Oh the engagements! How blessed I have been (to use vicar-like words of Harry who won Strictly<\/em>). I\u2019m going to do a round-up in the style of Jenufa: do you remember her? As in Jenufa\u2019s Diary in Harpic and Queen. In real life she was Mrs Betty Kenward and I once saw her on wheels at Claridges.<\/p>\n But I was in the middle of Ronnie Ronnie at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. He gave a show last week. At the best table at the front, Robert Nevill, Joshua Baring (only 27: youth interest) and myself took three mini-tubes of Pringles (canap\u00e9s not known at the RVT). Then Ronnie Ronnie, that rare songbird of the Borough, loomed on the stage-lette in a Christmas outfit with Andy Warhol wig.<\/p>\n He is a miracle, going back, back into the low past of Robert Nevill, those Brixton railway-line days, above the male brothel, with the thrice daily burglaries. Now Robert Nevill’s top, top at the Royal Literary Fund and the London Library and Ronnie Ronnie’s got a Bruce-MacBain-designed home.<\/p>\n It was the Blitz with Steve Strange where Ronnie Ronnie was huge, in a duo then with Masha Minx. That was in the 70s.<\/p>\n Now he is supreme solo and gave a thrilling cabaret with highly unusual songs and brilliant banter. Highlights were \u2018Grandma got run over by a reindeer\u2019 and a new ballad about the late Bernard Matthews: \u2018Bernard Matthews had a lot of turkeys\/ But his favourite one was Flo..\u2019 So it started lovingly. Sadly by the end, they\u2019d rather fallen out: \u2018You dirty crook, you twizzled me.\u2019<\/p>\n Owing to pressure of engagements we were unable to stay to the end but whirled round to Hot Stuff, a Stockwell treasure of Joshua Baring\u2019s (he knows all the restaurants, although only 27). Hot Stuff is actually an Indian, modern d\u00e9cor, a cut above, and highly informal. Our dinner was waiter-selected. Previous diners had strewn large qualities of Christmas debris over the floor in a delightful manner.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard also that Caravan in Exmouth Market, in London\u2019s north, is very good \u2013 if you\u2019re thinking about diarizing for January, which you should be.<\/p>\n We’ve also got Meryl as Margaret to look forward to: if I don’t go with the Multis I’ll die.<\/p>\n Ronnie Ronnie Evoking Through Hand Gestures Bernard Matthews' Favourite Turkey Bird, Flo<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wednesday 21st December 2011 (the shortest day: now we career towards Spring) Ralph Kitto\u2019s international supper tonight, tomorrow Meistersinger (5pm start: ends 10.45). Friday board for the country. Oh the engagements! How blessed I have been (to use vicar-like words of Harry who won Strictly). I\u2019m going to do a round-up in the style of […]<\/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-2987","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\/2987","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=2987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2989,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions\/2989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ronnie](\"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/0781-650x487.jpg\" "\\"078\\"")