Molly Parkin: The portrait by the artist Trademark

Molly Parkin by Trademark

I love this new hyper-glam portrait of my permanent fiancee Molly Parkin, due to be unveiled at La Galleria, 30 Royal Opera Arcade, Pall Mall, London SW1Y 4UY on  26 April, 2011.

It's the work of artist Trademark aka Mark Wardel. His other celebrity subjects include Kylie Minogue (who commissioned a series of portraits for her Showgirl Homecoming Tour), Divine, Grace Jones, David Bowie and Boy George (who describes Trademark as a modern-day Warhol).

And Kanye West and Naomi Campbell are among star collectors of his artwork.

Of the Moll unveiling, Trademark tells me: 'The event is being filmed as part of the BBC4 profile which has followed the process of myself painting this portrait of your fiancee.'

I would affectionately title her Nefertiti-like portrait: Moll: Murder By Maquillage. The purple lips are sealed - for today she will spare you a sharp retort - while the black eye greasepaint is a promise of risky drama, lovingly applied. This face is trouble.

To view more of Trademark's work, click here. For a critique, go to this.

PS to Trademark: Think about Judge Judy. Turn this hideous virago and persecutor of the fat, blue-collared litigant into a drag queen. She is the most dangerous woman in America. She is also thin. And cruel.

Philip Levine and Headism: Time we were all baldazzled

Philip Levine's Tsunami. Daniel Regan's
photography
and Kat Sinclair's body art

Though I boast a luxuriant and stylish head of hair, shiny and bouncy with each toss, I do recognise that bald can be sexy. And this is almost entirely due do to the work of cultural entrepreneur Philip Levine whose pate is his canvas.

Do catch his debut exhibition 'Headism', featuring his best head designs, at the NL Gallery 40/42 Riding House Street, London, W1W 7E, May 3-9. Photography by Daniel Regan, documentary by Viviane Castillo and sculpture supported by Lifecast. All his designs are in collaboration with body artist Kat Sinclair. There will be a published book of these images.

Philip Levine's baldazzled head,
 boldly going.
 Daniel Regan's
 photography
 and Kat Sinclair's body art



More details on his site (link above) and on Facebook. Philip will be an exhibit during the Friday Late evening at the V&A on 25th March 2011. There will also be an estimated 10 posters of his head images displayed on the London underground from 11th April 2011 in a build up to the gallery show.

He first caught Madame Arcati's attention in 2009 when I laboured a pun on giving head and his work to caricature my apparent obsession with cock. Nothing could be further from the truth.



I shall know Philip Levine's genius has touched cultural base when yet another useless cock-cunting British PM enters No 10 baldazzled.

Dan Farson exhibition: The late Soho and its bohemian habitués

Sailors in Fitzroy by Farson

The photographs of Francis Bacon's whipping boy, Dan Farson, can ve viewed and bought at Blacks Club at London's 67 Dean Street, W1, until March 12th. Don't miss the Private View on Feb 23, 6.30-8.30pm: at 7.15pm., there will be a brief talk by the artist, writer and Soho DJ (and my fiancée) Molly Parkin, and Soho based bespoke tailor Mark Powell (both pictured below by Benjamin Maggs, a Pisces), who is currently working on an outfit for the modfather himself, Paul Weller. They will talk about their Soho experiences past and present, and their memories of Dan Farson.

The flyer reads: "Through the lens of Dan Farson, Soho scenes and its bohemian habitués of the 1950's come to life. Several of the photographs are featured in the remarkable book by Farson Soho in the Fifties, with an introduction by jazz legend and author the late George Melly."

Apparently Farson was also a gifted writer and broadcaster. The first I heard of him was from the late Robert Tewdwr Moss who met him in a Syrian hotel in the mid-90s. Robert describes the encounters in his travel book Cleopatra's Wedding Present. From memory, Farson - drunken and shambolic by this time - took against him, launching into ferocious, froth-flecked tirades. Robert's crimes appeared to be that he was handsome, gay and sexually active. I can't recall if Robert actually names Farson in the book.

As I write I can't find my copy to check. Perhaps Farson's ghost has hidden it.

Farson's autobiography Never a Normal Man

Nicky Haslam TV show: Now who was it who made him cry?

Nicky Haslam and Paris Hilton give each other a facial

Don't miss Hi Society - The Wonderful World of Nicky Haslam (Nov 17, BBC4, 9pm). It's billed as a "documentary about the socialite, bon viveur and wit Nicky Haslam, one of the world's most respected interior designers, whose clients include royalty, rock stars and Russians." And other r-ses. Word reaches me that the film is "made" by making Nicky cry on-screen. It was David Jenkins's questioning which did that - but director/producer Hannah Rothschild was dubbed over the top. Not for her greater glory, natch!

