Saturday 5th January 2013

I’ve been laid low. It’s as if the whole of 2012 has reared up and overwhelmed me. What a year! Not the wracking agony of Autumn 2008 when, hunched in that drawing room in Tobago, we watched on TV the Index clacking down 10 points a minute. We faced wipe-out.

But now, the long slow post-viral fatigue. We need growth and better news for rich people.

On the other hand, will we ever again know such a year? The Jubilee and then the Olympics. Harry Rollo’s perf in New York that shook the world. Poor Little Rich Gays, the strain ferocious, wore outfits, seized and shaped, created occasions, knew some brief glorious joy (all that can be expected if one is not to become unbearable) and did not fail.

On New Year’s Eve Conrad Matheson and Valèry Duplessis threw open their Bruce-McBain refurbished home. Recently you’ll have noticed that I’ve had no inner life, have become just a machine run by money that goes to functions in outfits. Well, Conrad’s read Sybil by Disraeli – so there!  I know I’m basking in reflected glory but too bad. Apparently it’s highly camp – Sybil, that is – full of Wildean dialogue and carry-on. What’s more, the talk at the party was all of the latest private crises of the Poor Little Rich Gays.

Oh yes! Never fear. The higher they rise, the more tormented the big balloon they carry behind, out of sight. The great urge to elevate and perfect the life, the horror of the normal life, the numerous exceptions to which the Poor Little Rich Gay feels entitled rarely knit satisfactorily into a union with another as envisaged by society’s great forces. Somehow the Poor Little Rich Gay even is tricked, finds that the Loved One veers away, is excessively pre-occupied with their own decor. Bitterness and disappointment set in, although the truth is the Poor Little Rich Gay would loathe full coupledom as normally conceived.

Harry Rollo, the world-class performance artist and impressario, was in the garden at the party with another world-figure, who rocked our nation to its foundations some years ago with a perf in theatre and on TV. Anthony Mottram, the Prague-based ‘consultant’ with whom I was in uncertain and rich union for 42 years, caught in a rich web of many dimensional relationships but now estranged, was unhinged at a perf of the perf and raged at random members of the audience. It wasn’t so much the depiction of Our Lord Jesus as the loudness of the music.

Anyway, Harry Rollo and the World-Figure were talking about divorce. The World-Figure said he was writing a piece for a singing conger-eel as a consequence. The pay-out, you see. To Harry Rollo, I sang my new Christmas carol (new to me) ‘Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour/All for Love’s sake, becamest poor.’  ‘That’s me,’ Harry said.

For both of them, never again!

Now we come to Lord Arrowby, my former part-time love interest. Head to toe in Dries and other labels, multi-coloured, stalking the corridors of power at such height now no others can accompany. They’re way below.  The Queen, when she took over the Cabinet the other morning, was tart: ‘You’ll get nowhere without Lord Arrowby, you know.’ A small door in Whitehall leads to Lord Arrowby but very few can get through it. Never have the Great Powers seen so much Dries, such an Art Collection, such attendance at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, such a departure from the usual mould (or is it ‘mold’) of back-room person. They love him.

Dear, darling Guy Bostock, Lord Arrowby’s unlikely best friend, could not have been more muscular, free and enchanting. Over Christmas, he’d had Baileys. Dear, precious Reggie Cresswell had spent Christmas with Mrs Cresswell, his mother. Just the two of them and a few drives. Otherwise his conversation was unrepeatable. Valèry was i/c the food. A full 6-part supper with three cake choices to follow plus self-made pâtisserie: ‘world-class’, Harry Rollo said and everyone agreed.

Monday 31st December 2012

Never have Poor Little Rich Gays known such a Christmas! What abundance!

Today I’ve lunched and am to party out. I’m cramming you in between engagements.

