Dear Rowley,
As I type, I am on the daybed in Bloomsbury Towers with a pink Cordonieu and a packet of St Moritz watching Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in the definitive 90s gay movie My Own Private Idaho. What a pretty picture. The plot about hustlers is based loosely on Henry IV and the relationship between Prince Hal and Falstaff. Do see if you can’t buy the DVD. River was such a beautiful boy. How tragic that he died of a herion overdose outside the Viper Room nightclub in LA in his twenties.
But, ‘as the poets have mournfully sung, death takes the innocent young. The rolling in money, the screamingly funny and those who are very well hung’. So what else is new? I bought the most gorgeous woven bright yellow belt in Nice that I think we should stock at Anderson & Sheppard’s new shop at No 17 Clifford Street. I would like to personally volunteer for the buying trip to the Riviera accompanied by the Artist no doubt.
Can we talk about customer service? I’ve had some lovely experiences of late. On Wednesday I went to the Orange shop because my monthly DD was reaching north of £100. This I found ridiculous. I do have an Ipad and monthly charge for global internet access but don’t use the useless piece of kit. I hate typing on a touch screen and use it for nothing more useful than the occasional website such as Men At Play. So I’m junking the bloody thing and switching my payment plan. Previously I was Beaver. Now I am Panther. Beaver’s motto is ‘for those who talk fast and to the point’. Panther is for ‘I want everything all the time’. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
The boys in the Oxford Circus Orange store were superb. They even gave me a brand spanking new swanky BlackBerry. Can’t be doing with the Iphone. All people really use it for are pick-up apps like Grinder. I mean really, do you want other people to be able to track your every footstep and know – with pictures – that you’re up for it? I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. Being old fashioned, I much prefer the furtive glance and the tiny smile. This usually results in a frantic tumble and a shy goodbye but there we are.
Excellent customer service number two came at Rymans on Southampton Row. I went in to post two packages. The first was a pink perspex cuff from Edwards & Todd on Museum Street to my oldest and dearest friend Tessa Salmo who I saw when I was last in Newcastle upon Tyne for lunch. We went to a 12th century monastery that had in recent years been converted into a restaurant. We sat at a table in the cloister smoking cigarettes and drinking Champagne and it was truly magical. We hadn’t seen each other for over a decade and yet when we met we spoke as if our University days were seconds away not decades.
Back to Rymans. I am picky. If I send a DHL and the box needs padding I don’t want red tissue paper. I want white. So white it was. Better Half’s niece Lucinda won three A stars a couple of days ago so could be eligible for a History of Art degree course at the Courtauld Institute in London. As a well done gift, I sent her my Tiffany travel clock that I have recently had tarted up. It is a tobacco crocodile and silver case that when retracting reveals a clock face with a little silver stand. The note read ‘make the most of every day. Time flies’.
I do love to give gifts. It is something that gives me almost as much pleasure as receiving one. It is my 41st birthday in October this year. fortunately, it is also the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death so there are many many books and box sets released that I would love to own. So no dearth of gift ideas for the list this year at least. My family and other animals tell me I am impossible to buy for. I disagree. I love gifts with thought and love not gifts that cost a fortune.
Apropos of this, I have discovered I really don’t like expensive shoes. They bore me to tears. So when I won a pair of George Cleverley shoes in the MTBA raffle at the Merchant Taylors’ Summer Party, I gave them to my Better Half. If I had my way, I would wear suede moccasins or loafers for life. I bought a lovely pair of caramel suede moccasins with a little bow on the bridge of the foot from Office in Covent Garden today. The assistant was such a cutie. He complimented my Chappel’s aquamarine leather music case and showed an interest. What more can one ask for?
You know you have luxury items around the house that malfunction so you shove them in a drawer and leave them to gather dust? I’ve got a Chaumet fountain pen and a Chaumet Dandy dress watch that the Chaumet Museum curator Madame Beatrice de Plinval gave me. Both got busted so I sent them back to Paris to be valeted. When I went to Chaumet to pick up the pen, the directrice was kind enough to admire the Grandmother Sherwood diamond and ruby ring. She also offered to clean it. Once a diamond ring is professionally cleaned, it sparkles like the North Star.
Alright ducks, it is off to Ciao Bella with Mr Bowering, La Farmer and Better Half tonight. I am so looking forward to. Until next time…