30th January 2013

Today is the 50th Birthday of Prince Dmitri Hersov, who was at the Accountancy School with the Multis, when they were starting out in Money.  He is 50 and flying back from Madrid, where he has been saving Spain, for the function. I’ve got him a Spode set – see graph below.

At last, at last, Rufus Pitman, our novelist and critic, has today exited in triumph from pital, his toe quite saved. Now he’s planning the drive to San Paolo for the Service of National Thanksgiving. Hats,gloves, bags, broaches, bishops, hymns.

Meanwhile what’s been astirring chez Lord Arrowby?What’s been abubbling and asteaming in that important apartment. You must understand. Lord Arrowby is devoted to higher things – his Nation, his service to his Nation, Art and India. He is in no sense a housewife. Tea-towel management is very definitely outsourced. Why then a citrus whiff on the staircase of the apartment building? Neighbours agog! Lord Arrowby in a pinny, knocking on any nearby door, hoping for jam jars, heaving back from the mart with cartloads of sugar.

What could it be? Well, he ‘s been round with small offerings, yes! small self-made pots of marmalade, not at all boiled up with government papers.

Interesting. What could it bode? Lord Arrowby’s been making marmalade.

Joshua Baring, however, one of our youngest Poor Little Rich Gays, is struggling to diarise a weekend at Sandringham St Kil, his country res, with Jesus and the divine Patrick Lockyer, he with the keratin-enhanced hair. First of all Jesus was busy looking at the wedding announcements in the New York Times and loathing them (yes! yes!). Then he wasn’t free. Moving towards Easter, Jesus is hard to pin down.  We might be looking at ‘Pril for that weekend.

Lord Arrowby knows Jesus too, by some other means. All Poor Little Rich Gays know each other though and often well before the end.

Lord Arrowby’s Marmalade as Made by Robert Nevil

1830 Spode Set: My Present to Prince Dmitri Hersov for his 50th Birthday

Monday 28th January

‘The Queen of Versailles’ on TV.  Florida trailer-trash who tried to build the biggest home in America!

Queen Beatrix has abdicated!

What a day for Queens.

I’m beginning to wonder if Miroslav, my Polish builder, isn’t somehow on a lay-line. Surely it’s beyond co-incidence? First of all, he tells me he’s quoting for a job in Museum Street. I say ‘That’s where Elsa Hodgeman lives.’  The Gertrude Stein de nos jours, you recall? Kingpin of the art world, former Turner Prize judge. She tried a salary but couldn’t be doing with it. So Miroslav goes on, for some days. Then he drops: ‘Now I must be with Elsa!’ Can you believe it! He’s doing up Elsa’s massive staircase in her cleverly gained (at a low or non- rate) West End mansion!

On the other hand, he’s working for Bruno France Bruno, the mystery Poor Little Rich Gay (always a Picasso in the bedroom, not his own). But that’s through Reggie Cresswell, and further back through Bruce McBain, our private architect,who bought in Miroslav in the first place. Today Miroslav told me that Bruno France Bruno’s got a secretary.

I mean a home secretary.

Well, that’s something none of us have thought of.  Or have got. But must now have. Must, must, must.

Meanwhile we’re all very concerned about poor Rufus Pitman whose toe is badly infected. He’s on pital with view of the Palace of Westminster. Joan Bakewell has sent messages. Of course he’s Poor Little Rich Gay-ed all the nurses who are thrilled to wheel his bed to any part of the building he wishes, abandoning all other patients even mid-drip or with their dressings half ripped off. On Friday I visited the pital and who should appear but Lord Arrowby – in astonishing elephant cords by Paul and Joe in an indescribable not quite lemon shade and a brown puffer. Well, he’s been on an equally astonishing train ride. Completely and utterly exclusive ! Some very great powers crossed Lord Arrowby and had to get back on the right side of him.

But what’s Lord Arrowby been doing at home? Head in Government papers? Collecting art? Down the Royal Vauxhall Tavern?

to be con’t

Sunday 27th January 2013

It’s to be ‘Me and My Pony by Iris Lessing as told to Robert Nevil’. ‘Me and My Pony by Hildegard of Bingen as told to Robert Nevil’. ‘Me and My Pony by Rabbi Julia Neuberger as told to Robert Nevil.’

