Principles of Tea-making and an explanation of the P45

A P45 is a type of document issued by an employer which dispatches an employee into unemployment with the promise of the Job Seeker's Allowance.  This benefit is a type of Government pocket-money that allows claimants to binge on vodka and cocaine, without actually doing a day's worth of work.

I had to get my private secretary to prepare such a P45 for one of my employees, a scullery maid who was utterly incapable of making a cup of tea to my exact specifications.

I keep this brown envelope sellotaped to my desk at all times.  It is a strict colour reference to the way I like my tea served. 

Any beverage served not matching this exact shade of brown - known technically as Raw Umber, colour swatch #77 - and such tea not having been made under strict instructions - one sugar, stirred anti-clockwise with antique silverware - is robustly rejected.

I Love Fanny hats

I was honoured to find that these items of appareil are now being sold widely across the internet.  What an indispensible fashion accessory.

Dress made from Peacock Feathers and trip to Wales

This wonderful dress - a rare garment, made in the early 1900s entirely from peacock feathers - takes pride of place in my wardrobe, whether it be worn for shopping trips to Primark or Asda in Swindon, or more socially-elevated occasions such as opening a new branch of Liberty's in Chippenham.  I have been photographed in it on many occasions.   I shall probably wear it when I am chauffeured down to St David's, although I am talking to my stylist. 

My stylist is sending me a Hermes scarf, in peacock green, which I am awaiting with bated breasts.

I have since discovered that St David's is in Wales, which is a country whose shape on a geographical map looks like a pig's nose:

Do you see what I mean?  If your eye runs down from Anglesey, down the Ceredigion coast to Tenby and onwards to the Gower, the whole shape is unmistakably like a pig's nose.  (At least, I'm not expected to visit the pig's arse, which by my approximation of the spatial geography of the British Isles would be Gravesend, with 70% of its populace living below the poverty line, making it a ruthlessly depraved sink-hole town that, by my opinion, should have been bombed in the 1980s).

Consequently, I am alarmed by the prospect of this trip.  I have now received a full programme and it appears that an "Elizabethan Lesbian Sung Eucharist" is part of the day. 

A "Sung Eucharist" is a more formal service, not limited to any one denomination; essentially, every prayer and every congregational response is sung.  But lesbians?  Welsh lesbians?  Elizabethan Welsh lesbians?  Lesbians bearing gifts, such as lesbian jam, with lesbian poetry readings?

Apparently, in certain quarters, a practice known as "labia lashing" is also remarkably popular, although at the current time of writing, I am unsure as to what this actually is.  If any reader would care to avail me with the knowledge as to what this is, I would be happy to post a full description of it on here.  I suspect it is something to do with philately.

I have been swayed by the promise of luxury accommodation, paid for in full by the organiser, so I shall have to put aside my concerns about Welsh congregational lesbianism, and their filthy Elizabethan practices.  

My gorgeous girlfriend, Truelove

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A dress made of what?

A reader from Cornwall has sent me the suggestion below for an alternative summer dress. 

To be brutally honest, why would anyone want to wear such a garment made from corn-stalks?   Times are desperate with people living in poverty, but there's simply no need to resort to such depths when the hoi polloi can still go to Primark and buy discounted clothing from £1, or failing that, Oxfam where second-hand clothing goes for 50p upwards.

Thank you, Geraldine, from St Ives, Cornwall, for your suggestion, albeit a perversely outlandish one.  I don't know what you get up to in Cornwall, but us Wiltshire inhabitants have far more style than to wear bits of the countryside about our bodies.  

A peek inside my home

Following my posting about disgusting Ikea furniture, a reader emailed to ask about the interior my home - Fanny Towers.   Well, it's an old, sprawling country estate in the middle of the countryside in East Wiltshire.  I've lived here for over ten years.  I decorated much of the interior myself, choosing colours, and assembling collections of furniture and objet d'art.  

Here are some pictures to give you an idea:

Invitation to St David's - but where is it?

I have been invited to St David's to give an operatic performance.   They have promised to put me up in luxury accommodation.  I don't know any more details yet as my private secretary is speaking to them as I write this.

