{"id":449,"date":"2009-10-08T20:38:44","date_gmt":"2009-10-08T19:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=449"},"modified":"2009-10-19T12:26:05","modified_gmt":"2009-10-19T11:26:05","slug":"lord-arrowby-dines-at-the-multis-%e2%80%93-i-am-still-tormented-by-table-styling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=449","title":{"rendered":"Lord Arrowby dines at the Multis \u2013 I am still tormented by Table Styling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday 8th<\/sup> October 2009<\/p>\n

A triumphant dinner at the Multis last night. Lord Arrowby was induced to attend and did. For most gays the ideal lover is a handsome straight doctor. This he more and more resembles, without actually being a doctor of course \u2013 especially in his suit, direct from the corridors of power, energised and freed by work. We shared a taxi back. I did suggest that his apartment might be the final destination; we could dispense with bit where I went on alone to my home. But he said he had to meet the Home Secretary first thing in the morning.<\/p>\n

This answer was encouraging. Maybe in another ten years….And the glamour of the Home Sec! Can you imagine? Something absolutely purring and reassuring and cosy about it all…<\/p>\n

The others: the blond Multi\u2019s sister and her husband. Outstanding. Some gays won\u2019t have straights but not all of them are leading full normal lives, you know. These certainly aren\u2019t. Persephone says the most devastating things in a dry drawl as if she were reciting instructions for assembling an Ikea item from a flatpack. She dislikes goat cheese; given it at a Kensington dinner, she rushed into the lav to throw up. Only it wasn\u2019t the lav, it was a cupboard full of fur coats. Vivien, who is something absolutely huge in the City, once dragged his teenage daughters out of bed in 4 in the morning to catch a flight for the ski slopes. But he\u2019d got the day wrong. So they had to be re-dragged the next night and, since the clocks changed that day, the hour for elevation was 3 rather than 4.<\/p>\n

As it happens, the Multis\u2019 table was a picture, absolutely perfect, very simple and unpretentious. \u00a0There\u2019s a photo of it below. Yesterday, if you recall, I rather gave up in the subject of table settings. The truth is it is a stone I have left unturned. But gays do style the table, they really do. Often it\u2019s worth it. Once I had lunch with the eccentric opera critic, Seamus O\u2019Reilly and the table was heaped with the most stunning antique engraved glass. It really was a sight.<\/p>\n

The danger is, and the reason why people like Laura Malcolm will go raving mad at the mention of the subject: \u00a0your table can end up looking fussy and common as if it\u2019s been transported direct from the shop window at Harrods.<\/p>\n

But now I think of it, Matt Driver had a mania for underplates in the 80s.<\/p>\n

The attraction of the Multis\u2019 arrangement is that their cutlery and napkins date from their pre-Multi days which they scavenged in second-hand shops. Not everything is perfect. Their glasses are simple and not too tall (very tall glasses are suburban; also impractical) BUT the blond Multi said at first they were \u00a39.99 each, then revised it to \u00a329.99. And you\u2019ve got to have a lot of them, as you can see.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s that marble table, which is some kind of modern classic \u2013 not cheap.<\/p>\n

My glasses are from Divertimenti \u2013 the Asquith range, a sturdy 18th<\/sup> century goblet design, the biggest one \u00a37.75. You can order on-line.<\/p>\n

The best glasses are absolutely plain but not boring; in other words, impossible to find. If they have a thick ridge round the rim, they\u2019re too cheap. Stems are usually the let-down. The rest of it might be all right but the stem will be horribly over-fancy.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s have a list of Don\u2019ts for table decor. On the whole, I prefer Don\u2019ts to Do\u2019s<\/p>\n