Monday 10th December 2012

I got waylaid and was going to continue Manchesterford…. I was saying about the flats there and the evidence of Poor Little Rich Gay life. Well, there’s no question – Gays get better flats. They’re lodged in the old wholesale warehouses, where cloth was once shown in great grandeur. Now they’re flats and named after their cloth: Velvet, Poplin, Jacquard, Damask, Moquette etc. The common parts might be chocolate wood, blue carpet with sprigs and peach rag-rolled walls but the flats are sleek and modern and one up. Not everyone could have one of those flats, you can be sure.

Gus gave a dinner  (he’s got a home deep-fat frier for a restaurant effect in the home with home-tempura) and a glamorous gentleman came from the Royal Manchesterford Bathing Society (1 hr 50 mins twice a week of gruelling bathing). He’d been to Oldham. Astonishing tales. Complete absence of patisserie, sushi, latte or rocket. It’s either pie or ‘loose pie’. ‘Loose pie’ is the pie-filling sensa pastry.

Next day we teamed up with Horace who’s actually from Co Durham and was ‘partnered’ with Gus in the commune at Newcastle – in a manner of speaking. He’s now living in Manchesterford in a normal house with one who once hurdled for England and still has the lower body to prove it. There was much talk of the colourful crazies of yesteryear who owned all the gay bars in Manchesterford. Now everything belongs to Starbucks and the like. Still it is possible to support the Gay Community by going to the Designer Outlet Village at Salford.

Horace is in the Rochdale Ladies. It’s a drag ensemble which makes an appearance on Gay high days and holidays. Essentially they’re old bags. But much in demand. An image of the Rochdale Ladies was misused by a media outlet. Legal action was in the offing. ‘How was that?’ I asked. ‘Well, one of the Rochdale Ladies is a barrister,’ Horace explained.

So Poor Little Rich Gay. Not normal at all.

Otherwise we toured the buildings of Manchesterford which are hideous but marvellous.

Mrs Rylands: She Founded a Library in Mem of Her Husband Who was Over 40 When They Married. From His Statue Opposite, I Thought, ‘He’s Gay. She’s Grim.’ But , Damn, He was Married Before

Daddy Rylands whose Money Built the Library. What Do You Think? Gay?

Within the Rylands Library: Gothic Horror: Poor Little Rich Gays of My Generation were Brought up to Despise Victorian. Granny Couldn’t Bear It

Wednesday 6th December 2012

I ventured North.

Le weekend dernière.

Manchesterford, to be precise. My old friend, Gus Strickland, was exiled to Durham 30 years ago. Well, what I mean is he’s not from there. Quickly he got into an astonishing configuration in Newcastle. It was a commune, with a strong vegetarian aspect. All the boyfriends moved around – I can’t remember now exactly how. I wonder if he can. But there was much openness. Robert Nevil once visited for one night, because giving a talk in the neighbourhood on the contribution of the Pony Club of Great Britain to the 4th Battle of Ypres. But it wasn’t that sort of commune. You didn’t have to have sex with absolutely everybody.

Then Gus removed to Manchesterford and reverted to normal apartment life with one partner, who is called Paul and keeps developers off Manchesterford’s historic buildings with a few crisp remarks. Gus is in the uni world, prof now. The apartments in Manchesterford are all Poor Little Rich Gay without exception, except for the ones that are not. ….. to be continued

Stony Corner in Manchester

Footballer’s Car Surely: Footballers Hoped for Round Every Corner in Manchesterford

Other Types of Building in Manchesterford which Shows All Types from 19th Century On: This One is by Lutyens: A Lutyens Descendent was at the Multis’ Farm Dinner Whom I Berated for the Damp at Castle Drogo

Good Red Building in Manchesterford: Manchesterford Buildings are Ugly but Great

Monday 3rd December 2012

Have been detained by state affairs and engagements.

