Dear Rowley,
Lovely to see Chrissie Evert and Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon on first week Saturday. Chris is commentating and Martina is in the Royal Box. Serena Williams is on court and serving up a storm however a gorgeous little pocket of a Chinese girl called Jie Zheng is making a very good account of herself. She’s a yappy little terrier of a girl and puts me in mind of Wendi ‘Hi-Ya’ Deng. I think she might put Serena out of the Championship.
The sun is shining on London and I fear to say the dingbats and drongos are already starting to arrive in town for the Jubolympics. The West End was absolutely mobbed this morning and there was a marked police presence that makes one terribly nervous. I suppose on the plus side this being London’s Olympics, we will have another two weeks of tennis at Wimbledon.
I was of course on slogan T-shirt watch and saw a dille that read ‘I think bad thoughts’. What, for example, like ‘Frau Merkel’s bail out of the Spanish banks will save the Euro’ perhaps? There is a tourist tat shop in Leicester Square that is selling a T I am tempted to buy and wear during the Olympics. The slogan reads, ‘I don’t need to have sex. The government f**** me every day’.
This morning I had debenture tickets to the annual Masterpiece selling exhibition at Chelsea. I love the Saturday because it is invariably quiet and you don’t have to go nose to tit with Vogue editors to get a good view of the the wares on display. Many of the fine antique jewel houses such as Wartski and Sandra Cronan were in residence in the tents. Geoffrey was on fine form and, as usual, at the mercy of his silver surfing groupies who all adore the twinkly eyed charmer from the Antiques Roadshow. Sandra I didn’t see but I did manage to eyeball a magnificent aquamarine and natural pearl parure made for a Russian ballerina that was one of the prettiest pieces of jewellery at the fair.
Came also to Masterpiece all of London’s fine art and antique furniture shops such as Philip Mould and Mallett. I swear, Rowley, there was enough ormolu on display to make Madame Dubarry feel right at home. There were also Rolls Royce cars, yachts, Ferraris and Harley Davidsons that would probably please our Middle and Far Eastern guests who always descend on London in late June/July. Highlight of the event was a diamond exhibition curated by Carol Woolton, Jewellery Editor of Vogue and a great mate.
Carol’s exhibition had many little pieces of magic: a tiara set by Moussaieff, a diamond and emerald snake head necklace made by Shaun Leane and a great big Graff sparkler. Possibly the most hideous piece of jewellery I have ever seen was sent by Karl Lagerfeld who designed a black leather detachable collar set with an emerald and two tramlines of pave diamonds. It looked like the sort of jewel a galactic Nazi would buy for his Brunhilde.
I heard the funniest thing about Lagerfeld recently. He was planning a launch for something at Selfridges and insisted that his limousine barrel up to the department store’s front door. He was told it is not permitted to drive private vehicles down Oxford Street. A day later Lagerfeld’s press office rang and said ‘we’ve done some research and the Prince of Wales’s Daimler was allowed to park outside Selfridges’. The hubris! The man’s a scrawny poof with questionable taste and enough pretention to float Fire Island.
And another thing! Weren’t you shocked that Katie Holmes Cruise has announced her separation from Tom? I couldn’t have been less surprised if you told me bankers are blood-sucking vampires and Mr Cameron a self-seeking pudding face beholden to Google. Did you read in the paper (Daily Mail darling) that Cameron has reassured t’Internet giants that he won’t endorse censoring Internet porn? It is a bloody disgrace. England’s children are already the victims of sexualisation online and for the government not to stop it is a national scandal.
Back to Tom Cruise. Scientology: discuss. What do Mr Cruise (an unfortunate name for a closet homosexual if ever there was one) and John Travolta have in common? Travolta has seen off more lawsuits from masseurs he has attempted to molest than I’ve had, well, let’s leave it there. Cruise’s people have clearly been more effective in keeping the boss out of the newspapers and the law courts. Perhaps he has sufficiently suppressed doing what comes naturally at the behest of his Scientology masters. Either way, in this day and age I’d say better to be glad to be gay than be linked to a sinister, cockeyed religious cult.
Are there any out gay actors in Hollywood? If there aren’t then I think it is a damned shame. I suppose the closest we have come is Rupert Everett who, I believe, lives round the corner from Bloomsbury Towers. I often see him stoating round the hood in a pair of sweat pants and a baseball cap. He’s still looking good, Rizzo. I will always love Rupert for Another Country and latterly for his marvellous Duchess of Cornwall turn as Headmistress Fritton in St Trinians. I also love his memoirs Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins though the title stinks on hot ice. His novel Hello Darling Are You Working? was another highpoint of my university years.
Serena has lost the first set. It must be the gypsy in me as my Nan Sherwood always used to say. God I miss her. It is my Nan’s birthday on July the 4th and not coincidentally the anniversary of her death. I think I’m due to be on ITV This Morning with Philip and Holly that day doing a piece about The Queen’s Diamonds exhibition at Buckingham Palace. Do you believe in guardian angels? I think I do. Don’t you just love the flowers at Masterpiece? Wild at Heart darling.