Where is St David's?  I am thrilled though to be invited, and am already wondering what to wear...

New shoes

My dear friend, a famous French designer, sent me a package which arrived this morning.  These beautiful shoes - Isolde 160mm heels - which cost nearly as much as a Rolex Daytona.  The French fashion industry so loves to photograph me wearing such items; it invariably starts a trend.

I love to wear these types of shoes out and about, especially on shopping visits to Bristol.  I also wear torn fishnets, glitter around my eyes, a turquoise wig and see-through lingerie.  

I don't know why, but many regard me as quite conservative. 

Castle Combe - one of my favourite villages

This is a photo I took about a month ago, during the unexpected snowfall.  It is the village of Castle Combe, in North Wiltshire.  Dr Doolittle, the film, was shot here and it is often cited as the most beautiful village in England. 

Set in a deep wooded valley, with the Bybrook flowing through, the village consists of 15th-century Cotswold stone cottages, a turreted church, a stone-canopied market cross and a medieval manor house.  Although it is a good 1 hour drive from my home in East Wiltshire, I visit the village often, but for more debaucherous reasons:

He's one of my favourite toy-boys.   I always have a good time with him, coming back utterly exhausted.  He has just had another tattoo done, immortalising his favourite girlfriend - moi! 

Preparing for an evening out

I am still recovering from the South African Airways flight (it may take many weeks and even a series of cognitive behaviour therapy), but I have been asked to attend a local, traditional pub in Great Bedwyn tonight, to give a poetry reading.

I haven't been able to decide what to wear. 

This is a very rural part of Wiltshire and I do not believe the locals are much accustomed to liberated, urban ways.  I don't think they know much about me, or what I get up to at Fanny Towers.

Given the reading is likely to be attended by several members of the clergy, some farming families, a founder of the East Wilts Christian Movement, and the local MP, I thought I would dress-down for the occasion to avoid upsetting their delicate sensibilities. 

Here's what I will be wearing:

and I managed to pick up this gorgeous range of lipstick in Cape Town:

I do hope the evening will go well.  It was requested that I chose the subject of poetry to be read, a sort of free association.  "Just read us your best, most accomplished works".

It is true that poetry about the subtle nuances of the Wiltshire countryside would be appropriate, but I thought "what the hell!" and opted for some of my darker works, on cottaging and sado-masochism.

When the cat's away...

Imagine my outright horror to return from a wonderfully relaxing holiday in Cape Town to find a delivery of Ikea furniture had been made.  More precisely, a disgusting, mint-green two-seater sofa.

Apparently, it was a present from a Great Aunt.

I can tell you I was consumed by murderous rage to find this disgusting item of Ikea furniture in my banquet hall.  It is the sort of furniture one finds in council-run seaside nursing homes.  I didn't ask for it.  It is an unwanted gift, a crude object, one of loathsome distaste.

Needless to say, it did not stay in the above condition for very long.

Obesity at Johannesburg International Airport

They tried to whisk me through the VIP entrance, but there was chaos at Johannesburg International Airport.

Once in the VIP lounge, I was frozen in horror.  Just a short distance away, I saw a gargantuan woman, waving around a Belgian passport, allowing her enormous frame to sit dangerously upon a metal, fold-up chair.  Her red, sluttish, brightly-lipsticked mouth opened to gobble down Belgian chocolate eclairs, the packet showing 100% full fat; a pudgy hand popped another eclair in and she looked like she was going to explode. 

This woman was the size of a small house.  She looked like she was on her fifth packet.  She seemed dangerously close to crushing to pieces the metal fold-up chair she was sitting on.  I do not know if the floor gave way, or if anyone was killed in the incident, as I turn and fled.  Fortunately, my flight to London was only 30 minutes from departure.  It was an upsetting experience to an otherwise wonderful holiday.  I do not know how this imposter got into the VIP lounge.  People from Belgium should not be allowed in at all, never mind people of this girth.   This sort of incident is the very reason I always fly first class!