I’ve little mentioned the ranch, lodged in the family for 2 centuries  and now under threat. For five years, Cousin Monica and Cousin Honor have struggled to save it, so hard with only half a Gainsborough the size of a postage stamp and two ancient cows lurching in the drive.  Last week a Dallas-style summit in the dining room.  Will Miss Ellie aka the Gay Mother fork for the other half of two fields? ‘I’m speaking,’ said the Gay Mother, matriarchal, cutting off Cousin Honor’s stream. Can a sour terrain in the village be sold for millions and given over to bungalows?

There have been scenes, I can tell you, in this struggle. But the really astonishing development is that Cousin Monica, sitting in the Ha-Ha doing the accounts – well, not a bit of it. She’s been reading the Poor Little Rich Gays! Never a word until it all came out in rather unfortunate circs. You would have thought there’d have been some sign, wouldn’t you, some sudden new mania for tiling modules or the daytime styling of the bedclothes? But no!

I’ve taken the unusual step of removing material. We can’t have every feud publicly aired. Not yet at least. But never mind, for Lo! behold a spectacular new honorary Poor Little Rich Gay!  Cousin Monica!

Meanwhile, on Thursday Royston King, king-pin of London’s Heritage, took me to dine officially at the Museum of London in their warehouse. 100 dined with actual museum pieces in historical order on the table. Paul Levy speeched and Royston was bursting with plans for the Museum with which he regaled the Director. He loves the work and has never known such power. He can give, or not give, millions. He was been renewed as giver by the committee.

What a perfect Poor Little Rich Gay destiny.

Carriages was a Routemaster Bus bound for Holland Park and Royston was able, in the end, to stow his bicycle on the lower deck. Previously we viewed privately the Museum’s store cupboards and drawers and saw a 13th century pottery colander as well as superb examples of Chelsea porcelain figures by a known maker.

Friday was Peter Achyra and Ned Czernowski’s party – Peter’s v. attract and youthful solicitor attended with new hot boyfr who had a tiny shirt, whippy waist and magnificent show-piece arse. Some New York lovelies, old friends of Ned and with me in Tobago during the money melt-down in 2008 (we sat in a drawing room in Tobago and watched on TV the red figures whirling down and down) were over and I was thrilled to be reunited with them. They had a private supply of whisky from a cupboard and could not grasp the mania for champagne. I discussed handbags with some neighbours. Bruce MacBain, my private architect, took to squeezing guests, lifting them off the ground and heaving towards the window. Much squealing of gays and delight. The Multis also graced and met a elegant gay of 91 who has recently modernised into a riverside modern apartment in the Docklands area.

On Saturday the Multis themselves gave a spectacular dinner at their neighbouring farm of which more later.

Yesterday I carried out engagements in the country with Aunt Lavinia. We drove in my official car with Xenon driving lights.

I haven’t forgotten Manchesterford either – I was there, you know. You must hear about the Gays of the North.

Tuesday 27th November 2012

Joshua Baring, the world’s youngest Poor Little Rich Gay, said, ‘You must come to Ayelet’s Garden Centre on the North Orbital Road in Hertfordshire for a charity event.’

So I went. Teddies were being auctioned, Designer Teddies, designed by V. Beckham, Balenciaga, Dior, Louis Vuitton,Gucci, Dolce e Gabbana and the rest.

First of all the viewing of the teddies. Canapés and champagne as usual. Graphing of selected Greatnesses with hair and heels as per. We run into an old friend of Joshua’s from Ox or Bridge (or both). Just a hint of another world. ‘I’m here with clients,’ he says. He’s looking (very, with skin and hair), special, different (but how? Can’t get the finger on it) and wearing pointy silver shoes. Is that it? Is that the essence?

We’re awaiting the Beckhams. The actual Beckhams. There’s intense papping. Louise Rednap is bagged. V.disappointing trousers. No sign of Jamie Rednap. Why is menswear so side-lined? Why, oh Why?  Jamie has worn so many clothes over the years. His suit is just that little bit more than a suit; it’s never been seen before, it’s rare, a detail arrests, the fabric is unique.

