Lord Arrowby’s Party is the Climax of the Pre-Christmas Season

Monday 21st December 2009

8pm. Saturday. Lord Arrowby’s party. We end as we began in a gleaming London warehouse apartment that murmurs ‘finish, finish, finish.’ Or rather screams. Two weeks ago at Ned Czernowski and Peter Acharya’s the smooth ascent to Christmas began; now in Lord Arrowby’s ballroom-sized living space, we dock peacefully but ecstatically on the upper slopes.

Not for nothing does Lord Arrowby run the country! He’s in government circles, you know; breakfast meetings with the Home Sec, shaping long-term policy, identity cards possibly. Nobody really knows.

And looking radiant for his party. No hint of party nerves. Blazing blue eyes, rich bronzed glow, tight, whippy trousers and a bold shirt stopping short of Hawaiian. Lord A loves a party shirt. Rufus Pitman, the critic and novelist, said, ‘Is that cerulean?’ I think it was. Cerulean quite a theme. The Blond Multi was astonishing and stunning in a three-piece suit in corduroy of that colour. The Photographer Multi and Rufus Pitman were sumptuous in velvet smoking jackets, the Multi’s from Brighton market, Rufus’s from a specialist and very rare shop.

What arrangements!  What administration! Two waitresses, but that’s the wrong word. One was ash blonde, elfin, tiny, the other black-haired, statuesque, could have been a Spanish donna –  both entirely artificial, excellently contrasting and very efficient. Cascades of canapés, pastries ordered specially from Borough Market, champagne glass never empty –

With the result, you know how it is at parties…  conversation careered rather with the tiniest tinge of paranoia. I just hope I didn’t say anything wrong.

Finally reunited with Reginald Cresswell, the Ghanaian ceramicist, not seen for six months. He has been slaving over a very complicated ceramic with human figures in it and possibly moving parts and chandeliers. In and out the kiln. To be unveiled in 2011.  Our topic: Althorp. It’s a stately home. Google if you’ve never heard… He has a ceramic there – in the private apartments.  Me: ‘Rather dreary facade.’ Reggie: ‘I don’t think so.’ Me: ‘Rows of windows.’ No idea what that was supposed to mean. Not been there for years. Reggie: ‘It’s an important house. Do you want to see a picture of my bedroom there?’ (produces phone). Me: ‘View from the windows rather dreary.’

Something had to be dreary.

There’s no escape, Poor Little Rich Gays do cover a range.  Rufus Pitman and the Photographer Multi: art and perfume. Rufus is to be a judge of a very famous modern art prize next year. The winner is usually a video or Grayson Perry. He is going to nominate some quiet water-colourists. Meanwhile he has at least 15 different fumes in stock. Shamefully I can’t recall which he was wearing. It might have been the one he formerly described as ‘clever but odd.’

Someone else, said to be Mexican, was delving into gay and straight sex, compare and contrast. Had met a straight couple; the man in a ‘Scottish skirt’ and nothing else (now hands over ears if you’re dainty) expressed an enthusiasm for dildoes. Maybe more to straights than we had thought.

Anthony Mottram (yes, over from Prague!) and the Blond Multi were absolute head in papers: takeover bids, exit strategy, multiples to be paid or not paid – both businessmen, you see. Mottram Corp soon to be up for sale, the Blond Multi having already sold, hence a Multi, although, in fact, a Multi in all sorts of other ways.

Intriguing tit-bit re: Smallmeal wends its way. Massivebury running costs £10,000 a week, frightful drain on the Smallmeal wage-packet – he’s an employee, if you remember.

It’s no wonder he has to go to Waitrose.

But you’d think his side-line in the Central of Europe where he appears often as avuncular figure in roadside ads for processed cheese would bring in a bit.

For a while I study Lord Arrowby’s enormous cooker. Six rings. Huge oven. It must have come with the apartment for he doesn’t cook. Just pies from Borough Market heated up for the occasional solitary supper with head in papers.

Will I ever preside at that stove, offering something appetising, refreshing and decorative to a lordship shattered by a frantic day running the country?

It’s probably the wrong approach. If Lord A is not interested in food, he is not interested in food.

But on the other hand, he is! I’ve heard him being frightfully discriminating about restaurants.

You just never know, do you? Especially with Poor Little Rich Gays.

Posted Monday, December 21, 2009 under Adrian Edge day by day.

4 comments

  1. Rufus Pitman says:

    I feel an urgent need to elucidate. The fume one was wearing at Lord A’s was a production from Etat Libre d’Orange called Secretions Magnifiques, or Splendid Emissions. At the opposite end of the spectrum from the very quiet and refined Cologne Blanche de Dior I was reported wearing at Borough Market the other day. I expect one made the lift at Lord Arrowby’s unusable for weeks. It (Secretions Magnifiques) is supposed to smell of milk, blood and semen, and is reported by The Book to contain “a stupendous bilge note.” Only to be produced on very special occasions. The House also produces a terrific fume called Jasmine and Cigarettes, which does exactly what it s on the t, and a new one called Fat Electrician, illustrated on the bottle by a builders’ bum-cleavage (I can’t report what Splendid Emissions is illustrated by) which is said to contain wonderful fat top-notes of saffron. Certainly very metallic in rather a sexy way. I tried to smell it in Les Senteurs in Elizabeth Street the other day but was defeated by the general ambience, even when I went to stand outside for the purpose of sniffing.

  2. admin says:

    How lucky we are to have these superb perfume notes. What it is when great minds bend to the smaller but vital things

  3. Dmitry Hersov says:

    I’m going to hi-jack your comments on Lord Arrowby’s pardy to say Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to (in no particular order) Fergus Strachan, Angus Willis (Christmas tiramisu?), Anthony Mottram, Bruce MacBain, Robert Nevil, Seb Archer, Elsa Hodgeman, Simon Limpney and Robin Smallmeal (I forgot the Massivebury postcode somehow) and Val. I finished doing my Christmas cards and realised that I was lacking in address details.

  4. admin says:

    No doubt we will receive a massively detailed dossier on all these people’s Christmases with post-it notes attached for improvements next year

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