{"id":1702,"date":"2010-11-12T18:02:58","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T18:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=1702"},"modified":"2010-11-12T18:06:39","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T18:06:39","slug":"i-enter-a-clinic-after-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=1702","title":{"rendered":"I Enter a Clinic After Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday 12th November 2010<\/p>\n

Friday 13th by a whisker.
\nI\u2019m not actually in a clinic. Merely I ought to be. My dinner thoughts are getting out of hand. Last Saturday I gave a dinner, the Saturday before that I received one, at Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowksi\u2019s. Next week I take three dinners in a row, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
\nPeter and Ned are superb, purring, untroubled dinner-givers. Their table is glass, mounted with fine drinking glass. It is a confection, rising to a peak apparently, dotted with silver items such as napkin rings. Ned is an architect. The apartment is beautiful, not a fault in the workmanship, and no flexes trailing, all styled away.
\nOne guest said to another, \u2018Who\u2019s your jacket by?\u2019 but didn\u2019t wait, just wrenched it open to view the label. We all agreed this is the only approach, although care must be taken not to break the neck if targeting a jumper or shirt. Peter caused outrage at the Acropolis recently where an official was complaining about Lord Elgin taking the marbles. \u2018It\u2019s a pity he didn\u2019t get the lot. Anyway, they wouldn\u2019t be much use to you now, with your debt problem. You\u2019d have to sell them.\u2019 He also made a shopgirl remove her jeans so he could buy them but that wasn\u2019t in Greece. We saw his baby photos. At six, Peter had bunches; two older sisters kept him as a girl. Ned said his bedtime lullaby when a baby was his mother belting out \u2018Hello Dolly\u2019.
\nBefore dinner we visited another apartment where some gays were clambering into drag. Later we saw them coming back from wherever they\u2019d been. See graphs below.
\nThen there was my own dinner, attended as it happens by Ned and Peter, as well as the Multis, Conor Cadoux and some darling straights from Trenton\u2019s gallery. Conor was incoherent for quite a lot of the time.
\nDo you know, horror to say it, but I\u2019m just a little off Ottolenghi. That was my menu. All that tahini, green crunch, pomegranate seeds, labneh (see yesterday\u2019s posting), you do rather long for a stout cheese sauce.
\nLet\u2019s hope it\u2019s just a phase.
\nBut that\u2019s not the point. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m the only Poor Little Rich Gay condemned to entertain but flayed alive by the experience. I recall Smallmeal lurking inadequate at his own great functions. After all, why bother with face, hair, frockage, food, decor, home, personality if it\u2019s not to be seen? And we must share, reach out, give; we cannot sit alone all our days. Nothing will come of nothing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
\nBut what drives us to ever greater heights of matching sets, finer wines, grander and more expansive guest lists is also what prises us apart, exposes, wounds.
\nAfter one of my dinners, I think \u2018Never again!\u2019 I\u2019m inconsolable.
\nWell, what\u2019s to be done? Maybe I should phone up The Priory. There must be a short course available. I imagine a glass of hot water to sip while I\u2019m therapised.
\nMemory mercifully rearranges experience into more pleasant forms; it also poisons. There have been happy dinners, even large ones. There will be again.
\nDo you know, I\u2019m tending towards Christmas drinks \u2013 40 people or 50 or 500.
\n

\"The

The Draggists Return - Do You Like the Silver Wig?<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday 12th November 2010 Friday 13th by a whisker. I\u2019m not actually in a clinic. Merely I ought to be. My dinner thoughts are getting out of hand. Last Saturday I gave a dinner, the Saturday before that I received one, at Peter Acharya and Ned Czernowksi\u2019s. Next week I take three dinners in 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-1702","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\/1702","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=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1710,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions\/1710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}