Other designers arrive, not known to me, but Joshua completely on top. Scarves and specs feature. I can’t say I’m bowled over by their frockage but at least they’re men.

We go onto the Geranium House for the Auction: Joshua Baring briefs and briefs as teddies are modelled by celebrities: ‘That’s Saffy Soapy: she had a bit part in ‘Wiggins’…. now Jaffy Potty, she was at Hogwarts… this is Samcain Ghaylghe, huge actress… Tilly Tabby, Bond girl, Ag Gran, classical actress, massive as Medea.’

Finally, finally, Marc Jacobs, bearing own teddy. We actually saw Marc Jacobs. He was modelling his own teddy, in an outdoor coat. You longed to say: ‘Do take your coat off and make yourself at home.’ But it was really him. He was going, going, gone for £25,000. His teddy, that is.

And then, and then…. you won’t believe it. But yes, in the Geranium House at Ayelets’ Garden Centre, presenting for auction, yes, yes, yes… Dame Abbland Crouch, une femme footballeuse, actually in knickers, for a better price, knickers wedged to advantage the lady bum. Terror in some small sections of the audience but others, with the cheque books, on the rise, hot bonking lads in shirts, with thousands, pricey shoes and watches, often out no doubt, favouring ladies with their attentions.

So it went on. The finale was Peter Crouch himself. He plays for England. Football that is. V. tall with specially lengthened jacket. So disappointing. He should have been championing the jackette. He would be perfect for a tiny.

The Becks never showed but no matter. Crouch was bronzed. An indescribable glamour that could never be pinned, never caught, never bottled, prevailed.

Silver Pointy Shoes Began the Note of Glamour

Guests Gain for the Charity Sale of Teddies at Ayelet’s Garden Centre, Hertfordshire

Taupey Moray Models a Teddy

THIS IS MARC JACOBS

The Alexander McQueen Exhibit

Abbie Crouch in Knickers

She Was in Hogwarts

A DJ: Perhaps Grimshaw?

This One Bid High Several Times. Was Also Wearing a Jackette

Classic Contestants at the Auction

Saturday 24th November 2012

Out of control. Miroslav’s been in the home. Polish builder. Shattering. Have been battling damp for months. Thousands spent. But not enough. My home needs complete renovation from top to bottom. Is filthy after Miroslav. £100,000 budget would be agreeable. Must seek to raise equity somehow.

It’s 5 years since it was last done. Time to rip out and start over. The more  money (or idea of it), the greater the age, the greater the yearning. Perfection feels within grasp but is not. Why can’t a man stand by with a paint-pot at all times? Why no needlewoman leaping with fresh fabric before fading or staining even thought of? Why no carpet layer laying daily? Why no professional polisher? Why no-one with toothbrush into grooves hourly?

Now I’m in Manchesterford. Earlier in the week I was in Bath. I just never get near the home so dearly in need of whooshing, let alone any shops. I could clear the diary and tend to the home for three months but then what life?

Am totally not on top of the Autumn modes. Autumn in fact has gone, I notice. Too late. Its modes have flown with it.

Next year I open my garden to the public on June 16th. There’s that to worry about.

But Berlin… gashed city. I was there with the Multis two weeks ago. Gashed by a Wall, gashed spiritually by the Nazis, flattened by Allied bombing in the latter part of the War. Those gaining Berlin, the first in at War’s end from our side, were appalled. Whole swathes utterly destroyed. Crushing total victory.

They’ve put it back together to leave a vestige of the gashes or even to bare them: the Holocaust Memorial right in the middle by the Brandenburg Gate. The part at Potsdamer Platz where the Wall was is re-built but remains bleak and empty, perhaps deliberately. In all directions, 67 years since the end of  War, 25 years since the end of Communism, still empty lots, crudely fenced-off areas, waste-ground. The classic Berlin view: truncated building with blank end-wall, rendered over.

