{"id":296,"date":"2009-08-26T12:04:20","date_gmt":"2009-08-26T11:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=296"},"modified":"2009-08-26T12:16:32","modified_gmt":"2009-08-26T11:16:32","slug":"sudden-terror-in-tuscany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=296","title":{"rendered":"Sudden Terror in Tuscany"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Notice

Notice at Siena - what Poor Little Rich Gays never are<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Wine

Wine label loved by one of the Multis<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Classic

Classic Multi Holiday Footwear - worn with shorts and jacket<\/p><\/div>\n

Wednesday 26th<\/sup> August 2009<\/p>\n

\u00a0Monday, inexpensive and good lunch in the square at Panzano. Out of nowhere a menacing black Bentley appears. It is a dead-ringer for Robin Smallmeal\u2019s. A cross face can just be seen at the wheel. The real giveaway is the dry-cleaning hanging in the back. Smallmeal always has dry-cleaning. Who would have dry-cleaning in Tuscany? The vehicle makes an abrupt circuit of the square and disappears.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Can it have been Smallmeal?\u00a0 Surely not. \u00a0But it might as well have been. A shudder of terror goes through me. Yes, I am afraid of Smallmeal or was when I knew him which was for ten years. I didn\u2019t realise it at the time. Was it the power of money? Others certainly deferred to him. There were endless treats, paid for by Smallmeal \u2013 villa holidays, Glyndebourne, the Ivy.\u00a0 Was there a price to pay? I think there was. Certainly, in our falling out, he has not treated me as an equal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then there is the question of Simon Limpney, of course, the Smallmeal partner.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I must pull myself together. Things can\u2019t be so dull at Rimini that Smallmeal is reduced to driving all the way to Tuscany in the remote hope of terrorising me. It\u2019s more the sort of thing I would do. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s having a wonderful time with that awful couple, one of whom called me \u2018rather pompous\u2019. He can\u2019t possibly be finding it necessary to get ahead with his Christmas cards.<\/p>\n

Besides I\u2019m here with the Multis. Who are enchanting. I\u2019m thrilled with the budgeting so far. I think I\u2019ll have a fair bit of change from that \u00a36000 I set aside. We\u2019ve visited yet more surprisingly simple and good restaurants. The only major expense is the wine, on which the Multis must have spent \u00a32000 with daily further outlay. And Donatella, who comes at 12 euros an hour \u2013 and there are a lot of them. They really aren\u2019t like Smallmeal at all. Apart from anything else, Smallmeal, although absolute number one head of landfill or whatever in UK, is nevertheless an employee<\/em>. And they are not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the Multis has bought some chutneys in unusual small jars which give him great pleasure. The other loves throwing beach balls from one end of the swimming pool to the other, then swimming after them, the whole process now repeated in the other direction. The chutney Multi is given to sudden outbursts of affection; he is an excellent photographer and has been going about the neighbourhood making friends through photography. Yesterday he came back from Panzano with reams of shots of a young het French couple he had come across by chance. They had a dog.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then, last night, whenever you opened a door or rounded a corner in this vast mansion, there was the photographer Multi being held at bay by Fergus Strachan, the glamorous lawyer and rationalist (who, it turns out, has been visiting a back-street collagenist in Hastings with marvellous results): \u2018The American model is a disaster. You can\u2019t be serious. They spend 16 % of GDP on health care.\u2019 \u2018I just think with public services you get waste… there need to be controls\u2019 the poor Multi gasped. \u2018Sixteen per cent,<\/em>\u2019 Fergus repeated, wagging his finger.\u00a0 They were arguing about the NHS, the\u00a0British, state-funded health service. So it went on, all over this vast, baronial mansion.\u00a0 The cat’s paw would snatch at the bird; the bird would get away; the cat would pounce again.\u00a0 But later at dinner I heard them murmuring contently to each other.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I would never have dared to speak to Robin Smallmeal like this. The Multis are tolerant;\u00a0they take a huge amount of trouble with their guests; they are kind and generous;\u00a0they relish being surrounded by people who are not like them,\u00a0 who are polar opposites even. No, they will never allow themselves to be hollowed out by money.<\/p>\n

\"A

A surprisingly simple lunch much enjoyed <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Wednesday 26th August 2009 \u00a0Monday, inexpensive and good lunch in the square at Panzano. Out of nowhere a menacing black Bentley appears. It is a dead-ringer for Robin Smallmeal\u2019s. A cross face can just be seen at the wheel. The real giveaway is the dry-cleaning hanging in the back. Smallmeal always has dry-cleaning. Who […]<\/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-296","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\/296","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=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}