and some Schubert. We said to Harry Rollo, who is tending more and more towards music in his world-loved and known public performances, ‘Play the Liszt.’ So he played the Liszt. There was a convenient piano. Then I said, ‘Play Schubert’s Impromptu No 3’. So he played Schubert’s Impromptu No 3. Then I sang the Chinese opera and a song by Brahms, including when it goes into the minor key. I don’t think I much mention my singing. My voice is particularly huge at the moment. Harry Rollo always says, ‘I know what he’s singing.’ But then he has special musical gifts. Others are rude: ‘It could be anything.’ In fact my feeling for the true note grows day by day.

Bruno-France Bruno opened a fifth or sixth bottle of champagne and said that Olga Borodina once got into the gaffe by mistake. She’s a famous opera singer, by the way. She took the wrong lift, because in this block where the gaffe is the lift pitches you straight into the apartment. Alexis Colby-Carrington had the same arrangement in Dynasty you may remember, but no power apparently to prevent just anybody  pitching up in her lounge area for appalling confrontations. The architect-owner of the gaffe, however, shoo-ed away Olga Borodina, who was possibly still in the building, lodging in another flat. We wondered if she would sing but instead Harry Rollo sang ‘Casta Diva’ but with different words – or really just one word, which was ‘homosexual’.

Reggie Cresswell, the internationally known and loved Ghanaian Ceramicist (recently Jamie Cullum declared himself a fan), wondered when he had first met me, Adrian Edge. Strange, because he always was what he afterwards became even before he had become what he afterwards became, when seen by me, Adrian Edge, for the first time, 35 years ago, flitting across the back part of a parlour in an Oxford lodging house.

Fancy Ballet Police Horse Seen In Soho

Fancy Ballet Police Horse Seen in Soho

Friday 31st May 2013

Not liked by the critics, nor by the Blond Multi. ‘I was bored,’ he declared at the end.

Maybe you don’t know ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ by Richard Strauss. It’s loathed as kitsch by quite a few Poor Little Rich Gays as is all Richard Strauss. The story  of the piece is that some people are trying to put on a tragic opera but the rich patron insists that a comedy act is run simultaneously. So comedy and tragedy are brought face to face, the former embodied by Zerbinetta, who whoops and loops in one the great coloratura carry-ons of all times, singing of the joyous array of men she’s dallied with. The latter is Ariadne herself, marooned on an island, longing and longing for awful Theseus to return, eternally faithful to the bastard who’s never going to show up, of course.

It’s true that the opera fails to conclude. Ariadne is rescued by a random God but the encounter between comedy and tragedy hasn’t really got anywhere. So the Blond Multi was bored, even though Poor Little Rich Gays flit themselves between the two extremes without inhibition.

The critics disliked the production even though it is musically superb. Sole Isokoski is one the greatest exponents of Strauss ever, for goodness’ sake. The hospital setting has been attacked but I liked it. It made a change from having Ariadne on a dreary cardboard island. Even though there was lack of sense logistically, dramatically and emotionally it was powerful and the intention was to bring out an unsettling, almost deranged undercurrent which is in the music but often over-looked by those determined to see Strauss as a pink, ice-cream sort of composer.

Zerbinetta’s great swirls and whirls became increasingly frenzied and unsettling, the usual champagne bubbles replaced by sexual mania. Rarely do you see this kind of pyrotechnic music performed as if it actually meant something. Marvellous singer. Can’t remember her name.

A ravishing evening at Glyndebourniana and a rare moment of joy in a Poor Little Rich Gay life.

Wednesday 29th May 2013

I lifted Prince Dmitri Hersov to Glyndebourniana on Saturday in the Official Car with Xenon driving lights. The Multis were already encamped in the Robin Smallmeal placement right by the Ha-ha. Surprisingly – or not, for where extremes meet, what do you expect? –  we were engaged in Gay warfare.

In the car, Prince Dmitri and I picked over the deficiencies of the Poor Little Rich Gays. As you know, Prince Dmitri, who was at the Accountancy School with the Multis, is just about the only Poor Little Rich Gay to obtain the condition of goodness. Others, hurt into power, compelled to shape and mould the life, suffer but plate themselves against their suffering, ending up with warmth problems. The suffering of associates is intolerable to them.