Meantime, here's Nicky promoting his memoir Redeeming Features, now being reprinted. Click once to play.

David Litchfield interview: 'Ritz, Ms Nicky Haslam and other lewd acts'

David Litchfield

If you don't know of Ritz then just fuck off. Ritz was the best British magazine ever, the magazine that ushered the antichrists of celebrity journalism and the paparazzi into our modern UK media with its pioneering Q'n'As, swaggering photography and total respect for the uncorrected hiccups of A-listers - their burps, farts and slip-ups. It was co-founded in 1976 by David Bailey and ... its editor David Litchfield.

Mr Litchfield is a shadowy coolish figure, a bold name phantom of murky European blue blood - [my] "step-great-grandmother was a Hungarian Countess, Ottilie von Schosberger" - and for more bio click here. Ritz was the size of a newspaper and had the heft of a glossy: it dazzled with its range and bitchery - speaking personally, its daubed logo alone prompted dilation, pupil or otherwise, as if a sculpted buttock in a WH Smith pew. Ritz roamed as an invited member of the slebby party circuit, and repaid the best canapés with delicious copy for the kleptomaniac stay-at-home broadsheets. It made you feel so-not-up-there.

Mr Litchfield and Madame Arcati interacted ....

David Litchfield! My God! I mean, you are a God. You co-founded with David Bailey the most glamorous magazine Britain ever had, Ritz. I guzzled on its celebrity teats before its closure in the early 90s. George Michael cites it as a major influence, even Jordan appeared in it. EVEN Nicholas Coleridge with all his umms and errs. He's so inarticulate. Why David, why? (did you close it down?)

Not ‘that’ Jordan! The World’s End Jordan. Michael Roberts’ Jordan. ‘The Dyke from the Deep’. Coleridge only ‘umms’ and ‘errs’ when he hasn’t had enough Retsina. After fifteen years of partying, I needed some fresh air.

Ooops, if you've seen one Jordan you've seen them all. Ritz was modelled on Warhol's Interview, was it not?

Yes, but only enough to annoy Bob Colacello. We had fashion and girls, for God’s sake. Andy loved it because Ritz had gossip. He never understood why Interview didn’t. Did you know Andy and I had the same mother?

Er, really ....You are to blame for our celebrity-obsessed culture just as Lichfield brought the paparazzi to Britain? Defend yourself. Are you to blame for .... OK!?

Celebrity is ‘fame without talent’. We only did people who did things. We did gossip, bitch and parties so that we didn’t have to pay for our own champagne and cocaine. We used to travel by taxi, singing ‘Cocaine, Cocaine, The Musical Fruit’ to the tune of ‘Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam’. How was it all going to end?

Photo: Mr L, by John Swannell, National Portrait Gallery

Is it true stars like Brando, De Niro and Her Serene Highness Grace Kelly used to pop into your office for a booze up with Bailey, photographer Richard Young and yourself?

Yes, it’s true. It’s all true. But rarely in the office. Usually at Langans’ or Eleven Park Walk or Bailey’s place. And never Grace, or the Bagel Snapper. He was busy convincing Bubbles Harmsworth that he worked for the Daily Mail. I did Princess Stephanie at her hotel.

Name a few of the favourite celebrity pieces you ran, and least favourite. And name one star cunt. Lord Lichfield said when you interviewed him, "Now, let's get this straight. Why don't I get paid when I work for you?"

My favourite interview was with Orson Welles, who only said: ‘NO’. Nothing else. My second favourite interview was with The Queen. I said: ‘Oh, Hi’. She smiled and said: ‘Oh, Hello’, and then security arrived. My third favourite interview was with Jack Nicholson. One whole night at Blakes, with every organic chemical known to man.

My favourite introduction to an interview was by Francis Wyndham, who introduced Tony Snowdon to me by saying ‘David, have you met the Queen’s sister?’. Some of my favourite quotes included Elton asking Bailey if he still flew from aerodromes and listened to the wireless.

Bailey saying to Bob Marley: ‘What do you put on your hair, Bob?’

Harrison Ford saying to Bailey: ‘Is that my shit or your dog’s shit?’

Tennessee Williams saying to me that he was just a sad old queen and to Lyndall Scott Ellis that he didn’t like niggers. She was one. And probably still is. You know Lyndall? She was the one who, when asked by a TV-interviewer what were her interests, said in that wonderful drawling voice of hers: ‘Canine atrocities and infanticide’.

Our highest selling front cover, by the way, was a picture of ‘Clive’, Clint Eastwood’s Orang Utang. I can’t remember who did hair and make-up.

My favourite star cunt was Kelly Lebrock, Yum! [Who? - MA]

In response to Patrick Lichfield’s question, I told him what Helmut Newton told me, we should only pay the photographers we rejected. And he never asked again.

