Thursday 20th October 2022

I’ve been weeks on Raine. Huge piece to camera required, almost the size of her supreme coiffure.

And now Rishi’s outfits… I’m so used. But menswear in Downing Street! At last. This has to be a new beginning.

Charlie Hurling (he who thinks of the worst thing to say and says it) and Mr Blue Bluelove have been going for 100 years.  At 17, Mr Blue met Charlie. The first thing he said was, ‘I love you.’ And he did. That was 40 years ago. Recently Charlie took 60 years. 40 plus 60 is 100. So 100 years of Charlie Hurling and Mr Blue.

An event was spoken of for 18 months or more. So many WhatsApp groups came and went. A date seemed to emerge. And a venue. A manor in Sussex with extensive extra guest accommodation for sleeping. But I couldn’t see how all the millions in the WhatsApp group could ever fit in. That faded away until a few months ago, Merle Barr told me that some people had paid £200 in advance to stay at a manor. How had they known to do that?  Then only a week beforehand, another WhatsApp group was formed, asking who was coming.  The feeling of improvisation was terrifying.  Wicked Angus Willis was putting it about that Archie and Mr Blue had made off with the £8000 paid in advance and squandered it on foreign holidays.  Incriminating was that only a few days before the supposed event they were on a beach in Crete; no question of finalising placement, checking toilets and table decorations.

It was hard to have faith in a serious function. Nevertheless I boarded in my classic vintage suede jacket from Japan (reduced to £700 15 years ago: how did one ever have the money?) and came into the lawn of the manor. Well, everybody was there. What a miracle! Merle Barr, Olive Wildish, Fergus Strachan, Angus Willis, Cilla Pencil Pleat, James Dean, Dr Whipper, Little Miss Miracle plus numberless others assembled from the dressing up box, whirled together with pink hair, possible clothes, novel eyewear, never-seen-before lengths and widths. Incredible. The design world, the roaring core of enterprise in this country, unstoppable, unplanned, undiarised but falling inevitably into place exactly.

Risk. So important. Charlie put lunch back 40 minutes or maybe an hour. Who cared? I was attacked by Dr Whipper for being common. Olive Wildish loved my suede and suggested a different buttoning. Then there was a surge toward the marquee and luncheon. No placement. Just hurl yourself in and hope for the best. Some were not so lucky. Nowhere to sit at all. Mr Blue had to conjure extra furniture. More had come than hoped for or had said they would come. It was like the bond market on a good day. A great surge of Yes! Yes! Yes! for Charlie Hurling and Mr Blue’s function.

I struck gold with my placing: I had a carpet man who’d fitted at Buckingham Palace. Endlessly we discussed florals. Next to him was the owner of an event company. I’d been to several of his events, it turned out, including Anne Glenconner’s at the Richmond Theatre. These people are the engine house of our Nation.

Then there were the speeches: Mr Blue said he’d been very worried. Would anyone come to the function? Would it rain? They’d spent minutes planning it, he said. Literally. It was all so worrying. Charlie said it was strange that Mr Blue was worried. ‘Often I tell him at 11pm that we’ve got no money left. Then he wakes up in the middle of the night, worrying. So strange. Luckily a tenant paid twice this month by mistake. So that covers the function. We’ll have to give the tenant his money back – but that’s next week’s problem. ‘ So it went on. The roguishness.

Then people erupted from the floor to tell their tales of Charlie and Mr Blue. It was like a gospel meeting; those possessed of the glory of the Lord speaking in tongues to bear witness. The godchildren: one had got into trouble for repeating at school one of Charlie’s limericks about an exploding arse. Some others had had Charlie and Mr Blue living with them when they were small. But they never saw them. They were in bed when they left for school. When they came back, they’d gone out for the evening, not to be seen again that day. The climax was a woman compelled late to testimony, ‘Charlie asked me how big my husband’s penis was,’ she microphoned through the marquee. ‘ I thought: what kind of a question is that? I don’t know why but I answered. Maybe I hoped it would keep him quiet. “Moderate”, I said.  Well, it was hopeless. Now every time Charlie sees my husband he shrieks, “How’s Mr Moderate Penis?”. The husband in question was at home with cancer but recovering.

Later I toured the accommodation blocks outlying the manor. Reassuring: dormitories like a girls’ boarding school.

This function erupted into our universe like one of those comets that come around every million years. It was supreme.

The Venue

The Guests Fore-gather

The Setting

Outfits