• Already, on the rentré, the Multis have given a charming intimate dinner (they’re feeling hopeful about 2013 which is a HUGE sign) and Val, unsauced, free of refreshment, had seven to lunch today including the Multis and some new Poor Little Rich Gays, one of whom had had a stroke of which the other did brusque impersonations. ‘If we weren’t living in Bow, he’d be dead,’ she declared. Marvellous hosp, thank God.
• See below the Photo Multi’s Christmas styling of the penthouse. He’s frilled the outside of the entire building around the top edge with lights – all self-done – easily 200 metres. Absolutely outstanding.
• I’ve banned certain Christmas carols. But other new glories have surfaced this year. There’s always more, isn’t there? More and more. ‘Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour’ actually has the same tune as ‘What is that smell?’ as heard at Mr Teasy Weasy’s gourmet destination restaurant or rather in the church next door. Do Google. Also ‘Hark what a sound and too divine for hearing.’ Utterly lovely.
• Now the Christmas food – Cousin Smurry abolished the traditional Christmas dinner some years ago – I’m sure you remember – on account of her new dog. At first I was far from pleased. Last year she offered Ottolenghi Chicken and Lemon and I thawed a little. This year it was an excellent pork, fully organic, with celebration sauces. I didn’t really grasp how this was less effort than the full bird. But the really staggering thing is Cousin Smurry’s developing Poor Little Rich Gay tendencies. Yes! Yes! Yes! It emerged that she’s been rehearsing possible Christmas menus since October. Actually cooking dishes to see if they’d do. ‘I don’t ever want to see venison again,’ she said. Well done, Cousin Smurry!
• Meanwhile the Gay Mother was in search of the perfect sprout over Christmas. Always trying to get back to the sprouts she grew years ago which were open like a flower, very small and with nutty flavour. Where, oh where are those sprouts?
• The Gay Mother and I visited Mrs Dinner as always. She cleaned for us for years, from the 50s easily. Now demented and in a nursing home but with more jewellery and grand coiffure than before. Jolly, unchanged from last year, still saying that her legs are bandaged because she fell off her bike. ‘Where’s the lady who cries?’ the Gay Mother inquired. As it happened she was wheeled in at that moment, a stroke victim possibly. ‘It’s no good crying,’ Mrs Dinner said. ‘You’re in here and well looked after and that’s it.’ She always says she’s well looked after.

Here is the Photo Multi’s radiant arranging of Christmas

Thursday 27th December 2012

The Year’s dying days – I’m looking at villas for next Summer. I’ve emailed to La Foce, near Pienza.

Otherwise inert.

Here’s a list of Christmas carols that need never be played again:

Oh Little Town of Bethelhem

Away in a Manger

While Shepherd’s Watched

The First Nowell

In the Bleak Mid-Winter (unless to the tune by Holst)

Hark! the Herald Angels Sing (when did they sing? I don’t remember this episode in the Bible)

Oh Come All Ye Faithful

Once in Royal David’s City  (where is Royal David’s City? I assume Jerusalem because of the King David Hotel. But Jerusalem doesn’t figure in the Christmas story)

Tuesday 25th December 2012

‘…and laid Him in a manger for there was no room at the Inn.’

But there was room at the Inn. For Poor Little Rich Gays room was found at the Inn. A suite, in fact, après a Laurent Perrier named canapé reception, carol concert and gourmet 5 course at Mr Teasy Weasy’s magnificent gourmet destination in the country. ‘Nothing to pay,’ they said at reception when I handed in the key. Laura Malcolm was that mother mild, or bird in the suite. You’ve been aching to know. Laura Malcolm was my plus one and suite-sharer for that miraculous evening. ‘Hands off my bird,’ Matt Driver, her ferocious, driving husband texted. ‘It’s even worse,’ I replied.’It’s not a twin. It’s a double.’ ‘That’s what they all say,’ Matt lunged back. ‘Nothing was supposed to happen. We really, really wanted a twin. But they gave us a double.’

What’s more, Angus Willis’s Hastings Tudor House is the Holy Crib.

Monday 24th December 2012

As is traditional, I list my pre-Christmas engagements for the 2012 season:

One mass carol rally at the Albert Hall

One Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Saint Martin’s in the Fields

One home concert at Frankie-Doreen May and Giles Ullerston’s

One Champagne Stand-Up at Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowski’s

Two Christmas Fayres in Art Galleries – one at Flint Cantor’s , the other at Trenton’s gallery where I saw Grayson and bought his tea-towel (no penises in the design, they promised)

One Laurent Perrier reception, followed by carol concert, followed by 5 course gourmet, followed by night in suite with married woman, at Mr Teasy Weasy’s world-famous gourmet hotel

One Sleeping Beauty followed by buffet at Ed Jasper and Roland Mainflower’s

One Christmas Carol given by the Dramatic Society of Swadling Village, Kentshire

One theatre visit with Robert Nevil to see a play about the contribution of the Pony Club of Great Britain to the growing of potatoes for the home war effort of the 1st World War.

One Family party given by Cousin Honor

One Urban Farm Dinner Gala Given by the Multis

One Dinner for Nine Given by me, Adrian Edge, in my home

One Diner Intime given by Frankie-Doreen May and Giles Ullerston at their home

One Christmas Experience at Angus Willis’s Tudor House, Hastings

Saturday 22nd December 2012

Monday took a day-return to Hastings wearing a Topman suitlette and Prada coat with petrol sheen – in the evening I was going on at the Albert Hall for mass singing of carols.

