\u00a0Thursday 9th July 2009<\/p>\n
Michael Portillo! You won\u2019t believe it, but he was there. Bronzed, well-preserved, almost the colour of very rich people (I\u2019ll explain another time<\/p>\n
And that was the least of it, as it turned out.<\/p>\n
No, I drove in behind a terrifying black Mercedes. It halted in front of the house despite large signs saying \u2018no stopping\u2019. A chauf got out and started unloading picnic baskets. \u2018Get out of the way!\u2019 boomed Aunt Lavinia, who was sponsoring me at Glyndebourne as it were, and has the kind of voice that has kept hounds and stags in order through the centuries. A blacked-out rear window descended. \u00a0It was Robin Smallmeal \u2013 with the new grey hair!<\/p>\n
My unrivalled arch enemy!<\/p>\n
A jagged gash of electricity reared up between us.<\/p>\n
Of course, his favourite trick is to drop off his 40-ton picnic right by the house to save lugging it from the car park miles away. They\u2019d put up those signs just for him.<\/p>\n
\u00a0We drove on. In the mirror I could see Smallmeal being told by an official to move on and his luggage being ignominiously re-loaded.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u2018If we hurry,\u2019 I said to Aunt Lavinia, \u2018I know a really good picnic spot.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0My plan worked perfectly. We got Smallmeal\u2019s absolutely adored favourite place. He appeared ages later, wrecked with the weight of his accoutrements which would hardly fit into the only remaining picnic space, beside some hollyhocks which my aunt had dismissed as rather untidy.<\/p>\n
\u00a0There was another great whip of leccy, which rather startled the other opera-goers.<\/p>\n
\u00a0No sign of Limpney, thank goodness.<\/p>\n
\u2018Who is that peculiar little man with all that grey hair?\u2019 Aunt Lavinia bellowed.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u2018That\u2019s Robin Smallmeal,\u2019 I said, \u2018he\u2019s huge in rubbish. Head of the landfill sites. Something like that. A mega-multi.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0Fortunately she didn\u2019t ask any more. It might have been awkward to explain how I know such things. In previous days, I was chauffed from Massivebury, the Smallmeal country residence, to Glyndebourne.<\/p>\n
From then on, Aunt Lavinia proved invaluable. Her comments boomed straight to where Smallmeal thrashed around with his baskets, rugs, glassware and silverware. As he proudly produced his candlesticks, she declared that her late husband couldn\u2019t stand the pretention of candlesticks at Glyndebourne. As he handed, to his porridge-coloured corporate accomplices, a medley of smoked fish with what appeared to be some kind of beetroot concoction as well as various other mayo-like blobs and a cube of some sort of jelly, she thundered that she didn\u2019t mind a picnic as long as it was simple.<\/p>\n
As for me, I couldn\u2019t resist glancing every now and then at the new grey hair. I\u2019d heard all about it. He used to be Mod Rock black. Then he had a wig made to see what he would look like grey. Then he went grey.<\/p>\n
Every time I looked there was another zig-zag of electricity, becoming embarrassingly more conspicuous as darkness fell.<\/p>\n
There was also an opera. Glyndebourne is marvellous, despite everything. It never fails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0Thursday 9th July 2009 Michael Portillo! You won\u2019t believe it, but he was there. Bronzed, well-preserved, almost the colour of very rich people (I\u2019ll explain another time And that was the least of it, as it turned out. No, I drove in behind a terrifying black Mercedes. It halted in front of the house despite […]<\/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-39","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\/39","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=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}