The first one, almost completed, is ‘Me and My Pony by Benjamin Britten as told to Robert Nevil.’ The Britten pony made a high thin sound like a wire and was a gelding. The Queen said, ‘I don’t mind sending telegrams to two gentlemen in Gay sistership but no OM until he learns to brush his pony properly.’ Almost she set out from Sandringham with a horse box in much the same way as she proposed,in the absence of Edinburgh in pital this gone June for the Jubilee drive to St Pauls, that a horse-box hitched to the Royal limousine would more than compensate.

Sadly this vision was not realised because of advice. Her idea was that there should be a horse in the box.

The Britten pony was neglected and rarely ridden. It became more and more inert.

I have been making marmalade. It is a pleasure to work with foodstuffs that are also cleaning agents.

Thursday 24th January 2013

Dear Royal Academy

I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to your PV for the Manet Exhib.

I was in the country, where the Gay Mother, 88, was doing John Dory with a Seville orange sauce of blinding elegance. She’s also got exquisite pots of iris on the window shelf which I forgot to graph.

We put the new curtains up. Val made them with fabric from Lewis and Wood down from £90 a metre. There was a crisis re: their completion before Christmas owing to Val having an extreme form of rest cure.

But they’re finished now.

Lewis and Wood – there’s nowhere else for fabrics.

Thank you for thinking of me for your PV, Royal Academy. To be honest, I’d have been stuck for something to wear. I’ve been v. tweedy and blouse and skirt recently in this cold weather.

Yours sincerely

Adrian Edge

Val-made Curtains for the Gay Mother, Fabric by Lewis and Wood, designed by boy I was at School With, now a Man

Wednesday 23rd January 2013

We dined with the Queen Mother at Laura Malcolm’s. At the end he said, ‘Did anyone call for my mink?,’ nipped off and at once re-appeared. ‘You didn’t believe me, did you?’ ‘Where are the sleeves?’ I said. But otherwise it was a mink. Aunt Lavinia dined and sat next to O’Halloran Ta’oésch’ Marsh, the columnist. ‘The most marvellous gossip,’ she said afterwards to one of her sons. ‘What? what?’ he went. ‘Oh Boris Johnson, Andrew Marr…Gary Lineker…’ ‘Yes, but what….’ ‘No idea.’

Still there was that throbbing centrality so vital to all Poor Little Rich Gays. Details hardly matter. To be at the core is all. In fact, Gary Lineker,  you’ll be interested to hear, wears the same kind of pants as his son, Boris’s blond is assisted and Andrew Marr likes to bounce up and down on a trampoline in his garden when excited – or did before he was criked by internal jamming, poor thing.

Laura’s menu was a roulade au epinard and ham with a rare baked pasta. Very nourishing and, of course, decorative.

The next day the Multis gave a luncheon for which the Blond Multi’s former business partner and part founder of his fortune came up from the country where she is now garlanded with land and B and B opportunities on the proceeds of selling the business.  She is in fact Norweyan, name of Stulke Songingsen, and had, the night before, completed a superb Norweyan jumper for her young son, who was modelling the item at luncheon. Her knitting rivals Val’s who, after spending three months at the Royal Opera, Oslo in the 1980s,  quite mastered the Norweyan way with needles. Only the other day he completed what he calls a Norweyan Alpine Suite of hat, gloves and cardy with pewter clasps.

You know the Norweyan Alps, of course, and the look associated with them.

Stulke’s evenness of tension was a miracle. What’s more her jumper had no seams, except tiny ones under the arms – it was all knitted together on circular needles with the pattern swirling skilfully around the neck.

The Blond Multi couldn’t believe that Stulke wields a paintbrush herself in her B and B properties.

But on the other hand, both Multis have suddenly gone mad for buses. It turns out there are all sorts of routes near their penthouse nobody had ever heard of before. They’ve grasped the lot and downloaded all kinds of Apps so they can sit on their sofas and be informed when the next bus is coming. They only march out on the dot and evade all waiting at the stop.