And Nicky Haslam. He roamed party-land for you along with Frances Lynn ("Bitchiest gossip writer..."), Amanda Lear. What was Nicky like to work with? Did he come into the office? Are your memories fond? He's nice about Ritz in his memoir Redeeming Features ...

Ms Haslam [pictured left] was a nightmare. She used to ‘blub’ all the time. I only used her as a favour to Bailey, because she couldn’t get any other work apart from walking Princess Michael and Mick Jagger. She was such a snob. And now we discover her father was in trade. Isn’t it wonderful? D for divine.

Amanda Lear only stayed long enough to polish her whip. I was the only one who stayed until the end of the party.

Clive James and Peter York worked for you. What's happened to Clive? And I spotted lots of Ambre Solaire on York's collar once: face dyeing is an understated art, doncha think?
 
Poor Clive. He never recovered from my refusing to sell him shares in Ritz. Peter York never worked for us. I tried to warn him about face-painting. I told him what it had done to George Hamilton. But then I also warned him ‘If you are going to perform a lewd act with a vacuum cleaner, do it at home, rather than at the car wash’. But you know Peter, he never listens.

Is there anything like Ritz today? And what do you think of the "professionalising" of titles like Tatler and Harpers & Queen (now dreary Harper's Bazaar minus Jennifer's Diary). Wouldn't you say Ritz was the forerunner of Hello! after its brain and teeth were taken out?

No, I don’t think [there's anything like Ritz today]. Harper’s should have kept Jennifer’s Diary and thrown away the rest. Tatler needs more Retsina.

No. No. No. Ritz was about ‘vanity, avarice and malice’. Hello! is about ‘shag-pile carpets and ranch-style homes’.

Now David, tell us about your life today. Where do you live? And where do you party? Do you still see Bailey? Oh, and your brand of toothpaste.

Cowes, Shepherd’s Market, Müllheim/Baden, Havana and Castellane.

And Heinz Schumi still does my hair.

No, I don’t see Bailey, ever since he stopped drinking and started going out with Damien Hirst. It’s so sad.

Would you ever bring Ritz back? How much money would you need? Or a website ... ?

Yes, but only as a very expensive newspaper. And all for the same money it cost me the first time around. Sealed bids, please! I’d just love to get Frances Lynn back with the headline: ‘The Bitch Is Back’. Fran really was the bitchiest bitch. She taught me all I know about libel. Bless her!

Have you thought to write a book about Ritz? Or if you have, reissuing it?

Yes, with my daughter, Summer Lee.

And what's this about a film script, Hannibal, The Legend?

Isn’t it wonderful? Van Cleef and Arpels is playing the lead.

Have you ever consulted a psychic?

Yes, and they were both right: I am of Gods and Kings.

And finally, David, is there one decent gossip writer or site left in the world?

Oh, come on, Mary!

David! Thank you so much. I'd get on my knees but I'd never get up again. xx

You should talk to The Queen. She’s got this wonderful tilting throne.

David Litchfield's website

*****

Oh, and here's an extra bit. Frances Lynn recalls working with David ...

David Litchfield was the best editor I've ever had. I always obeyed him even when he warned me to write even bitchier stuff about my then friends, most of whom I thankfully lost.

I was the only one on Ritz who got paid. I would go to the office dressed in rotting rags, begging Litchfield for money. After I gave him a generous glug from my hip flask, he would sign a cheque with a shaking hand, so traumatised that each time I thought he would have to check into the Maudsley.

Litchfield was psychotically mean about money, but I have to hand it to the vicious old sod that he managed to con hacks like Clive James to write for Ritz for free. Litchfield is the only editor I’ve had who didn't edit my stuff, not even when I wrote something libellous shortly after Ritz started. Although I sobbed for forgiveness, I was secretly praying the rag would get closed down because I was exhausted from going OUT twenty four hours a day. Litchfield might have been vindictive towards his victims, but he told me not to worry and found the whole thing amusing.

During the late Seventies, Litchfield was my Svengali and I shall be eternally grateful to him for making me realise what a talented old bitch I used to be!

'Tatlersnob': The man who is utterly obsessed with Nicholas Coleridge

Nicholas Coleridge: In the company of Jordan, Megan Fox, Justin Timberlake et al, he is now a sex object: in this instance, the pin-up of 'Tatlersnob'

Even my most unforgiving critics - yes, you - will readily agree that Madame Arcati has a talent for finding human nuggets: very singular creatures with peculiar tastes. The gorgeous Robin Tamblyn and his preoccupation with Kevin Spacey. Fish and her exquisite fanaticism for Nicky Haslam. Now meet "Tatlersnob".

