{"id":110,"date":"2009-07-23T17:05:10","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T16:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=110"},"modified":"2009-07-24T02:26:35","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T01:26:35","slug":"au-revoir-les-orphans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=110","title":{"rendered":"Au Revoir Les Orphans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday 20th<\/sup> July 2009<\/p>\n

Robert Nevil\u2019s morning greeting: \u2018How dare you use the shower before me!\u00a0 Now I shall have to wade through your leavings.\u2019 It is true that I have failed to wield the kitchen paper. There was an end-of-show party last night. My strength is gone. At breakfast Robert and Anthony have a high-minded discussion about the future of the Orphanage, the problems faced by the teachers and carers and so on. I am considered too simple to participate. If I protest, they accuse me of having harboured Saddam Hussein in my coal hole. I fall to dreaming: if only I could give \u00a350,000 or \u00a3500,000. What a difference that would make! If my mine could only get going (I have a mine, or part of one, at present inert. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve mentioned it before), then I could truly donate. Suddenly I\u2019m imagining Robin Smallmeal\u2019s sinister black Bentley drawing up at the Orphanage as he and Simon Limpney arrive to buy it outright. What an opportunity for Limpney to install droves of ensuite bathrooms equipped with Molton Brown products (a bit high-street if you ask me). There would be courses in pure-breed cat management and how to show your cat at a cat show. This is Simon Limpney\u2019s great thing at the moment \u2013 so I hear. We have not been on speakers for the last two years, owing to my shameful behaviour over Simon\u2019s Christmas Day call.<\/p>\n

Then, the most extraordinary thing, but on the way down from Shiroka Laka (after another sad farewell to the orphans) the Sofia road is lined with billboards showing a portly middle-aged gentleman in a striped apron, with rouged cheeks and an aubergine rinse advertising processed cheese in either packets or bottles. It is Robin Smallmeal \u2013 posing before he went grey presumably, unless it is yet another wig. How bizarre that the head of landfill sites (or whatever) in England should have a second career as an advertising model in the former Communist bloc. Of course, it might not have been him, but I really am as certain as I can be.<\/p>\n

We stop for lunch. Robert Nevil says the cheese (not presumably that advertised by Smallmeal) is like chewing on a condom and outrages a German mime mistress (one of the theatre troupe who have been helping the orphans) to whom we are giving a lift with a stream of unkind remarks about the state of the Bulgarian ladies\u2019 hair. \u2018They must have a conditioner that promotes split-ends,\u2019 he says. It is true that we have not seen a single hairdressers. All the hair must be home hair. Very few ladies have escaped an aubergine or bar mitzvah-red rinse. It is a poor country, I know, but really they would do better to leave their hair alone.<\/p>\n

At length we gain the Maria Luisa in Sofia. It is a four-star – greetings at the door, help with the luggage. You see, we are putting the orphans behind us. The receptionist is a little tart but I barely notice. The minute I enter the hushed lobby I am engulfed by waves of delightful ease. The two-star at Shiroka Laka was charming but there must have been an underlying strain. Anthony Mottram and I take a respectable twin, absolutely suitable for a pair who have been together for 40 years. Nevil is housed elsewhere. We lie on the beds, hoping to wallow in luxury. But it is stiflingly hot. The window doesn\u2019t open. We fuss around the air conditioning controls to no effect. I call down to the lobby. The receptionist comes into her own.\u00a0 She offers no apology; all she says is that another room, which she calls a \u2018suit\u2019, will cost 30 euros extra. I hand the phone to Mottram, who knows these parts. \u2018We will take the other room but we will not be paying extra. Think about it and call back in five minutes.\u2019 She does this but has not budged. \u2018Have you had any training in customer relations?\u2019 Mottram enquires. She must have said, \u2018No,\u2019 because he says, \u2018It shows.\u2019 By now the bell-hop has appeared. Mottram complains about the receptionist. The bell-hop explains that she has her position to hold. Also she is very beautiful. He shows us the \u2018suit\u2019 which is a larger room with a kind of low barricade in the middle of it. Mysteriously the price has dropped to only 10 euros extra. We take it. \u2018Bulgarians are normally so charming,\u2019 Mottram says to the bell-hop, \u2018but that receptionist has had hers specially striped out.\u2019<\/p>\n

The bell-hop was by no means as nonplussed by this as he might have been.<\/p>\n

Later when we descend to the lobby different staff are on duty but we can tell by their fantastic screw-on grins that they have been warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday 20th July 2009 Robert Nevil\u2019s morning greeting: \u2018How dare you use the shower before me!\u00a0 Now I shall have to wade through your leavings.\u2019 It is true that I have failed to wield the kitchen paper. There was an end-of-show party last night. My strength is gone. At breakfast Robert and Anthony have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrain-edge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}