It really is astonishing.

Also lunching was Lemonia Fardi, in the same line of business as the business the Blond Multi and Stulke sold for £450 billion. She absolutely refuses to live in anything other than a fully detached house but it must be in London. Buckingham Palace would be all right, but Clarence House, St James Palace, Numero Dix – sous de la question.

But oh! The Manet Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Yesterday lunching in the country with the Gay Mother, after the board meeting on Monday, on The World at One they had an item about a Manet Exhibition at the Royal Academy, opening on Saturday. I hurtled from my chair. ‘You must book at once,’ the Gay Mother said. ‘Book! ‘ I screamed. ‘With the general… no, no, no. The PV! Last year I was used at the Hockney PV by Royston King, who runs the money for London.’ I really was furious. Why, why, why hadn’t I been informed of a Manet opening at the Royal Academy. Now no time to scheme to get in to the PV. I got Joshua Baring on the line at once. It was useless. He might just have seen a card for his colleague, Hilton Crux-Battle (a lady), who once gave a TV series on table decoration. But where was it now? There was nothing for it but to raise Genevieve Suzy of the magazine world. I waited, suffocating, for her reply. Then it came. Just too crushing. Too, too awful. Genevieve had got a card. She couldn’t use it. It had been transferred from another of great fame.

But the PV was that night – yesterday. I could have gone to the Manet PV as that person of great fame.

But I couldn’t. I was in the country.

Saturday 19th January 2013

Just suddenly, in this snowy murk, my home healed. Miroslav has been here, repointing the back wall. The dust and horror ! Then yesterday, suddenly my home healed. Really not too bad. Acres and acres more to do, of course, but just for a bit, the home was restful, not a torment.

On Wednesday, nine dined. Genevieve Suzy briefed on the Julie Burchill affair ( we know them all: Suzanne, Julie, Muriel McGlorian, all those women), Fergus Strachan’s Dermarolla REALLY HAS WORKED. His cheeks are entirely new. Still, he longs for confidence. I said, ‘Confidence is ghastly. Leads to rubberiness and drear.’ Angus Willis hopes to lose a stone (there’ll be nothing left). His Hasting Home Store Cellar has been flooded. I’m not sure whether the cancellation of the in-shop lunch service is related. But huge praise in the Guardian and Graph has only resulted in Angus cancelling the service. ‘I haven’t the time’ he arched. The Multis were adored by Genevieve and Mr Suzy was found to be a Tory, so they loved him. The Photo Multi was compared to Cartier Bresson (quite rightly) and has a new rabbit hat – it’s bright blue. Ordered from Kangol website in US. Merle Barr, formerly Head of Children’s Speech (no that’s not right: but Head of something, definitely a Head… ) also dined and sat next to Val, whose glories were many, despite a prophylactic pint of port consumed in preparation for the evening. What were they talking about? The old Cockney days? The transport of wigs from the wig-making districts to Belgravia? Val was not a Cockney, but South London.  Arriving at my home for the dinner and peering from the street through the window at the table laid and heaped with wares had reminded him of how, as a child, he’d gazed from without at such dining arrangements but never thought to be admitted.  I couldn’t believe it. Just a lot of old rubbish – not even solid silver.

Do get a bright blue rabbit fur hat.

I offered a chestnut and sage soup by Hugh Fearney Whittingstall. Angus was withering about Fearney. The soup was liked despite sweetness  (Fearney’s fault for suggesting carrot for the veg stock. The last thing you need with chestnut)  and the sage taste not coming through. My main was from Claudia Roden’s new Spanish cookery book – a beef casserole with port. I was doubtful but it turned out all right.

Switching to India, Lord Arrowby, my former part-time love interest, was sitting sadly at the Taj Bengal, Kolkata on Thursday night, weeping his return to England, so staff brought him a farewell cake  with icing writing which said, ‘Farewell, Lord Arrowby. Come back soon.’ In India he is most free. Now he will have to come back to London and begin being Queen Mary all over again (it’s an expression).

Tomorrow I board for the country. I’ve a board meeting. T and G whether I’ll get through the snow, even in the official car with Xenon driving lights.