Tatlersnob, 28, is the alias of a young man who has a fixation on ... Nicholas Coleridge, 52 (job title below), the man who presides over Vogue, Glamour, Tatler etc, in the UK. Recently, Tatlersnob began dropping comments on various Arcati posts in praise of Mr Coleridge: after a while I thought, "I do believe I have spotted another nugget for my Museum of Charming Peculiarities." [I thought these words as a proper sentence]

I am quite confident that Tatlersnob is not a tiresome stalker or clinical loon: he appears to have an incomprehensible obsession with the upper classes (as framed in upmarket glossies, I hasten to add), the aristocracy and Coleridge in particular as icon of the genera. Tatlersnob, after a little persuasion, agreed to a brief, explicatory interview ....

Tatlersnob! Crazy name! Now look, it's become apparent from messages you've left on Arcati that you have a thing for the Managing Director of Condé Nast and novelist, Nicholas Coleridge. Tell me as much as possible what this "thing" is and how it started - do not stint on detail.

I'm a 28 year old male from the wilds of Scotland. I do so love the upper class and the aristocracy. All those ex Eton and ex-Le Rosey types: so attractive and sauve.

You stinted on detail. Anyway, starting with what remains of his hair down to his well shod feet, give us a guide to your thoughts on Nicholas' body parts. I mean, what do you think of his face, his shoulders, tum, other areas, legs etc. And tell us what you think he is like as a person.

Mr Coleridge has such a handsome face. He looks quite sporty and like he enjoys the outdoors. His chest looks quite wide and muscular and he seems to have lovely chest hair. He may well ride and so have very muscular thighs and bottom. AS a good snob I'm sure his crown jewels are well polished and sparkling.

In your dreams what would you love to happen between you and Nicholas, bearing in mind he's a happily married father of four. Share your fantasy - do you have fantasies about him?

I would just like him to take me out to dinner. I'm sure he is a very interesting person. It would be so lovely listening to his lovely voice for a couple of hours.

My own view is that Nicholas is a status obsessed snob as reflected in the magazines he oversees such as UK Vogue, Tatler, GQ etc, and in his rather facile novels which are just about money. How is this healthy? Defend your hero/fantasy lover from my brutal assessment.

I'm sure Mr Coleridge is just going by the old adage "write what you know about". He knows so much about high society and the upper classes, then why shouldn't he write about them? Mr [Geordie] Greig and he made a wonderful team at Tatler and Tatler needs to be somewhat snobby to remain a society magazine.

Christmas is a-coming. What would you love to buy Nicholas and him you.

I'm sure he could could find me some vintage copies of Tatler or maybe get me an invitation to bounce around a stately home. I would take him as my guest as it's always fun to have someone else to bounce around a stately home with.

Tatlersnob! Thankyou for sharing. xx

Did Patric Walker murder Celeste for her column?

Patric Walker (the love of his life was his intimate friend actor Richard Chamberlain - whether Richard knows this precisely I couldn't say)

Further to my appreciation of Nicky Haslam's incomparable memoir Redeeming Features - the only thing that could make you want to have diarrhoea because it is the ultimate loo read (antiseptic Wet Ones at the ready, please) - I am distressed by two things on p108 on the subject of a very famous dead astrologer.

The late Patric Walker was the master stargazer of the late 20th century as well as actor Richard Chamberlain's most expressive admirer. Thanks to lucrative international syndication, and a socialising liver which sadly was not as robust as one might have wished, his constellation of sunsign frippery informed and entertained hundreds of millions of hopers. Yet, even though Patric was a Haslam intimate, a frequent companion in a basement club beneath Fortnum & Mason, in the company of pretty boys, Nicky misspells his name as Patrick. How Patric must be seething wherever. The omission of the k was special, part of the mythologising branding: had Patric been born Colin he would now be remembered as Coli,  a thought that brings back to mind antiseptic Wet Ones. Patric died of salmonella poisoning in 1995, by the way.

Nicky!  Please correct for the reprint!

Richard Chamberlain:

 a gratuitious inclusion in this piece

It doesn't end there. Nicky then goes onto suggest that Patric (a Libran) may have in 1974 murdered his octogenarian astrologer mentor Celeste  in order to grab her horoscopic column on Harpers & Queen (as was): he did this by pushing her down some stairs, it was rumoured. Celeste was the pseudonym of the American astrologer Helene Hoskins: she taught Patric everything she knew about the heavens. It could be that this "rumour" was part of the fun campery of the time: but who knows?

I certainly detected no homicidal tendencies in Patric when I interviewed him back in the 80s: indeed so taken was he by the sight of me he exited to the hotel bathroom and rejoined me in vain in his silky dressing gown. It was early afternoon. We talked of his chasing asses around his home in Lindos on the island of Rhodes. I think he said asses.