May I remind: Poor Little Rich Gays have done so much for the old Eastern bloc. We were there: en bloc, as we used to say, Anthony Mottram was installed in Budapest in 1987 and engaged in smuggling young men out through Yugo.  Down that Wall came in’89, Mottram  perfectly poised for re-construction. Now Angus Willis, through export of slippers to his Hastings Home Store, is re-building Romania.

Unlikely but true: Poor Little Rich Gays have embraced the bloc, and the bloc has embraced them.

Typical Berlin View: Waste Ground Even at the City’s Heart

Old Watchtower from Wall days In Berlin

Sense of Emptiness: Where the Wall Was in Berlin

Building Stump: Typical of Berlin

New Bank Building by Frank Gehry in Berlin

Blank Space Typical of Berlin

Thursday 15th November 2012

Lord Bolly Stunning, lion-haired, Monaco-royal-linked, occasional catwalk model, director of Purbeck Crowhurst’s gallery in Berlin, for whose show I gained Berlin, insisted on the Pergamon Museum. If you’ve only got one day, he said, you must take the Perg.

I’d never heard of it. Grim monumental building in grim grey, like a Greek temple, sheering straight out of a river, so dark, grim waters swirling at its base. You go in and straight away are whammed by a massive, massive room containing the Pergamon altar.

Altar! Forget the C of E. Set of steep marble steps, 70 metres wide at least, flanked by temples, all raving with sculpture. Originally there would have been a plaza in front of the steps whose walls had a frieze running round on three sides, the fourth side being the steps up. All this re-assembled in the room.

It’s Greek. Couldn’t find the date. Must be contemporary with the Parthenon, I would have thought. But my goodness, the Elgin Marbles quite put to shame. As nothing. This frieze is easily 150 metres and in a marvellous state of pres. Many thrusting limbs, horses, bums and fainting maidens. No idea if a story but awfully dynamic.

There were two other rooms, one containing several entire fronts of palatial Roman buildings and the last one Islamic.

Was not quite sure what a Poor Little Rich Gay should do. In 1977 Anthony Mottram and I bickered round Greece. Latterly we were at Baalbec with the Gay Mother. Otherwise we’ve tended more towards Islam and have been less known in Ancient Rome and Greece. In 1977, our thing was statues of wet queen, Antinous, of which, we fantasised, ‘only the genitals remain.’

At last, at last I saw the Poor Little Rich Gay angle, as far as the frieze was concerned. In some of the panels only a foot or bit of limb survived. These were the ones to love. Fragments! Fragments! We don’t want great slabs of the Ancient World. Fragments are much more enticing.

Otherwise I made the Islamic room my favourite. There was a house front, so plain and different. I think Bolly said it was from Aleppo. Unfort. entirely reconstructed, not ancient at all, an attraction from my point of view.

Islamic House Front: Possibly from Aleppo: A Replica: Love It Best of All in the Perg

My Favourite Frieze Slab at the Pergamon

Tuesday 13th November 2012

Major reason for a Poor Little Rich Gay to visit Berlin: not Prada which is miles away in the suburbs, along with all the other shops, nor the endless bomb sites nor the featureless modern buildings nor the torn, flattened horror of the city (of which more later: that, in its way, Poor Little Rich Gay).

Right opposite Dunkin’ Doughnuts and the blank glass and steel Sony Shopping Centre (with no uplifting shops) is the Mandala Hotel. Potsdamer Strasse 3. It’s got a superior glass swing door with honed steel frame that opens automatically as you approach – it actually works, unlike all other such doors.

At once you know: a sheet of gleaming gold mosaic behind the reception desk which is in fact two high banks, one behind the other, with clipped trees in pots flanking. Otherwise specialist white walls and chocolate stone floor.

You know you’re going to be completely loved in this hotel – all for the price of a swirly-carpet- 3 star anywhere else. Berlin is cheap.

Harry Rollo, king of hotels, told me about this hotel. He, of course, has given many a perf in Berlin.