By the way, Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the world, I want you to think: National Portrait Gallery: How are you to be portrayed there? As a mask of fury surrounded by fluorescent clouds, like Susan Goodyear? I happened to visit the National Portrait Gallery last Sunday before the Multis’ luncheon party. Well, I know them all! They’re all very close to me. But certain glaring omissions, which must at once be filled.

Which reminds me: I’ve quite forgotten to tell you about Laura Malcolm’s dinner last Saturday and the Multis’ luncheon last Sunday. Not to mention the scenes in the gastro pub  when Bruce McBain, my private architect, got in a bate and refused to sit with Tancredo Viamare, his special love of seven years, so all the party from the Private View went home. The Queen Mother dined at Laura’s and called for her mink on departure.

Also Heather, the dead Brighton dog! She’s to have a Memorial Service. Eddie Sedgewick, her owner, says, ‘Lucky she didn’t know any other dogs.’

Wednesday 16th January 2013

Absolutely wrung on the wrack – Miroslav here, the dust – sitting in the drawing room this morning, I see the rear hearth coated with fine filth. Nine dine this eve, so vac and dust as well as cook, scrub, lay, polish, chop – then a duvet cover, being ironed, was marked in four places. I’m sure the building dust. Four times returned to the laundry for the Vanish bar.  The fourth time, I wailed, screamed and howled in the bathroom mirror. I don’t think Miroslav heard.

Could meet the fate of Andrew Marr at any moment. Just crack internally. Jam up within and suffer an axe -ing of the capabilities.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about Marcus Cargill’s lunch on 2nd January in Brighton. He is England’s leading clock-mender, of course, his home a haven for antiques. A gentleman arrived, possibly in his sixties, in a top class fuchsia jumper, cashmere, not bobbled and no bits. ‘I love my wife,’ he declared in the drawing room doorway. ‘But she’s as stubborn as hell. Won’t go near a doctor. Cold been raging for weeks. Now she’s collapsed.’ This was his entrance. He then produced a sack full of wonderfully optional presents. ‘Do you like port?’ he inquired of Marcus, who rather does. He gestured to his open bag. ‘Well, you can have this.’ There were quite a number of items available on this take-or-it-leave-it basis.

The circle in Brighton is so sophisticated, so free, although the talk was mainly of dogs. Sister Wendy Beckett barely got a look-in (‘She’s a fraud,’the fuchsia Glory swiped). A national treasure was present, with a rare brown dog. She said a friend’s dog had recognised her voice on the radio when she broadcast to the nation before Christmas a lampoon of a certain Christmas tradition favoured by morons.

Afterwards I went round to Eddie Sedgewick and Simpson Passmore’s (the latter the MP (Labour) for Whirly and Lorraine). Sadly now their dog, Heather, has died. Eddie is distraught. I hope my visit wasn’t too much for her. They showed me their Christmas cards from Ed Milliband and Mr Bercow. Milli’s showed him and family before a very middle-class marble fireplace. I said to Simpson, who is Labour: ‘Our stockbroker is Granny’s cleaner’s niece – so you’re getting somewhere with your equality.’

Eddie gave me news of Lionel Moore and Eric Vaughan – some of the oldest known Poor Little Rich Gays. Lionel’s 94, still bickering away with Eric. They knew the Queen Mother, Hardy Amies, Ronald Reagan and Claudette Colbert. And LARRY, OF COURSE. Eric once set fire to the Hotel Hassler in Rome.  The TV shows they produced! The homes they decorated. Eric talks entirely dirty.

Lionel would go out in the most fearsome ice and snow last winter, Eddie said. Nothing would stop him. Joan Plowright didn’t come over though. She’s nearly blind now. Lionel’s passionate to save Brighton nude beach – maybe it has been saved, or concreted over. I’m out of date.

Be a Poor Little Rich Gay and never grow old.

Friday 11th January 2013

Now I’m be used last minute by Laura Malcolm who is having a dinner for the Queen Mother, O’Halloran Ta’oésch’ Marsh, the columnist, Maeve Cinday, who was once an international paparazzo’s accomplice, and some Civil Partners (ugh!).