Sandy Bay, near Cape Town

I adore beaches.  One of the most astonishingly-beautiful beaches in the world is a 30-minute drive from Cape Town.  It is called Sandy Bay, a rather plain name in my mind.  You drive down through Llandudno and park where the road ends (it's signposted from the main road).

A track, partly laid with boardwalk that eventually peters out, leads away from civilisation to a superb coastal wilderness that is Cape Town's most Elysian place of beauty:  a small, stark place - a plage sauvage - drenced in eternal sunlight, the clefts in its hills choked with milkwood trees, and going up to the thicker, virgin forests of the Table Mountain Nature Reserve.  The reddish earth gives way to Tippex-white dunes; these dunes are littered with pink-tinged boulders that act as natural wind-buffers.   Beneath all this, a yawn of breadcrumb-textured sand that is as white as snow. 

Ahead, the mountain comes down to the sea, framing the panorama.  In between it, the pinkish rock conceals, then reveals first small coves of white sand, then a large tongue of the whitest sand I've ever seen.  It is quite possible to claim a cove as your own for the day.

The ocean is bottle-green, especially in the coves and at the water's edge, changing to dark blue further out; the Agulhas current forces cool water from Antarctica up this coast, so it is an unexpected, but pleasant surprise, to find the sea so delightfully refreshing on such a hot day.  But the ocean is by no means cold by Northern European standards.

I glimpse sea anenomes - coloured purple, red, yellow, green and blue - in the rockpools.  There's not a single building in sight.  A visit here gives one the feeling of ultimate escapism and wild abandon, like being marooned on a desert island, yet one richly endowed with pleasures for the senses. The scene is framed by a harsh blue sky.  It is 30c, there is not a breath of wind.

The place is a haven for nature lovers, romantics and naturists.  

I know I am in Africa when I find a place of such rare beauty as this.

Arrival in Cape Town

I own a wine estate just outside Cape Town, South Africa, and given the never-ending Satanic English winter, I decided to take myself off for a 10-day visit; well, what harm could it do to get some well-needed Vitamin D to lift the winter blues, as well as check out a city that always seems to be full of hunky Cape Tonians who know how to party.

The above shot was taken from a helicopter ride I took.  I hope it shows you how beautiful I find Cape Town.

I wanted some independence during my stay, so rather than stay at the accommodation on the wine estate, which is 1 hour outside Cape Town, I opted to stay at what for me is not only the most luxury hotel in Cape Town, it is also one of the best hotels in the world: Ellerman House.

Once the summer residence of shipping magnate Sir John Ellerman and his wife, Lady Esther, this cliff-hugging Cape Edwardian mansion has nine rooms, two suites, a 180 degree spa with infinity pool, a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired villa, and one of South Africa’s finest collections of contemporary local art inside a 30-ft gallery carved into the rock beneath the large, manicured garden.  The views from the garden are the best in Cape Town, stretching over the glittering Atlantic, to Robben Island and inland to the Lion’s Head; the staff tell me Lady Esther used a telescope to check the punctuality of ships on their course through the boulder-strewn waters below. 

Every guest-room is different, but themed around the ocean, such as the aquamarine, beige and oyster pastels of my bedroom, No 2.  I also adore the Cape Dutch furniture chosen for its collectibility and beauty, the duck-egg blue of the breakfast room ("you should feel like you are inside a Tiffany box") and the HIER Sculpture, a 20-ton man’s head made from stacked slate, beside a statue of a man pointing, entitled Order and Chaos, both created by Angus Taylor. 

I took an interesting cultural tour around the rainbow-coloured streets of Bo-Kaap, the old Malay quarter of Cape Town, in which one can sample some great curries. 

I will post more on my stay in Cape Town under a new entry.

Wedding Dress On Fire

People are always asking about this extraordinary photograph: a  photographer took this of me wearing a 1930s wedding dress that was set on fire. 

I can only say we used a special mix of petrol and several high-powered fire extinguishers.  We had lots of specially-trained staff, experts in fire and special effects.  The stunt should not be attempted by anyone reading this, not even in the pursuit of attention-seeking.  Although, I have to admit that anyone walking down Tooting High Road in a wedding dress on fire would attract a certain type of attention.