The lift doors open the second the car gains the floor. Staff and eventually guests perfect the sweep from the lift. The rooms have a front door bell, palatial entrance corridor lined in sturdy, immaculate wood, wardrobe and suitcase room off, three-section bathroom on the other side. At the end of your progress up the corridor – the room, stretching as far as the eye can see in five-times refined sand and sage tones, pale,pale, pale, modern, modern, modern, pushed exquisitely to the borders of existence.

Board at once, Poor Little Rich Gays, for the Mandala Hotel, Berlin. Otherwise in Berlin, Berliners are dressed in all but gumboots for stumping about their city. Or they are on the pavement on a pre-War cycle. Pavement riding is allowed, apparently. The supermarkets are distinctly post-Communist and there’s no champagne.

But I’ll be telling you soon how to make the best of it, how to be Poor Little Rich Gay in Berlin, Germany.

Mandala Hotel, Berlin: Entrance Corridor to the Room

Adorable Mandala Hotel, Berlin: My Room. Très Bon Prix

My Room at Mandala Hotel, Berlin: Office Secton

Sunday 11th November 2012

On Thursday was my first visit to Berlin: astonishing city: hurt and compelled by horror, yet strangely liberated so now terrifyingly itself.

The gallery scene is huge but there are no collectors, nobody to buy the art. But that is not the point apparently.

Nobody much to come to Purbeck Crowhurst’s Opening on Thursday night either, but that was also of no importance.

Purbeck’s got a huge show which establishes him quite securely in the tradition of eccentric, one-off English artists such as Richard Dadd. One of the most striking paintings shows a motorway with cars, then the verge. ‘Reality’, in other words the vehicles roaring  by, is blurred and grey, but the secret, imagined world of Nature  in the grass beside the road is blazingly present, far more real than ‘reality’.

Big names were there for the artist, but in friendship. The contemporary painter whose prices outstrip all others sat with Purbeck at the dinner afterwards. They were confidential, absorbed in all their years of knowing each other and their lives as artists, resisting money and the gallery world, striving to continue as artists.

Earlier, with the Multis who were also present, we relaxed with Purbeck in a back room at the gallery, looking at some private pictures. Meeting and greeting is a strain. Purbeck would rather meet a hairy Turk. He lives for art. The gallery people were researching possibilities. ‘Maybe you’ll discover the love of your life,’ the Blond Multi said. ‘Ah, but you see..’ said Purbeck, ‘once the deed is done, that’s it.’ He told the story of one of the private paintings. In the 70s, he and a group of friends were flung into police cells, suspected of drugs. They all loved Roxy Music, then a rare cult band. Soon a fabulous, mysterious creature was also flung. She wore a black leather jacket and on the back was written ‘Roxy Music’. They felt a great bond but something was wrong. ‘She’s got needles,’ the policemen said. From the neighbouring cell came an atmosphere of crisis. Purbeck and his gang were chivvied out.  ‘Go away,’ said the police. ‘We don’t want you here.’

‘She must have died,’ Purbeck said. The painting is her commemoration.

Robert Nevil and Eddie Sedgwick, leading Poor Little Rich Gays, were also living underground in the 70s, above a male-brothel in Brixton, devoted to Roxy Music, the Velvet Underground and the Blitz Club in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden. But they never knew Purbeck … or perhaps they did unawares.

Oh for those early cult days of the Poor Little Rich Gays. What beginnings!

The après dinner began promptly after the Show in an Italian restaurant with the highest ceiling ever seen. Lord Bolly Stunning (his mother was a Bollinger), 30-year-old director of the Gallery, gave the speech. It turns out he is also a model whose name has been wrongly linked with one of Caroline Monaco’s daughters. He is actually marrying another and moving to New York. The Blond Multi was most impressed by Lord Stunning: ‘What self-assurance! His management of the seating plan! His impromptu speech in the noisy restaurant!’

He and his friends knew all the stars: Roz Pyke and a main part in Modern Family, among others.

My Favourite Purbeck Crowhurst Painting. Which is More Real? The Life of the Verge or the Life of the Road?