Clucked to Genevieve Suzy’s rubble house where despite rubble she was wearing an important day outfit. She’s huge in magazines and has added to the hugeness of Hastings by buying one of the most important houses there, now being renovated in classic Poor Little Rich Gay torment. Angus Willis coaxed her into Hastings. In fact there’s been a bit of take-over – more later.

Angus Willis’s Christmas Experience at the Tudor House was to embrace and soothe us. You won’t have forgotten the Tudor House, Hastings, now as crucial a destination to Poor Little Rich Gays as Mecca to Islamics.

Genevieve toured me round Hastings’s bric a brac shops and showed me the cafe with the gay books in the window (see graph below). She toyed with an oil painting but thought the boats the wrong type for Hastings. The shopkeeper was not at all obliging, indeed argued. A good robust style of shop-keeping. ‘You’ve got yourself into a corner,’ he said to Genevieve.

Then we came to the Tudor House.

The Tudor House Christmas Experience.

Words cannot begin to rise to the occasion.

Members of the public were admitted at £5 a head, glass of high-end mulled wine included. Angus has written the story of the poor baker who lived in the Tudor House in Tudor times and whose career was saved by elves. This was offered, in a superbly produced booklet, along with recipes for the elves’s Christmas bakes. Only the Tudor Advent bagels were the baker’s, everything else was elf – the chocolate, hazelnut and cinnamon Kugelhupf, the almond and cherry sugar hearts, the Flowerpot-Baked Ginger Cakes.

In the front parlour some old ladies were sitting staring into the great log fire in the ingelnok – and getting well smoked themselves. They were in raptures. Completely Tudor-ised. While Angus was dealing with the mussels for lunch it fell to me, Adrian Edge, to open the door to visitors – of whom there were many. The Christmas Experience has been publicised in The Times newspaper and The Lady magazine. From all over the country, they came – classic middle-class heterosexual from furthest East Sussex, or Normandy or Devon. A mother and daughter looked bewildered. ‘There are truffles on the bed,’ I said. For all the Christmas recipes were demonstrated around the house. Bed truffles, like bed chocs in a five-star, I suppose.

To each visitor, I said, ‘Welcome to Angus Willis’s Tudor House. When acquired seven years ago, this was a normal modernised Tudor house with turquoise bathroom suite, carpets, kitchen units from Smallbone of Devizes and an Aga. Now, after long years of agony,has been so radically unmodernised  it is hardly recognisable as a human home. ‘

My God it’s rough but brilliant.

We had an exhibition lunch. I mean we were exhibited lunching, while the visitors visited all around. One of them approached Genevieve gingerly. ‘Excuse me, are you Genevieve Suzy?’ she inquired. The mother and daughter came back from upstairs: ‘Such a lovely atmosphere,’ they said, no longer bewildered.

Yes, indeed: such a lovely atmosphere. I challenge you to find anywhere in the country such a sense of the past in an interior. It really is magical, especially when you remember that it’s not quite authentic. Which is the genius of Angus Willis. His eye! Who else would have seen that an Orkney chair, or a chicken-pecked Romanian cupboard, would give a Tudor feel in his Tudor House. But they do. Far more than real Tudor artefacts would have done.

In sorrow I left the Tudor House with Genevieve Suzy. Briefly we visited the Angus Willis Home Store (massive coverage in all the broadsheets and the Mail) before returning to her rubble house for an interview with a builder who clearly thought we were off our heads. ‘You’ve got an absurd number of children,’ Genevieve said. ‘Now can you take us to the station?’

So we were driven up for the 3.29 in a builder’s van.

What I forgot to mention is that the Green and Black’s lady is leaving Hastings. Despite her £6 million odd. Angus Willis has won. He’s done more with Hastings than she ever could.

Angus Willis’s Snowball Chocolate Truffles on Tudor Bed in the Angus Willis Tudor House Hastings

A Christmas Doilly: The Lightest Christmas Touches to Give a Tudor Christmas Experience at Angus Willis’ Tudor House, Hastings

The Angus Willis Home Store, Hastings: Christmas Window

The Angus Willis Home Store, Hastings Decked Out for Christmas

Old Books in Cafe Window in Hastings: Look Carefully at Titles

Friday 21st December 2012

Actually had some pleasure in the home today. Maybe, just maybe, the new Islamic cleaner will shape up. I’m quite impressed with her double-dusting, I have to say.

Should I have looked to Islam for cleaning before?

Ed Jasper organised a Gala outing to Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty at the Sadler’s Wells. Ed made a fortune from bed linen. Not selling, just advising on how to make beds. Now he’s written a mini-series for TV which isn’t about beds at all.

