{"id":426,"date":"2009-09-27T20:37:38","date_gmt":"2009-09-27T19:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=426"},"modified":"2009-09-29T16:56:11","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T15:56:11","slug":"ladies%e2%80%99-frocks-and-i-%e2%80%93-as-well-as-sunshine-mottram-in-sardinia-and-what-the-future-holds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=426","title":{"rendered":"Ladies\u2019 Frocks and I \u2013 as well as, Sunshine, Mottram in Sardinia and What the Future Holds"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sunday 27th<\/sup> September 2009<\/div>\n

\u00a0The Swiss failed to euthanize Anthony Mottram (don\u2019t joke about death; you\u2019ll be sorry). So now he pops up on a cycling holiday in Sardinia with his friend Veronica whom he has known for years from when they were both on clarinet in a south London amateur orchestra.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It will not be the usual sort of gay vacances<\/em> \u2013 far from it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Vladimir from the Ukraine has been left behind. He has essays to hand in.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This holiday is Mottram\u2019s way of celebrating my birthday which occurs on Thursday. I\u2019m having a small dinner at home for which the menu won\u2019t come. Ottolenghi is the thing and I\u2019ve been pouring over their book. But what are sumac and mograbiah? How will I know they\u2019re not horrid? \u00a0I\u2019ve had an awful time with the smoked paprika powder from the Moro cookbook which makes everything taste of sausages and then burnt plastic. Neurotically I go on using it \u2013 can\u2019t bear waste, you see. Also hoping and hoping it might get nice.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t want to get saddled with any further \u00a0nasty, obscure ingredients.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a shame I can\u2019t have more people to my dinner. But my home is a doll\u2019s house and I fear too many guests could cause it to fall down \u2013 as when they celebrated the building of the 1000TH<\/sup> council house in the Norman Wisdom film. The Lady Mayoress cut the ribbon and dignitaries swarmed in. Within minutes the crap building was flattened.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The other astonishing development is that Lord Arrowby has consented to dine with the Multis. And there is to be a special function for Grayson Perry\u2019s new carpet of which, as it happens, I\u2019ve had a sneak preview \u2013 a thing of wonder. This man is becoming a major part of my life. It\u2019ll be the fourth time I\u2019ve seen him in as many months.<\/p>\n

\u00a0But he hasn\u2019t seen me, though<\/p>\n

\u00a0Perhaps it\u2019s time he did.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Yesterday I went to Somerset House for what I thought was going to be another fashion show to do with London Fashion Week, now London Fashion Weekend. Tickets were got by a headmistress friend of mine, not often seen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The weather was glorious, as it was on Friday and again today. Three days of uninterrupted sun in London \u2013 mellow, melancholy, yellowy, the shadows deepening.<\/p>\n

\u00a0But it turned out to be a vast kind of jumble sale of women\u2019s clothes by various unknown designers. Seething hoards of young women shopping, themselves an amazing spectacle. My childhood was nothing but rummaging through Granny\u2019s and the Gay Mother\u2019s frock cupboards in wonder. I had a phase of actually wearing the clothes and Mrs Bone next door ran me up a little dress and jacket. My father wasn\u2019t best pleased but the Gay Mother and Granny quite enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In adult life indifferent. Have little grasp of what women have been wearing for the last 30 years. These ones had on everything \u2013 tights, boots, eight necklaces minimum, those little flimsy shifty things that aren\u2019t a dress or a shirt, other unidentifiable garments on top or underneath, huge handbags with straps and buckles everywhere. Everything clashing. Frightful sight really, but rather wonderful. There they all were, en fete, having a whale of a time, I should say, parading.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Better that than maundering beside Jade\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then, as I came away, a wedding was emerging from a well-known Wren church. It was late afternoon, the light less brilliant, more misty. A ghostly feel and the wedding a Platonic ideal of how weddings have always been – the young men ushers in morning suits earnest with unaccustomed responsibility, an aunt-figure in an old-fashioned print dress enlivened with a hat specially bought perhaps, more hats, shawls, shoes, the bride and groom emerging from the church, the groom looking very much the marrying type.<\/p>\n

\u00a0And this glorious mother-of-the-bride ensemble. Just look at that silk coat and that hat!\u00a0 Whether this actually is the mother-of-the-bride will never be known.<\/p>\n

\"Outstanding

Outstanding possible Mother-of-the-Bride ensemble<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday 27th September 2009 \u00a0The Swiss failed to euthanize Anthony Mottram (don\u2019t joke about death; you\u2019ll be sorry). So now he pops up on a cycling holiday in Sardinia with his friend Veronica whom he has known for years from when they were both on clarinet in a south London amateur orchestra. \u00a0It will not […]<\/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-426","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\/426","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=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}