Tall Hairy Yarns for Hallowe'en

Our first stop in London was Harriet and Andrea's mama's. Beyond all measure of kindness Jean accommodated your gypsy protagonists for two nights. But more than that, she cooked us roast chicken, took us up to a fabric depot called the Curtain Factory Outlet in Finchley www.curtainfactoryoutlet.co.uk and only elected herself Head of Hats by sheer dint of initiative. We showed her an idea for headwear. Not even 24 hours later, lo, it had been knitted! In fact, two had been produced, one in a shiny jersey that gave it a not entirely fashion forward do-rag air, but the one that was executed in wool - slightly off-centre though it may have been - sent a frisson of milestone excitement through the dining room: we had our first prototype! So that style, when it reaches production, will be known as the "Jean-beanie".

We then hauled ass and baggage back to the Ritz (or ever so slightly behind it), and it is from there that I write to you now. As a thank you for her hospitality we took Elisabeth, my gracious 89-year-old godmama, to have her hair done by sexy Rupert at Nicky Clark. She used to see John Frieda when he first set up shop with a little salon at the Ritz. Rupert learnt his craft there and said it was very probable that he had washed Elisabeth's hair as a junior. As his styling took inches off her silver hair, so did the decades fall away. She left utterly sprightly-delighted. On the ensuing days, Mark followed the skein of the knitwear idea, encouraged by the boxes of yarn that arrived from Paris grace a Carolyn. An old and cherished friend of Mark's, lovely Lesley, came to meet us and after a little while, I left the two of them to catch up. They went to the knitting shop on Lower Marsh in Waterloo and made a plan for production involving the exploitation of old ladies.

Or so we thought. Turns out the Old Ladies make the Teamsters look disorganized. So Lesley has taken up the challenge of knitting the samples, a one-woman wonder. Meanwhile, the other wonder, Lawanda, from Max Studio in California, has been corresponding as has Chris Capone, boy wonder of Cosa Nostra. We threw open a host of new communication channels this week, went a bit so'med' potty, opening a Twitter account - http://twitter.com/#!/NewsfromBedlam - and taking lodgings on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Earl-of-Bedlam/157642327606726

Last night we schlepped east and attended the birthday party of Rob Diament, one of my alumni from Westminster University's Commercial Music Degree course - in my previous incarnation as Music Biz Bod I was inveigled to mentor a dozen students a year. We toasted his third decade and were delighted to prop up the bar at Shoreditch East with Julie Verhoeven, a fellow South Londoner and celebrated illustrator of fashion - http://www.shift.jp.org/en/archives/2007/09/julie_verhoeven.html

We had an encouraging chat with Rob's papa who is a master at raising capital. He was as generous with his contacts as you would expect from such a gentleman and proceeded to introduce us to his pal Hamish who is only the master of Bastard the Dog - only the very same pedigree pooch Mark led down the catwalk at the Child of the Jago A/W 2010 show! Yes! Hamish also has a wife, Pearl, but I suspect that rather than being mastered, she cracks the whip there. Seeing as she managed Aerosmith and Motorhead, and other celebrated chamber music outfits of the electronic age, she must have learnt a thing about keeping rowdy boys in order.

On the way home to St. James' the streets and Underground were thronged with ghouls and other ghastly visitations. It was fantastical, marvellous, and to a degree such as I have never seen in London before, being more used to US extravagance for Hallowe'en. We dressed up to Skype-fright Mark's little boy - papa wearing a particularly gruesome mask with buck teeth, while I went wolvereine, donning a black fox hat bought from some Mongol horseman in the market in Moscow when Sneaker Pimps played there back in, oh, whenever; the vintage gloves Mark's mummy gave me that look like bear paws; and the boxy stole in inherited from a friend of my mama's. Here Mark does a house visit to outfit the Adams Family at their last known resting place, Pere la Chaise cemetery, in Paris.