When it was over (The Sleeping Beauty), he said: ‘The message was: I need more birch trees at Kingsize.’ It’s true. There were a lot of birch trees in The Sleeping Beauty. Kingsize is his country branch. Ed’s ‘partner’ (hate that word), Roland Mainflower, who sees patients in his own rooms at Harlena (that’s Harley Street), also formed a view of The Sleeping Beauty: ‘The King’s dressing gown was the star part.’

So much for Poor Little Rich Gays at the ballet.

We went to their gaff after for a buffet. One of the other guests was absolutely walloping: flown in from Guernsey that morning (‘Are you in tomatoes?’ I enquired), helicopter at disposal, country estate on mainland Britain, further homes in Belgravia, New York and Sydney.

Ed has a lot of camp women friends (some of them are household names if you read the Red Tops) to whom he says unspeakable things when they come back from the loo.

Ed Jasper’s Christmas Dining Room Styling: Rich, Uncompromising, Superb

The Groaning Buffet with Many Options at Ed Jasper and Roland Mainflower’s Ballet Buffet for ‘The Sleeping Beauty’

Tuesday 18th December 2012

Owing to massive, sudden and thrilling derailment I spent last Tuesday night in a suite with a married woman. The James Bond film had been planned but no… other forces compelled me to a Relais et Chateau destination with a gourmet foundation for a £275 a head ‘pagne reception, carol concert in neighbour church followed by a 4-course, or 5 if you count the petit fours, back at the chateau. Then, for night-time, a suite (not included in previously mentioned price).

My lady-friend gained in advance in her family vehicle. I was crawling along the motorway in my official car with Xenon driving lights when she texted to say she was going into the suite steam room so if no response she would be dead in there.

Not very encouraging to my plans.

But fortunately, re-alined and now ‘Mrs Edge’, the ravishing woman opened the suite door (it had its own door-bell) in a peignoir and beckoned me within. She’d been busy researching: ‘£800 a night, this suite,’ she announced.  It was thrilling, with dining area, lounge area, bed-temple area, bed on dais, 3 TVs, fireplace with coals, done in a Japanese country-style and called ‘Jade’.  For daintiness we had ordered twin beds but the request had been overlooked. So a vast double promised the full couple-in-suite experience.

I changed into my Claudio Tonello dinner suit which is actually in the lightest jersey. Nails must be immac for fear of snagging. Off we set for the Laurent Perrier Champagne reception with announced canapés. My ‘friend’ was in black sequins and huge pearls. Then over to the neighbour-church, by way of flare-lit path with attendants every metre, for the carol concert. The furs of the lady guests but their feet so cruelly exposed in evening shoes, the fur doing nothing for their feet! Their feet!

Huge surprise! Wendy Craig was lurking in the pulpit ready to render Christmas moments from ‘Not in Front of the Children.’ The choral group, on the other hand, was in earnest, and also, often in French or lower Slavic. The minute they opened their mouths, my bird’s programme fell straight to the floor. I’d forgotten she doesn’t greatly care for classical.

But one lovely new carol was given called ‘What is that smell?’ The smell is the Virgin. And the Baby Jesus perhaps. It’s in French so not sure.

All the same, the concert was a space for the appetite to build for the gourmet slap-up following. We were sat with Svetlana from Belo-Russe and Michelle who’s in equestrian event management with husband, Laurence, high up in Wimpey Homes. Svetlana had swapped round the name places so she could be next to my hot date. What did she imagine they would have in common?

The courses were exquisite and Monsieur Teasy-Weasy, the chef of international renown, came to speak to us in person. Absolute direct touching of the Godhead. Reverence but Michelle wasn’t so keen on the beetroot course although she thought that was more down to her.  She turned to a small heap of ash though when my magnificent dame aux camillas condemned the dessert. Never have such words been heard in that sacred dining room. ‘Like school pudding! ‘ she boomed. ‘The French can’t manage exotic fruits.’ Svetlana was amused but would never have said such a thing herself.

Back in the suite, we agreed that we are not as others. To ourselves we appear normal, but from all alternate points of view we are freaks. So true. The suite had been re-thought in our absence and presents and little messages laid out and cloths placed on the floor from which to mount the bed. Speaking of which…. the double now emerged as more of a twin that had appeared before. We clambered in from our separate sides. By this time too the husband was texting: ‘Keep off my bird.’ We lay in our compartments:  the lady was calculating how long we could stay in the suite if we sold both our homes. She reckoned about 3 years. Meanwhile, I was thinking aloud: ‘I bet Becks has been in this bed, or at least Rio Ferdinand.’ Whoar!

