My Royal Dinner

Monday 17th November 2014

I did Roasted Loin of Balmoral Venison (the guests participated to the full extent of believing it really came from Balmoral but it’s only what it’s called in ‘A Royal Cookbook’); a self-invented Royal 1st course of smoked salmon, oeufs mollet and what was meant to be caviar but Whole Foods were out of the cheaper American caviar so I had to settle for that awful lumpfish roe stuff. I would have had salmon eggs but they are the wrong colour. I had to have a black element in the dish. The plate was garnished with watercress and there was an ill-conceived dollop of yoghurt and lemon juice. My self-invented Royal ‘starter’ isn’t quite there yet. For dessert, it was a Royal rhubarb parfait with white chocolate. It was meant to be dainty individual ‘portions’ with layers of chocolate meringue cake encased in a upstanding band of white choc but I could see breakdown looming if I tried that as well as £70 on equipment not likely to be used again.

Now we teeter on world recession’s brink – yet again. The money time could be over.

So my Royal dinner could prove the last such of this era. It was intended to be a perfect miniature, perhaps a tiny Meissen button box, with just 3 guests – Stephan Jäger, the international organist and DJ, Mercury, Mr Kitten and Harry Rollo.  A concentrated block of distinction you could never hope to rival but these people love ‘Hello’ magazine, the Royal Family and trash TV. Harry arrived in an enormous fur to resemble Diaghilev, whose slot he now fills although he does more on the performing side than Diaghilev did. I forgot to mention that the week before, after his astonishing latest London perf (the one where, just as you thought it was music, it was movement and vice versa) Harry told of how one of the movers clicked horribly in her bones during a rehearsal. There was talk of an Xray but Harry said, ‘When she lifted up her top I could see there was no point as she was already an Xray.’

Anyway at dinner Harry knew all about the unorthodox sexual practices of a huge figure in the Cabinet. Apparently he’s been in touch with her, praying for silence presumably. But I don’t think they could print it in the Sun. The other thrilling revelation was that Stephan Jäger played the organ at the memorial service for Mrs Hector Barrantes, the mother of Fergiana, who in the front row alternated between hugs and horseplay with her daughters. Elaine Page was engaged to render ‘Don’t Cry for me, Argentina’ (Mrs Hector Barrantes lived in Argentina with Mr Barrentes and indeed met her end there in a road accident) but cancelled at the last minute.

Harry Rollo, the Impressario and Performance Artist, Dressed as His Part-Predecessor, Diaghilev

Posted Monday, November 17, 2014 under Adrian Edge day by day.

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