Читать книгу The Lost Diaries - Craig Brown, Craig Brown - Страница 63

I peel the onion of my memory, first one layer, then another, and then assuredly another, when suddenly buried deep in it I espy the glint of something unexpected, namely something I had not expected to espy therein.

At first I can make out the shape distantly only, but then I realise that it is – oh yes! oh no! oh yes! oh no! – a hat, quite military, initialled with two distinctive letters, both the same. The first is S and so is the second. SS.

My goodness, the hat in question is undeniably an SS helmet, and at that moment I recall with a start that I was, unbeknownst to me, a member of the SS, an organisation that had done uncalled-for things but so very many years ago that it is most extremely hard to remember without forgetting.

GÜNTER GRASS

Picasso’s attitude to boiled sweets has been the subject of much debate. His preference, some say, was for Barley Sugar, whilst others maintain he preferred the old-fashioned ‘gob-stopper’.

One or two, including the meretricious Clive Bell, have even suggested he enjoyed Liquorice All-Sorts. Such a claim flies in the face of reason, since experts have proved that the Liquorice All-Sort has never counted as a boiled sweet. For one thing, it is far too chewy, but these stupid people – among them the pushy Clive Bell, who had no knowledge of boiled sweets whatsoever – couldn’t be expected to know that.

Did Picasso ever include a boiled sweet in a painting? Received wisdom suggests that his Weeping Woman II (1936) is seeking comfort from a throat lozenge. Others point to the figure on the right in his Bathers Outside a Beach Cabana (1929) and say that her transparent sense of Weltschmerz is caused by the bubble-gum that may have enlodged itself in her tresses. And then there will always be those who maintain that the gentleman’s erect member painted as a circle in Seated Male Nude (1927) is in fact a Polo Mint.

JOHN RICHARDSON ^*

News comes through of the death of Harold Acton. For me, no man was less like the area of London associated with his name. To be linked with that most unprepossessing part of West London must have been a matter of perpetual ignominy for poor, dear Harold.

DIANA MOSLEY

Today was the day of my funeral, which was so great. I came in a hearse ($154) in this beautiful open coffin in a black cashmere suit ($374) and sunglasses ($56) and the church was full of people like Diane von Furstenberg and Liza and Calvin Klein and Yoko and Bianca and Robert Mapplethorpe and just about everybody, they all showed up and everyone was saying how great I was looking and how I’ve never looked better which was really great, and my blood pressure’s right down which is great. Liza’s put on weight though, and I spotted Calvin’s got a pimple on his nose and everyone could tell he was embarrassed about it. Afterwards, I was buried in Pittsburgh, so totally depressing.

ANDY WARHOL