The next morning, the chauffeurs had their engines running for hours outside the main entrance and some of the Bolivian guests tottered into the breakfast room still in their furs. I took the key to Jade back the reception desk and they said, ‘Nothing to pay.’

A Furred Greatness at the Relais et Chateau Gormet Experience Carol Concert and Slap-Up

The Suite Bed: Did Becks Lay Here?

Bed-Mounting Cloth and Slipper Packet in Suite

Suite Bathroom, if You Can Call it That

Friday 14th December 2012

Last Saturday Prince Dmitri Hersov collected me in the Porsche and we thundered to Swadling, a Kentish village, where the Blond Multi’s brother’s children were to appear in the Swadling Dramatic Society’s A Christmas Carol.

‘Where are all the Christmas parties?’ the Blond Multi has been saying for some time now. The Multis, so very delicate, so very rich, have been low. They’ve been feeling bruised and uninvited. Too often money is thought to take the place of humanity, but, no, it doesn’t. So much anxiety. Even £27.50 was agony. I owed them £27.50 for the Swadling outing and another planned for January. Could I transfer it straightaway to their bank account? Couldn’t bear to wait a few days for a hand-over in person. The Blond’s retired, you know, at only 50. No income stream. I don’t know what happened to all the money. There were millions. Seem to have evap. Down to the last £27.50.

Anyway, settling at the tables in the Swadling village hall (it was to be dinner-play experience), the Multis bucked wonderfully.  ‘Just like Glyndebourne,’ the Photo said. They’d Ariana Chronicopoulos with, over from Athens. She’s tremendously liberating, lives entirely for pleasure and behaves in unheard of ways: seizes the Photo Multi’s phone and deletes photos there from, has no fear and was dangerously pre-occupied with keeping warm. She insisted on having the heating up to max in all the Multis’ flats, even those unoccupied. No hesitation in bringing ruin to hosts.

So, we were in the village hall of Swadling. The hair was very good indeed and a coat came in with shiny plastic patches. Designer. To be fair, it’s one of those villages where a lot of the residents go up to London to get money. All the same. Mellifera, the Blond’s sister-in-law, explained that she had rendered her children’s costumes for the play from old Donna Karan. The little boy had a real Edwardian silk smock of considerable elaboration.

Oh, we couldn’t have loved it more. A very good chicken pie was offered, plus a vegetable array, supplemented by fine wines from the Multis and a top-drawer cheeseboard from Mellifera, finished with the world’s greatest chocolates, Multi-bought. The play was really very good, excellent acting and clever staging with limited resources and hardly any space.  The Blond Multi’s nieces and nephew were enchanting: all 5 took parts, 2 had many lines, well-delivered. A thought-provoking script too: Scrooge was an orphan, violently insecure from childhood hence miserly. I don’t remember that from the original. Terrified of loss. Clinging on.

‘Where are all the Christmas parties?’ the Blond was asking. We had the answer: right there, in Swadling Village Hall. Always the best, the sudden joy, not expected. A £500 gala evening at Cliveden wouldn’t have come within a million miles of it.

Swadling Village Hall: the Dinner-Play ‘A Christmas Carol’

The Swadling Feast: An Excellent Dinner

Shiny Patches: Styling Feature Seen at Swadling Village Hall

High-end Costumes for ‘A Christmas Carol’: Mellefera’s Son Shows an Edwardian Silk Smock

Wednesday 12th December 2012

Here he is! On Christmas view, in inter-lined Winter frockage.

‘We’re going to get pissed at your place,’ he said, in his gruff motorcyclist’s voice, seconds after I graphed.

The Multis did not take Trenton’s Gallery this evening. It turned out to be a Christmas Fayre: I got a Grayson scarf for Aunt Lavinia (no penises lurking, I was assured) and a Grayson tea-towel for the Gay Mother. It seems to feature the cathedrals of England, which she will like, among other less readily identifiable items.

Arnie Walbird was there, who sculpts equine to the sky and is in all the papers, Beatrice Cantor, great painter,  and Elsa Hodgeman, who’s back now being the Gertrude Stein de nos jours. She tried a job and an income but didn’t care for it.

But the Multis were not there. They’re cross with Trenton. There was a scene in an auction room. It could be the end of a beautiful affair. The Multis are radiant at the moment after a tragic phase. I’ll tell you more.

I’ve so much to tell. Last night I was in a hotel suite with Laura Malcolm although she’s a married woman. You won’t believe the japs.  On Saturday, a village hall was my dinner setting.

The range! The unexpectedness!

Absolutely Never Fails: Grayson Seen Earlier this Eve at Trenton’s Gallery.