Book Review: Redeeming Features by Nicky Haslam: Joy of being souffléed alive

Seasoned Arcatistes will know that I am not given to incontinent praise. So when I say that Nicky Haslam's memoir Redeeming Features is the most brilliantly trivial book I have ever read (since the Andy Warhol Diaries) you may need to pause and take a deep breath. Yes, you have my permission not to work for the rest of the day. By all means have sex. At least buy a good champagne.

Redeeming Features is the book Proust might have written had he not literary talent - his curse I'm afraid - or the book Duncan Fallowell might have penned had he not a brain or Oscar Wilde might have dashed off had he not a sense of humour. This is not to say that Nicky lacks literary talent or brains. Or a sense of humour. It is that he has neither (nor the sense of humour) in sufficient quantity to get in the way. His naked magnetism to society and celebrity figures is pure, romantic, child-like: nothing takes priority over his natal desire to nurture intimacies that are worth it.

A reader of average intelligence, and with an above average interest in names (obscure upper class aristo satellites, especially) will find their own delight unchallenged by artistic soul delving, behavioural over-noticing or mere satire. Many a memoir is utterly ruined by the simple inability of the author to maintain the consistency of a soufflé in matters entirely inconsequential. Nicky avoids this. He rises to the occasion all puffed up like a pillow, his named crowns golden, and with a yielding middle bit: yes, he did have a romance with Tony Armstrong-Jones. Redeeming Features is that scrummy.

In keeping with the frothy nature of the book it would be unseemly then to try to paraphrase his tale: it matters only that he is here and the book is there. To say more would be to ruin the effect, to puncture the soufflé. Light things, such as a joke, cannot bear to be named or explained. To write a book which is just there is a high accomplishment: it is an act of witting or unwitting humility. I can't say better than that.

Like all good books, Redeeming Features hosts a mystery. On p283, Nicky writes of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll "meeting a supposed sex-change relative." Of this encounter he recalls once writing in the defunct magazine Ritz: "With a song in her heart, Marg beheld an adorable face. It may be a her to you and me, but it sure is a him to Her Grace." I can't imagine why the "supposed sex-change" is not named but if he means who I think he means he should know she's highly litigious. And she's no sex-change.

Nicky Haslam: Camp Papa Benedetto and his cobbler

Artisan delivers shoes gift to Papa Benedetto XV1 rather than use the Vatican trademen's entrance

Nicky Haslam is all over the place as he pushes his memoirs Redeeming Features. Nice to see Lynn Barber recycling some of her old Observer lines for her Sunday Times Nicky dicky licky. And while he distances himself from himself by denying his own claim (in his book) that he had a romance in the 50s with Lord Snowdon (as he now is), I alight on a learned essayette Nicky wrote for Channel 4 book 25 x 4 titled "Notes on the New Camp". Here he dilates on how camp has evolved over time - poor (Sir-to-be [for services to Twitter]) Stephen Fry is correctly described as "horribly, smugly camp" - but then goes and ruins it all by winking that the current Pope is camp because he wears Prada (shoes).

Nicky dicky licky

As we now know, Papa Benedetto XV1 may well be camp (scholarly nance division - see David Starkey for atheistic equivalent) but he does not wear Prada. The Pope's cobbler is a man from the Piedmont city of Novara, north Italy, called Adriano Stefanelli. His handmade leathers in ruby red are delivered to the Vatican as a gift - saving the pontiff 400 Euros a pair - and of course Stefanelli recoups by making no secret of his great honour on his trade website. His other clients include the last President Bush and President Obama - I say "clients" but I am not persuaded that the shoes are not simply made and dispatched to the White House.

Nicky Haslam: Cock-cocking with Tony and Roddy

Nicky Haslam's Redeeming Features autobio is out on Nov 5 and one of its delights is his revelation that the old party-goer and name-dropper cock-cocked with Tony Armstrong-Jones (now Lord Snowdon) in the 1950s, before Tony married Princess Margaret, and later with Roddy Llewellyn, before Roddy became her boyfriend. I had never thought of Nicky till now as the late Queen sister's unwitting bedtime taster.

Philip Levine: An artist who gives the best head

I just love Philip Levine's head designs. Artworked bonces are so sexy, so clean. I commend to A-listers, the intelligent and cancer patients. For more on Philip's extraordinary work, see his new website. "Philip started using his head as a canvas for creativity back in 2006 when he began to go bald...."

Duncan Fallowell: 'MJ just wanted to be deeply fucked'

Duncan Fallowell writes in response to my Disneyfied cockless-cuntless Michael Jackson posting below this:

Dear Madame

I don't think his songs are asexual. Many of the later ones seem to be coded confessions. Didn't he do one In The Closet? His whole act, I think, came to embody an intense yearning to be cherished and deeply fucked. Was sexual passivity ever more vocal?