Roxy Music Fan Who Apparently Died in Police Cells, As Seen by Purbeck Crowhurst

Purbeck Crowhurst: Hoping for Hairy Turk in Berlin

Purbeck Crowhurst’s Odd Bunny

Purbeck Crowhurst: The After Dinner in Berlin

Wednesday 7th November 2012

Too late, too late! I’m just about to be engulfed by Berlin hotel life.  I gain at lunchtime tomorrow.

New York, New York – we must say Good-bye!

We visited the Cloisters. Harry Rollo arranged it, having pre-visited and grown wild for the Cloisters. It’s medieval art, right at the top of Manhattan island. Medieval art’s all right, in my view, but later is better. They got better at Art later.

Well, was bowled over by The Cloisters. There are some tapestries there  you should travel from the ends of the Earth to see.

Had no idea of their existence even.

We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the company of Reggie Cresswell, the Ghanaian ceramicist. The Gay Mother elected for the American rooms. That’s all she’s ever seen there and, at 88, the Renoir and Monet Suites are likely to have been slashed out for good.

But as she says, We’ve got those here.

The American rooms grow more and more impressive. Reggie pointed out a new, rare artist called Julian Church. Loved all the American art.

Reggie said he’d had the most awful time in Flat-Bed Business Class to Jo’burg the other day, whence he was going for a festival of ceramics. Couldn’t have been more disappointed with it.

There was a scary moment when the Gay Mother disappeared in a classic Poor Little Rich Gay quest for a missing picture, one seen before and elusive on this visit. The missing picture more potent than any on view usually. It was the Winslow Homer of the sodden battlefield.

She found it and we found her. Loved the Winslow Homer and others by that artist. A bit gay, as well.

Oh – I’ve forgotten to put my American thoughts. So important to think about America.

New York’s Poor Little Rich Gay. New Yorkers are Poor Little Rich Gay.

Absolute cradle of Poor Little Rich Gay.

Final View of the Empire State Building as Our Car Forged Towards JFK: Would the Gay Mother Ever See it Again, I Asked the Last Time, When She was 82. And She Did

Monday 5th November 2012

Twenty-two years I waited. On both previous visits in restauro – the Guggenheim.

Tomorrow Robert Nevil returns from India where he has had tremendous adventures with a lavatory chain at Rose Cottage – if you don’t love The Jewel in the Crown, you’ll be confused.

Mildred said to Barbie, ‘India has been very bad for you and Rose Cottage a disaster.’

Somehow Robert Nevil has visited Rose Cottage although it doesn’t exist.

But that’s Robert Nevil for you.

On Thursday I leave for Berlin, for an Art Show and to visit, never having been before.

So, in New York, the Gay Mother and I queued in the rain for the Guggenheim. Filthy lunch but despite hordes, we loved that building, never before seen on the inside. It’s not perfect, you know. Scoop marks in the cement, some of the edges wonky.

But we loved that building. We even loved Picasso who was shown in it, not even with any colours. Just black and white Picasso, absolutely masses of it, from top to bottom. The Gay Mother and I prefer Matisse. But Picasso came to life in the setting. All the dynamic curves of the building brought out that the energy of Picasso is in the arrangement of lines – there’s such energy and power although hideous.

I’ve never known the Gay Mother so modern. She even insisted on plunging into some remote basement for an exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian House, a model of which was shown on the site of the present Guggs in 1950. It was a vision of ideal modest modern living.  Jolly nice, with a wooden fitted kitc.

There’s something modest, or perhaps honest is the better word, about the Guggenheim itself.  Famously its outside reveals and in no way conceals what is within. The materials used are concrete and cement. I think even the floor is polished concrete. There’s none of the clinical impersonality associated with Modernist buildings. The hand-made feel, the imperfections and faults are the making of it.

Wonky Concrete of the Guggs: Love the Craft Feel

Just a Weensie Bit Untidy: Love the Guggs: So Human

View from the Filthy Lunch Room at the Guggs

Edges Not Quite Straight at the Guggs: the Hand-Made Feel is Essential and Such a Comfort for One’s Own Home