On the lawn of Glyndebourniana, the Multis were in the front trench, or at least beside the trench or ha-ha where Robin Smallmeal, head of landfill in this country or whatever, threw the left-over foie gras, threw it into the field with animals, and thus Mad Cow Disease was born. The Photo Multi was in quite a state about getting the armaments lined up but we were able to fire the first salvo in plenty of time. The neighbouring Gays had got flowers for the table though – in a vase. We had silver ware, even the Gay Mother’s entrée dish given as a wedding present by Aunt Olive. And, to start with, Angus Willis’s latest tart, as seen in Olive Magazine. I had to visit six shops to find a copy. It’s a summer tart with filo pastry base, then spinach with ricotta, egg and cream (but I put goat’s cheese instead), then broad beans, peas, asparagus, green beans, courgette, rocket, pea shoots, basil, dill and parsley. I left out the four blobs of mayo which were supposed to finish the tart.

We had that, with champagne of course, then forged into the auditorium. But it wasn’t enough. We weren’t protected. Massive mortar attack from apparently inert sides of beef and their busy, little-mouthed women folk. Huge huff and puff. This was the anti-Gay marriage league out in force. Oh the Glyndebourne audience! One furrow wide, if that, the worst of money and arse. The men are various joints of meat got up in dinner jackets. The Multis had woolly cardies on under their blue velvet. It wasn’t warm. The Photo Multi was wearing the famous Swarovski crystal-encrusted tie which came in at £700.

Then, at the last minute, just as all seemed lost, Red and Yellow appeared – two men, holding hands. One had a brilliant red velvet jacket, the other shimmering grey jodhpurs with sulphur yellow jacket.

They were making Glyndebourniana anew and there was nothing the codgers could do about it.

Come back later – I’ve got something to say about the opera, would you believe. For those of you that don’t know – Glyndebourniana is a place where opera is given.

Red and Yellow – They Won Glyndebourniana Wars

Neighbouring Table on Front Line at Glyndebourniana – But They’d Got Flower Arrangement

Angus Willis’ Latest Tart – as Seen in Olive Magazine

Angus Willis’ Tart as Carried out by Me for Glyndebourniana – Before Top Mounting with Rocket, Pea-Shoots and Herbs

Coronation Chicken for Glyndebourniana to Mark 60th Anniversary of the Coronation, with Silver Weaponry

Saturday 25th May 2013

Chelsea, always Chelsea, the Flower Show. Not missed in 30 years. The party, Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver, mega couple and Aunt Lavinia, at 81 in a good A line coat from Hobbs and bright red hat with brim. Her every declaration causes head to turn in terror even at Chelsea, terror of the ruling class, of hounds being ridden to, of the Tower and of errors of taste and decorum induced by incorrect birth.

How she condemned the re-constituted bright yellow paving ‘stone’ used in many of the gardens. As always we found fault, one of the joys but I fear repetition. Again this year designers did not fail to spoil their gardens with hideous hardware, glaring raw oak being the favourite this year. One is painfully reminded that a Chelsea Flower Show garden boils down to a Samuel Beckett minimum all too easily: a hedge or pleached item (great efforts to pleach something highly unlikely or impossible, like field maple), usually four punctuation trees (again, competition to dream up a rarity but really all just the same), a water feature, a sculpture (huge scope for horror here) and prairie/meadow underplanting. Cow parsley was this year’s rage. Aunt Lavinia was amused to come across a patch of it growing of its own accord in a forgotten corner of the Show ground.

It’s time for something else.

One garden we did adore, by the unfortunately named Bradley-Hole. It was blocks of low yew and box with interludes of meadow planting and small ponds. Original but not ridiculous. You could quite possibly do this yourself and vary the design. It would make a striking small front garden. But even Hole had got the most ghastly screening all around.

Our great glory was to see favourite single plants, even blooms, in the show tent – which really isn’t what it was. Too many posters and junk hanging from the ceiling. In the old days, when it was a proper white canvas marquee, not the grey plastic thing of today, you’d be knocked down by the sight of so many massed flowers.  Now, many of the stands are sparse – just glads in buckets. But Laura Malcolm was thrilled to see Rose Souvenir de Docteur Jamain, which is deepest, deepest crimson. Matt Driver thought that possibly Tuscany Superb would compare, but the shape isn’t the same. We recalled that you never see Souvenir de Docteur Jamain actually growing in a garden. It won’t. It’s terribly difficult.

So really you can only hope to see it at Chelsea.

One bloom made Chelsea this year for us.

Rose Souvenir de Docteur Jamain, Never Seen in Gardens

Bradley-Hole Garden: Adored but Ghastly Surround

Bradley-Hole Garden: You Too Could Have One at Home

Bradley-Hole Garden: Flower-Bed Within Box and Yew Blocks

Chris Beardshaw Arthritis Garden: Echiums Nice but Poor Floor, Condemned by Aunt Lavinia

The Tent at Chelsea: Not What It Was

Floral Dressing Noted by Laura Malcolm at Chelsea: an Effort Made at Least