Duncan Fallowell

Dear Duncan

Still trying to get a copy of your 20th Century Characters for your Jacko piece. I recall how astute you were.

I don't think his songs were asexual, either. Like many singers he masked his true romantic interests in conventional garb. His later stuff may be coded confessions. But his persona was disneyfied-asexual - as a refuge from the feared consequences of being himself.

I'm not at all sure he wanted to be deeply fucked, at least not literally. I can recall reading Jordy Chandler's court deposition: he described how MJ would blow him and eat his cum. In the sense that he wished to ingest "masculinity", this is the nearest to being "deeply fucked" I guess. But he might have needed yet more pain killers after a bout of penetrative loving. I'm not sure he wanted that level of sexual or emotional engagement. A gobble with a boy-man was as much as he could deal with. It was playtime followed by the famed sleepover.

Of course he should have gone to prison: Genet's sweaty jailhouse fantasies might then have been brought to life in MJ. Who can say?

Love as ever, MA x

Mark McGowan - why Bryn needs a Madame Arcati Lick-Wash

NoticeMe-meister Mark McGowan has sent me his latest video - his burning of the effigy of Gordon Brown. Why Gord? Why not David Cameron or that boring polyglot amoeba Nick Clegg or that fat BNP cunt Nick Griffin? McGowan's gone off a bit lately: he really screwed up on Jade and now he's worn the wrong party frock on Gord: Gord's got four planets in Pisces, OK?, so he can't help but be secretive, cryptic, sneaky, dour, grim, insincere, dark: astrologically he belongs to the shadows. Leave the man alone! He is precisely the leader we need for these tiresome times. He'll look the part in the history news footage. Ghastly! It's fate's synchronicity! Ask Sting.

But Mark has accidentally discovered a star - Bryn. He plays the piano and sings a song from 2:30 on (just skip through the Gordy idiot fire bit). I love this man. Wonderful voice, the piano is filthy sexy: his mack is disgusting: his hands are grubby: oh God, some people need a lick-wash, doncha think? D'ya think Bryn would like a Madame Arcati Lick-Wash? What's the song? - one line is "They're gonna take the baby into care" and another is "she's a disposable girl" and "she'll become a femme fatale". Name that tune, cunties.

Quentin Crisp and Arnold Schwarzenegger: When they met on a date

An Arcatiste in the post two below asks where he or she can read about Duncan Fallowell's mad lunch at San Lorenzo with his companions Quentin Crisp and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Duncan replies: "Yes, it's in my collection 20th Century Characters published by Vintage, now out of print, but available secondhand on Amazon. Perhaps I should post it on my site since it has a wildness about it you don't come across in journalism today. Richard Davenport-Hines cites that particular lunch as one of the greats in his book on Proust at the Majestic. Even then the Governor of California was an unstoppable force of charm and ambition." To buy click here

Our Lady J: Daniel Radcliffe and what the J stands for

Daniel Radcliffe's new friend Our Lady J is heading for the UK later this month with gigs at the Purcell Room and in Manchester - the latter headlined "Our Lady J’s Gospel for the Godless With the Cocquettes and friends". Her recent tabloid ascendancy will not have harmed ticket sales and I notice that she's selective in her media responses: Perez Hilton earned a tweet and Out.com a "statement" in which she managed to confirm that she and Daniel "support each other as artists." Conversationally or in other ways? The statement begs the question, dearie. Such starry pickiness I tend to associate with showbiz savviness, if you get my meaning. Dietrich would be proud.

She also claims to be a witch with powers to punish warped messengers: that makes two of us then.

I note that on her website she slips into the almighty first person plural (thank you for the correction, Anon) to announce: "We’re sorry to remove the Our Lady J blog, but it’s in the process of being edited for publication. Her transition from male to female is just too juicy to have floating around the internet for all to see!!" Ah, yes. A publishing deal. Juicy. Now I know what the J stands for.

Meanwhile, on Twitter she writes: "Enjoying the death threats. Reminds me of my childhood. Kind of like my baby-blanket!"

Our Lady J and Daniel Radcliffe: Just good friends

Transexual singer Our Lady J is reportedly Daniel Radcliffe's very good friend - with munchy dates and hand-holding and mutual, er, admiration - so naturally we should acquaint ourselves with her ... she's plainly smart ... and political. She writes on Twitter: "Apparently I'm in the British tabloid, The Sun. FYI, I'm NOT a drag queen - I'm a tranSEXual... do ur research." Coronation Street star Antony Cotton appears to be a fan of Our Lady J.

