Oscar Wilde Cock-Cockery And Other Media Fictions

SO it’s autumn now and I’m back. Haven’t you heard of people taking summer off? I can highly recommend the Carmel Mountain Health Spa (prison close by), Israel, where luxury twin-suites can be shared by same-sexers and other-sexers without a tabloid or loser blogger (hi, Guido Fawkes!) getting wind.

I’ll drop William Hague, 49, a line about it after this. (Btw, I do wish The Sun‘s Kelvin MacKenzie would desist in his weekly persecution of Chris Myers, 25, Mr Hague’s former room-mate driver and £30k pa SpAd. In a just world he’d be sharing a room with George Michael)

Anyway, it appears I’ve returned in the nick of time. For today some letters Oscar Wilde wrote to a sexy young male magazine editor in the century before last have been flogged at auction for £33,900 - or nearly £24k  more than expected.  What spiced them up was the claim that in them Oscar, then about 33, propositioned the Court & Society Review editor – one Alsager Vian, 22 (never heard of him: his ghost must be relishing the posthumous fame).

Alas the text of the five missives scarcely lives up to the billing. All of Oscar’s letters these days read like Stephen Fry on Twitter – even an illiterate chimney sweep could expect a ‘dearest’. ’Will be at home tomorrow afternoon – so glad if you come down for tea,’ writes Oscar in one letter – not quite up there with: ‘Come over and I’ll lick your scrote’. Oscar was passive, incidentally. Oh, didn’t you know?

Most compromising is Oscar’s, ‘Come and dine at Pagani’s in Portland Street on Friday – 7.30. No dress – just ourselves and a flask of Italian wine – afterwards we will smoke cigarettes and Talk over the Journalistic article – could we go to your rooms, I am so far off, and clubs are difficult to Talk in.’

The ‘No dress’ injunction is not an invitation to turn up nude but merely a sartorial guide; and the preference for Alsager’s rooms nothing more than a desire not to be overheard by other possibly commision-hungry hacks.

‘I think your number [edition] is excellent, but as usual had to go to S. James’ Street to get a copy. Even Grosvenor Place does not get the C&S. Till Thursday night! This is all wrong, isn’t it … ‘ The playful last line is not some coded reference to an illegal sexual proposition but plainly to the unavailability of the magazine.

This distinct lack of any sexual content whatsoever has not dissuaded the likes of the Independent and other serious publications from repeating the seller’s PR line. I particularly like the Indy‘s Sept 16 headline: ’For sale: letters from a love-sick Wilde to the object of his affection.’ Purest Sylvie Krin.

The media too readily interpolates cock-cockery in otherwise bromantic relationships, as the Hague/Myers hotel sleepovers demonstrate. Why, as I write, rumours abound of a roaring musky affair between a famous footballer and a famous male TV personality. And as ever, as the unlikely trustee of cock-cunting integrity, I find myself saying, ‘I don’t believe it!’

Madame Arcati

Posted: 24th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Madame Arcati Comments (11) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink