Two Chaps Talking

My Dear Fellow Old Bournemouthian,

What joy of joys to receive your lovingly crafted missive. It will come as no surprise to learn that your words are the nearest thing to a serious conversation that one can often find over here. Though I am now able to decipher most of their 'culture' I find discussing it as rewarding as shopping off-the-peg, whatever that is.

How you tease me with your devotion to those things that we are so sadly without here in the colonies. Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium! As my old pal De Quincey would have it. I am I fear a slave to the God of Cosmopolitans, I freely confess to a prodigious consumption of the damnable, gorgeous, large-breasted things.

You'll scarcely credit it, but there's a chap over here, not one of the better kind, who puts his own bloody name in the clothes he sells the fool, and shoes too, to boot. Well the other day the little woman managed to drag me, after filling me with several glasses mind, into this chap's emporium or whatever they're called.

Anyway it turns out that he only gets Crockett and Jones to make his boots and then puts his own name on them. With this knowledge I was able to avail myself of a rather super pair of Oxford boots, black as coal with hooks and eyes, and made in England. Imagine my delight. For a moment I almost considered letting him off with a warning. Don't worry though, I'm not going soft. Because of the slight hesitation I took my satisfaction with a whiff of brutality, reminiscent of the games field. Not something to tell the chaps at one's club of course, but I thought you'd see the point. They do have a habit of getting rather above themselves unless checked.

Your lines about seventies children's television fill me with a sense of longing, one is so terribly far away from the possibility of such delights here, but then the work of a cultural missionary is never easy. Thankfully the opera season is once more upon us so I can immerse myself in culture whilst wearing correct attire, though I have to say the boxes at the Met aren't a patch on the Royal.

Talk of the opera season reminds of a visit I paid recently to the races, The Travers at Sartoga Springs to be precise. Imagine if you will a race in it's 150th year and billed as the American Ascot. 'The ladies will all be in hats and you'll see how the rich play' I was told. Indeed? I was sceptical to say the least, and with good reason. 'This Bud's for you' would've been closer to the point, the whole thing still makes me shudder. It took several strong doses of Champagne and truffles to revive me. Even now I can't look at a race horse without seeing hordes of flabby, casually dressed proletariat. Revolting.

And what of your life in the Metropolis? Have you accepted the offers of any new clubs of late? Christmas will soon be upon us, accompanied I am sure with the usual array of licentious, lascivious, lewd and libertine behaviour. For myself I confine my liberties to only those that can be covered up by one's friends amongst the press barons. But oh, if only rubber sheets and manacles could talk what stories they would have.

Tomorrow I am away to the offices of the Immigration and Naturalisation Services, neither of which I have the remotest interest in doing. However I am required, believe it or not, to seek permission to receive pecuniary advantage from any endeavours that I may undertake here, and furthermore I am required to seek permission to enter and leave this bloody colony. I gather that my time will be spent in a piss-soaked 'waiting room' which doubles as a homeless shelter for alcoholics and drug addicts. I shall take both my knobkerrie and my whangee, and not spare a single one of them. So if the next time you read of me it is in the pages of Amnesty International's prisoners of conscience list, then you'll know that I could stand it no more and had to put it across them in no uncertain terms.

I suppose I ought to go and supervise packing, M and I are once more off to the seaside for the weekend and it is so difficult finding a gentleman's personal gentleman who has the first idea about what is done and what is not.

Until we meet again mon vieux, Hurrah for England and St. George,

S