What? You've forgotten what Daniel Radcliffe looks like? God, you bloody Alzheimer's freaks ...

sass & bide: Kate Moss, Barry Humphries et al Shine for Barnardos

How does an old bitch such as my good self do it? One minute at Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World in London, next in Australia for the Veuve Clicquot party thrown by Australian designers Heidi Middleton & Sarah-Jane Clarle of fashion label sass & bide. (More info on the company, click here)

In aid of Barnados, it was held at a deserted warehouse in Alexandria to show off their Shine collection of exhibits, with good friends of the order of Mischa Barton, Barry Humphries, Emma Hawkins (featured in March's British Vogue) portrait photographer Rankin and models Kate Moss & Daisy Lowe and band Sneaky Sound System interpreting what the word Shine meant to them.

The 10 Shine exhibits in the collection are to be auctioned off later this year in London with proceeds going to Barnardos Homes to make a difference to 10 children's lives through "the Shine Collective project".

sass & bide's Heidi Middleton & Sarah-Jane Clarke


















Barry Humphries painting












Kate Moss's shine star
















Twiggy and her collection of shoes


















Angus McDonald & Daimon Downey from Sneaky Sound System
















Rankin's Shine portrait

Alternative Miss World 2009: Body parts to dream of

Mr & Ms Andrew Logan (photo by iJPanda)

“Is that a vagina?” Ruby Wax demanded to know as co-host of Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World 2009. Three large sails had made a grand entrance on the stage - a vagina was not the first thing they reminded me of, unless you‘re talking about an acute case of thrush. On a similar theme she added later of more imagined stylised pudenda: “There’s a strong smell of fish in the air.”

Yes, so moving on …

The 12th in the series since 1972, this Crufts-inspired AMW was once again the post-Warholian dry debauch of androgynous excess. The venue this time was The Roundhouse in London’s Camden and the theme The Elements - happily, only very loosely taken as inspiration.

Miss Flotsam told how she hates tidy beaches, and Miss No Signs Of Any Civilisation Whatsoever complained of traces of rust on her underbelly. I liked Miss Trailer Trasher’s boast that she has enough residual energy to become extremely unpleasant while Miss Bubbles Of Hope was composed of 78% air, 17% alcohol and 5% grape resin. Miss Majordha Beach's helium-inflated balloons, representing clouds, broke away and collected on a roof trap high up: I wondered who pops them in the morning. When Miss Sahhara gave birth to Africa I prayed Madonna wouldn't materialise and adopt it.

I can’t remember who won now but if it was the Miss who was hoisted aloft out of a tank-size puffball skirt then I concur - was that Miss Hokusai? Please write in.


Actually, the winner was Miss Fancy Chance

Andrew appeared as principal and exemplary host and hostess in a male/female harlequin-style get-up: to Ruby he probably looked like a badly bruised vagina with labial piercings and mirror adornments. Not for me to reason why.

My fiancee Molly Parkin was one of the judges and she took me as her VIP guest. We’d rendezvoused at the Chelsea Arts Club first - she was dressed as a thunderstorm in black and sparkling red. But since flashlight is white we recast her as a volcanic eruption with lava flows. I wore a dark velvet suit - a cloud seeking a silver lining.

Molly Parkin and Bruce Lacey (photo by Frances Lynn, see below)

In the Roundhouse’s VIP gallery other judges and their friends and/or fuckees joined us: Julian Clary - he asked me how he could find Madame Arcati on the internet: his delightful friend wore a pink balloon; Ken Russell, who sported a one-piece tent, his fifth or sixth wife and feet bandages; Time Out boss Tony Elliott - I told him I approved of his acting editor Mark Frith and he said “He’s good, I hope he stays”; the wonderful eccentric and performance artist Bruce Lacey - in one minute he twice fell off a pouffe, yet danced later; Zandra Rhodes; Tim Currey (great new teeth), oh, and so many others. Btw, Molly got the biggest aud cheer during the introductions.

One guest told me how she'd been Miss Conception in '81 - "and we had these props to represent artificial insemination". Now her daughter was about to open the show singing La Vie En Rose - "Andrew told me to wear a little black dress so people might think, 'Am I at the right show?'" Another guest told me: "I came second to Ursula Andress once in a beauty pageant ... "

The striking thing about the judging panel, in contrast to the huge youthy throng below with their muscle and tatts, was their age: both Bruce and Ken are over 80, many of the others in their 60s and 70s. Even Julian is close to 50 though looks closer to 30. This I like. All these Yodas presiding over the stripling Anakins for mischief and mayhem. Pass the lightsabre, darling.

From the gallery I peered down on the Misses preparing their costumes backstage: a multicoloured prosthetic body parts tip, lit by dressing room mirror lamps, with young lithe bodies seeking drag heaven. The show was tremendous fun. I can’t imagine why it’s not on ITV1 - it’s a telegenic spectacle, funny, and it doesn’t have Simon Cowell pulling panto faces. What more do you want? No wonder Michael Grade’s on his way out.

