high tea at browns hotel in mayfair.

i have been laid up in bed for the whole of the christmas holiday.
but i did get one chance just before it all went tits up to go out with thomas and enjoy one of our favourite things…high tea at browns hotel…it’s not something we do very often cause it’s pricey,though both of us savour every moment whilst there.browns is old school… infact it’s so old school, it’s where rudyard kipling wrote the jungle book,and where alexander graham bell made the very first telephone call.

i always like to arrive early so i can take a dander up albermarle street,not only to work up an appetite,but also to ogle the galleries.
the marlborough,that represents many a loved painter, is only a few steps away from browns…
and then there’s the donovan bar inside browns which is a shrine to the photographs of the late great terence donovan.
they’re all original black and white prints, with some lovely blow ups too..my favourite being the gigantic one of terence himself as you enter the bar.
so it’s fun to fall into those walls of black and white photography, and have a glass of champagne before heading into the big homey living room for high tea by a real roaring fire,while a maestro does versions of *geoffs nuts roasting on an open fire…geoffs nuts sniffing at yer nose*, and the like…on the grand piano… at just the right volume.

this place is the nearest i get to a convincing christmas experience…
thomas and i always make sure to have their christmas tea blend which reeks of cloves or cinnamon or something.
the folk are gracious and low key….with that interesting combination of being old, yet with a strong air of urbanisation about them.
i spy on them from the side of my eye,and calculate that these folk were possibly londons’ authentic swingers back in the 1960’s.
the starched cotton napkin falls from my thigh on to a clean carpet,and not only does the waiter rush to retrieve it…he also replaces it with a fresh one.

two hours roll by quickly, and then we mission to the curzon cinema in soho to see a re-run of *whatever happened to baby jane*i suspected that much of the audience would be homosexuals…all twenty of them! in the light of that,i took it upon myself to sashay down the isle to the front row in my canary yellow winter coat,slipping it off with catwalk delusion,only to reveal a pinstripe suit with white satin lining… and then having removed the jacket…slowly, very slowly loosened the buttons of my waistcoat,while facing the audience,before sitting down,hence getting the required effect of quiet muffled sniggers from some of the other punters.

*baby jane* is too bloody long….
people can say what they like about the golden days of hollywood,
but as funny as that movie may be,it does show how far we’ve come…
[in some ways]

we leave to head home,and decide to amble back to the car via soho…
i was cutting a dash in my glad rags,and wouldn’t you know it,some drunk specimen lurches at me from a dark doorway and says *i bet yer coat matches yer socks*…
all i could say was *oh fuck off…just fuck off*…..in the distance i could hear him repeating moron….moron..moron…while i evaporated back into my own orbit and then home.
you know if there’s one thing that gets on my disco tits it’s these deliberately shabby cunts who think that by dressing down, somehow makes them more free of conceit than myself.
christ..i left northern ireland to get away from that kind of parochialism,but i have since learned it can be alive and kicking anywhere you like .

so home it was..the next day i felt odd..but a couple more days down the line,and much to thomas’ delight,i couldn’t even talk.
then i started having splashfarts on the toilet that would have horrified jackson pollock…
that’s now stopped,and even though i wanted to milk this right up into the new year,i’m so bored at this stage,that i will come back down off my cross sooner than planned.

dear readers…please know that i am grateful for the food on my plate, and the roof over my head..and the love in my life…
inspite of my uppish tone,i only do it for mine or yours entertainment ..here’s to love…life…and fun for everyone in the oncoming year..
always…
mary of the wilderness.