The philosophy behind such a shot was to capture anger, beauty and destruction.  The destruction of a wedding dress is sacrilegious. 

To be in a barren desert, in an antique wedding dress (itself a symbol of luxury, feminity, culturalism) whilst on fire, with head raised, seemingly oblivious to the danger, was a beautiful moment.

I would willingly perish for my art.  Move over, Gaga.

Size Matters

Regarding the naked cycle ride from London to Wellingborough on my old Penny-Farthing to raise money for Battersea Dogs' Home (or is it the cause of Terri the transvestite who hangs out in laybys turning tricks with strangers), I have been pondering the best way to stage this, for maximum publicity.

I sat this afternoon in the Banquet Hall.  Ideas seem to come naturally to me here.  It's a place of solace, to be honest, in the far wing of my mansion, away from noise and the prattle of serving wenches. 

My velveteen, Prussian blue chaise-longue, itself an Italian antique, was pushed dangerously close to the fiercely crackling log fire; my nervous indecision, perplexed at this conundrum, was easied by the taking of a double measure of vodka martini, a pipe-opener on these cold winter afternoons.  Things were soon presenting themselves more lucidly.

In the side of the chaise-longue is a 'secret cupboard' and in it, I recovered an old photo of my first boyfriend - a blue-eyed, 23 year old Texan farmer called Beau - who worked as a stuntman in the 1980s.  The above shot is him, riding on a gigantic, fifteen-metre high Penny-Farthing.


If only I could get hold of a Penny-Farthing bicycle of these dimensions, and then ride naked from London to Wellingborough, my protest would be a victory.  At such a height, everyone would see me, and know exactly what I was campaigning for!

I shall give it some thought!

Pink Leather Trousers

After a 2 month wait, the post-lady delivered a package yesterday bearing the postmark Singapore; externally, it looked like it had been savaged by wild dogs (such are the failings of the Royal Mail postal service).  Inside, I found a pair of pink leather trousers, in perfect condition, specially made by a designer friend.

These are a gift for my favourite member of staff, my chauffeur, also my fuck-slut, Juan.  I have, in the past, eaten caviar from his well-defined ribs.  He is Brazilian, speaks very little English, and very loyal.  I have asked him to wear the pink leather trousers and a white tuxedo when he drives me around the country.

Cruising Discreetly

Taken by my good photographer friend, James Pilkington-Smyth, this shot perfectly captures my gay abandon on a dank, muddy November morning last year when I decided to go out cruising at a layby in South Wales, wearing a white wedding dress.

Overheard Conversation

The other day I had the misfortune to visit Swindon, the largest town in Wiltshire.  Apparently, it gets its name from the Old English Swine Dun meaning the Hill where Pigs are bred.  So fitting for such a modern-day pig-sty.  As I was walking past the railway station, I overheard this conversation: "Just because I still live with my Mother doesn't mean I go up the chocolate escalator".

Naked ride on a Penny-Farthing Bicycle

I have asked my assistant to go to the garage and oil my Penny-Farthing bicycle. I am planning a naked cycle ride from London to Wellingborough. Whilst many of you know that I love to wear a white wedding-dress when out and about, I cannot wear this on the bicycle as the delicate lace fretwork would become entangled in the spokes.

Caviar in the Snow

(My home, Fanny Towers, hidden in the depths of the East Wiltshire countryside, England)

Snow fell heavily yesterday over the tiny East Wiltshire hamlet where I live; so much that my walled garden and servant's quarters were inaccessible under 6 feet of the cold, white stuff.  This meant my staff had to dig their way out, just to make my breakfast.  I cannot begin to describe the mayhem: at one point, Polly the scullery maid - she's 86, deaf, bent over double, with a face liked a whiskered walrus, black eyes and halitosis that could halt radio broadcasts - slid on ice and my breakfast, a boiled egg with Iranian Beluga caviar ($2,000 per pot), went crashing to the ground. 

Can you imagine her, on her knobbly knees, trying to collect tiny black balls of caviar from the snowy recesses of my garden using a teaspoon?  Needless to say, her P45 is currently being typed up.