As it happens Robert Nevil’s sister’s mother-in-law, who is 99, has knitted the Queen Mother from a Knit-Your-Own-Royal-Family kit. It was so difficult she’s not going to attempt any other members.  The wooly Queen Mother has been donated to me, Adrian Edge, and I have graciously accepted.

Then on Sunday, I’m used at the Multis for luncheon.

Did I mentioned that the Blond Multi went to Hampstead? Unheard of . He went to visit a Guru. On the way back the underground railway was held up by gangsters and he had to take a bus, which was an unwelcome novelty. The Photo Multi has occasionally gone by bus and survived but the Blond Multi has never taken Hampstead nor a bus ever before.

The Multis have completely given up the art world, by the way. Their New Year’s Resolution – not to enter Trenton’s Gallery in 2013.

Absolutely shattering! But this is the tremendous power of money.

I still haven’t told you about that amazing new Poor Little Rich Gay encountered in Brighton. The circle in Brighton is astonishing. Very sophisticated, braced and stimulating, like the sea air. Nor have I displayed my subsequent Brighton visit to Eddie Sedgewick, the artist and school friend of Robert Nevil, not seen for months, with the additional treat of  a rare sighting of his companion, Simpson Passmore , the MP for Whirly and Lorraine.

It’ll have to wait. It’ll have to wait.

Knitted Queen Mother with Corgi: Knitted by Robert Nevil’s Sister’s Mother in Law Who is Ninety-Nine

Queen Mother and Corgi Knitted by Robert Nevil’s Sister’s Mother in Law Who is Ninety-Nine. V. Difficult. She won’t Attempt Another Member from the Knit-Your-Own-Royal-Family Kit

Thursday 10th January 2013

Contrary to yesterday, 2013 is now looking possible. I’ve been diarising most of the day.

And spending!

I’m pleased to announce the following forthcoming engagements:

Friday 11th January: a vulgar rave and drool concert at the Royal Festival Hall given by Joseph Calleja

Monday 14th January: Privates on Parade (a theatre piece)

Tuesday 15th January : an Art Opening at the Old Millinery Works

Wednesday 16th: 8 to dine at my home

Thursday 17th: With Val, we assault the Hollywood Exhibition in desperate bid for tickets

Saturday 19th: another vulgar opera star concert at the Royal Festival Hall: Val to attend if upright. Karita Matila gives the Four Last Songs; then last act of Salome which is fab

Sunday 20th: I board for Bath

Monday 21st: I attend a board meeting in a cathedral town

Tuesday 22nd: with the Gay Mother: she is to host a session of Bible-study

Thursday 24th: Metamorphosis with Frankie-Doreen and Giles at the Lyric Hammerschmidt

I do need a perf. It’s the only moment of calm. Otherwise it’s on the wrack, working and working on the home, worrying what Miroslav is doing on the roof, phoning for a new shower seal, fetching money for Miroslav, wracked by detail, craving an enduring home but knowing it cannot endure, will fray and scuff and mark and 20% will never be right. That’s what Val said years ago. You draw up a list of work to be done on the home, you engage decorators etc. But only 80% is ever achieved. There’s always that 20% that will never shift. I ordered a seal for my shower door. It’s never had one for some reason. In six years. Small damp occurs after use on either side of the door – will it penetrate and rot the home through? I installed the seal myself but it came straight off again. That was in September. Now I’ve got Miroslav to see to it. Terribly hard to get door open and shut. Water still gets out.

Must try to think of other things: Come back tomorrow. I must tell you about a new Poor Little Rich Gay met in Brighton last week at Marcus Cargill’s lunch also attended by a National Treasure.

And there’s the Sales.

Let us hope and pray.

Wednesday 9th January 2013

Just no shape, no urge, no sold-out shows to batter for tickets, no booked-up restaurants. I’ve even lost the will for that one final knit in the sales. The Blond Multi has three afflictions and can’t face any bookings until February.

Miroslav’s silicone work has improved beyond belief. That is the main good news. He’s here. I’ve embarked on renovation.

There WILL be more to tell. Poor Little Rich Gays will rise again.

Last week, I lunched in Brighton.

So much to tell, really.