Madame Arcati's virtual background beach reads 2020

How sad that Lorraine Candy has lost her job at The Sunday Times. That'll teach her to cross astrologers and me in particular. Now, who are my top people right now? I am fickle and quickly fall out of love, so make the most of my kindness, bitches.

My summer read authors are as follows (set against a Covid-19-averse virtual background beach in my boudoir):

1. Lady Colin Campbell. Now known popularly as Lady C and Georgie to her friends. Riding high with her Meghan and Harry book and posting marvellous YouTube chat shows hosted by Prince Leo von Breithen-Thurn - who I am given to understand seeks a wife. Lady C thinks it a good idea that he marry a royal cousin, but animal husbandry advises against genetic localism. Listen to Madame. Lady C's verbal assaults on rapidly souring Philip Schofield (or "His Majesty of the Closet", as Georgie refers to him, cruelly) are sublime. Incidentally, Georgie plans to sue the Daily Mirror over some stories it ran.

2. Duncan Fallowell. A perennial favourite of mine. Thanks to him I have no need to travel to New Zealand. My carbon footprint is in intact. Do buy his new novel LONDON PARIS NEW YORK: a precarious tale. You won't find a better writer, though Will Self fancies himself.

3. Roger Clarke. A master of mists and energies in empty spaces, aka ghosts. The Anna Wintour of spectral fashion trends, poppets, though far, far brainier. Headless ghosts are no longer in vogue apparently. Do read his fab book A Natural History of Ghosts. Perfect as nights start to lengthen. And then re-read.  

4. André Leon Talley. His memoir The Chiffon Trenches is bitter and therefore divine. He bangs many nails into the coffin of American Vogue editor and former ally Anna Wintour, to add to all the others. Indeed, she is starting to resemble Pinhead in Hellraiser. She'll be great in one of the franchise horror sequels. No script to learn. As for André, well, let's just say he writes as he speaks. I suspect his memoir was gossiped into a dictaphone.

5. Lyndsy Spence. I can't wait to read her Maria Callas biography. Her Insta account is a dedication to the book-in-progress and I am intrigued to learn that the opera diva was so into astrology. While you're waiting why not read another of Lyndsy's biographies, such as Mrs Guinness: The Rise and Fall of Diana Mitford, the Thirties Socialite. It enraged Daphne Guinness for some reason so it's worth finding out why. Zebra-haired Daph designs and sings - a duet with Nicky Haslam should be expedited. But put away the cut crystal first.

Review: The Mitford Girls' Guide to Life by Lyndsy Spence

Quite the most delightful book release of the season is Lyndsy Spence's The Mitford Girls' Guide to Life. Each afternoon these past few days, at around three, I revived the gilt-rimmed bone china, poured Darjeeling (lemon no milk), nibbled digestives (but no dunking) - a faintly-quaintly sensurround of this kind is recommended for added enjoyment of the book - and lapped up the wisdom filleted from the extraordinary lives of the six aristocratic sisters, aka the Mitford Girls.

As 4,000 One Direction fans fill Leicester Square (as I write) for the boy band's film premier, what could these poor screaming wretches learn, say, from the chapter, Fan Devotion: A Cautionary Tale? Unity Mitford's adoration of Hitler provides the lesson. 'When one sits behind him,' she noted of Hitler, 'it's like sitting beside the sun. He gives out rays or something.' To fanatical Directioners - as One Direction fans are termed - Spence might offer this advice, based on Unity's sly stalking of the Führer: 'Don't rush head first into an encounter with your idol as this will label you as another fan. Edge your way in slowly and discreetly.' 

Play your cards right and you, too, could end up as Mrs Harry Styles.

There is no end of advice on all range of activity. Letter-writing the Mitford way? 'If you are sick, make a conscious effort to bake the letter in the oven as this will kill any lingering germs.' However, 'if you dislike the person you are writing to, by all means feel free to send the germs as well as your love.'

And should you desire to run away, as Leftie Jessica did, this nugget shines among many others: 'Open a bank account as soon as possible.'

Prepare to enter a world with its own language. 'Farve' and 'Muv' are translatable - Farve, by the way, could not abide jam running down the side of the jar. 'Wondair' is rather baffling. Does it mean 'wonderful'? Well you'll have to read the book. There are 'Hons' and 'Counter-Hons'. Beyond the cod advice, Spence immerses us in Mitford miscellanea. Muv, for instance, is buried unembalmed in Swinbrook, Oxfordshire. Not wondair!

This is a clever book indeed. Its self-help pose could herald the start of a whole series of books which turn celebrity lives into bullet-pointed parables, without the tiresome linear corset of traditional biography, birth to death to seance. At the same time, this new tribute genre permits author and reader a good biscuity wallow in the adored life. Fact and goss are savoured, played with, re-presented. If I didn't know better, I would say Lyndsy Spence - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Katie McGrath's Morgana in BBC series Merlin - must be some kind of benign stalker, the fan who will not boil the bunny, drawn to glamorous enclaves for a painless poke around.

The Mitford Girls' Guide to Life tickled me from start to end. And Madame is not easily tickled.

The Mitford Girls' Guide to Life can be bought here.

Madame Arcati's interview with Lyndsy Spence, here.

Amanda Eliasch: Fame, movie acclaim and cakes of sperm

Amanda Eliasch

I like my weirdos glam and clever. Weirdo? A person who manifests her or his organic interior in a fascinating, creative, non-homicidal way. This blog is peopled with natural weirdos - and now that I am back for a while, I've just noticed another one to add to the galère. 

Her name is Amanda Eliasch.

She's been under my nose for quite a while. Ages back she said I was her favourite blog (well, you won't confuse this site with anything by Toby Young) and I peeped at her biog and saw she is a photographer, and peripatetic fashion editor of Genlux Magazine in LA. She seems highly proactive. Always white-teeth smiling. And blonde. (Sort of sleb-ish herself - I mean, your average magazine person is pure subfusc with sniffs.) And about 25. Now I read she's 53 (Taurus - luxury lovers). For me, this is perfection. I cannot abide authentic youth. I will not have them in the house - except my new friend Lyndsy Spence (see interview here). There is nothing more vile than a human being in evolutionary transit who's dreaming over your shoulder. Why should I be bothered with this sort of fate-harlot?

But 53 is arrival time. 53 is about right.

Then recently I noticed Nicky Haslam ('Oh God, not him again!') pushing his latest heterosexuality-celebrating album of song, Midnight Matinee. And one of the tracks is called Amanda written by Amanda Eliasch. She assures me on Facebook that it is her voice. She sounds like a heavenly choirboy approaching the cusp of his first wet dream. Here listen (it's track 16 for a sample).

Recently, I noticed something about a movie. It's called The Gun, The Cake and the Butterfly. She wrote it, directed it and stars in it. This is auteurism at its most extreme. Don't call her Orson! She's won an award for it. I've not seen it. But apparently it's about her awfully glitzy, stars-strewn life. I am assured she has never had sex with Boris Johnson. But I believe she may have gone all the way with Sir Tim Rice. Lord Lloyd Webber will be well jel. At some point in her life she baked a cake containing the sperm of two fuckees. Well, that's what it says here.

Oh, here's the film trailer. I have a feeling I may say more about amazing Amanda.