“He’s being strangled by a penis,” shouted Ruby as a monster tower-costume collapsed on stage. For once she was right. She may not know her cunt but she can certainly spot a cock.

My new friend the author Frances Lynn has some good pics of the judges and guests, click here. She's also written this enlightening piece on Madame Arcati here. Yet more amazing photos at frillip moolog, here. Ken Russell writes about the show in The Times.

Incidentally, I was much taken by The Irrepressibles, a 10-piece orchestra - fronted by the "angel-throated, androgynous, Jamie McDermott" - that was part of the entertainment

And Bishi

Alternative Miss World: Drag date with Molly Parkin

Molly Parkin's taking me to the drag pageant Alternative Miss World on Saturday, May 2, at the Roundhouse in Camden, as her VIP partner, natch. "The event that brought Leigh Bowery to London, that intrigued artists from Brian Eno to David Hockney, that has attracted fashionistas from Zandra Rhodes to Ryan Styles - The Alternative Miss World - a beauty contest like no other – ricochets back into the limelight for its 12th outing since 1972 at London's premier venue The Roundhouse on Saturday May 2nd 2009," reads the invite.

The theme this year is the elements so I was thinking perhaps of wearing an iPod instead of a tie, screening David Attenborough's The Living Planet just below my chin. Could be useful if the conversation dries up.

Molly is one of the judges, along with the likes of "Queen of Colour Zandra Rhodes, Textile Temptress Celia Birtwell, Bruce Lacey the elemental artist, pilot and AMW veteran, Movie Maestro Ken Russell, Rocky Horror’s Creator Richard O’Brien, Hollywood Superstar Tim Curry, South Asia’s Cultural Guru Rajeev Sethi, The Doyen of Craft Today, Philip Hughes, London’s Latest Hotspot Amy Lamé, Jonny Woo the Darling of the East End, Time Out’s Tony Elliott, the Roundhouse’s Supremo Marcus Davey, Alternative Miss World of The Universe 2004 Miss Secret Sounds of Sunbird Rising CCCP, 2004’s Co-Host, the fabulous Julian Clary," et al.

Semi-naked boys, dancing girls and the biggest exhibitionist mature tarts of London will all be on display.

Tickets: £27.50 Groundlings and £50 Seated. The Roundhouse Box Office T. 0844 482 8008. For more info on the event and venue, click here. Andrew Logan reveals a little more about the show here.

And heeeere's Andrew (you may have to turn up the volume)


And don't forget you can meet Molly on Tuesday nights at the Green Carnation in London's Greek St, click here.

Nicky Haslam: The Documentary by Hannah Rothschild

Hannah Rothschild

A Darling - that's an Arcatiste angel - tells me that one of Lord Rothschild's brats, writer/producer/director Hannah Rothschild, is making a documentary of one of Madame Arcati's Favoured Few, Nicky Haslam. Isn't that exciting? Hannah is a Gemini, btw, born on May 22, 1962, so we're virtual twins.

Aren't you, as a dumb unthinking atheist, with your picked-up godlessness cos you read it in a manual someplace, intrigued that two Geminis born within hours (Mercurial time, however) of each other should share an interest as singular as Nicky? No? Well, fuck you then.

My Darling writes in his encrypted message: "The only time I've ever seen Haslam was in the beer garden at South Central in Vauxhall. I thought he was talking to a glamorous woman until my friend pointed out that she had shovel hands and an uncommonly large Adam's apple." Goodness, and I thought April Ashley lived in the south of France - John Prescott's a friend of hers, incidentally.

Last year, Hannah raised the odd eyebrow still capable of such athleticism by appearing to contribute to a book titled Corfu the Garden Isle, compiled by Count Spiro Flamburiari. The Rothschilds are usually shy of publicity, see. A 2008 report in the virtually invisible online newspaper, The First Post - managed last I heard by an ex-Telegraph diaspora - suggested this was a "new book": yet according to Amazon.co.uk, the title was released as recently as 1994 (and a secondhand copy is available at a bargain basement £136.17 as I write). Perhaps someone could elucidate.

Nicky Haslam

In the book Hannah - whom David Hockney immortalised in a portrait - says of the Rothschilds' villa on the island: "Until the early Nineties, a huge searchlight placed above Aghios Stephanos searched the night water looking for escaping Albanians. Ships and pleasure craft straying into Albanian waters were apparently shot at. Following a drunken lunch my godfather Tremayne Reynell took up a dare to collect an Albanian pebble in a small sailing dinghy. We all watched in terror as the small craft tacked back across the straits waiting for a clatter of bullets to rip through the tiny sail and her captain. He made it back and with the pebble."

Frankly, Hannah (recently appointed by the PM as a trustees of The National Gallery for four years) and Nicky are made for each other. Fish, why didn't you tell me of this development? I am most displeased.

For more about Hannah, see her website.