Two Chaps Talking

Dear Boy.

Strange to admit but I'm starting to feel guilty about being rude to
George Bush. There's a piece of Whitehouse spin doing the rounds
at the moment that the POTUS is actually not as thick as he's painted.
Further, the story goes, his whole folksy, down-home shtick is just a
fiendishly clever way to placate the electorate and fool the liberal intelligensia
into lowering their guard. The ever useful Urban Legend archive at www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm
tells us that stories of George's stupidity are overrated. Though the
London Guardian printed the story, it is apparently untrue that academics
had measured the IQs of each US President by analysis of their published
words and found Dubya wanting.

The problem is, I don't believe a word of it. If I thought there was
a chance that he got home, pulled off his cowboy boots and engaged in
profound debate with his aides on matters of international moment then
I'd be able to loathe him as a manipulative right-wing hypocrite. Instead,
I find myself unable to believe that he's anything other than borderline
subnormal and thus, curse my liberal conscience, I have to feel sorry
for him. Berating him for being stupid is like any other form of bullying:
immoral, no matter how satisfying.

How can I be so sure that he's an authentically bone-dumb, knuckle-dragging,
mouth-breathing moron? It's the way he says 'Nuclear'.

For months now, he's been on our screens constantly, banging on about
various foreign Johnnies and their biological and NOO-cull'r weapons.
Even when his speechwriters managed to replace the term with the otherwise
un-fuck-uppable 'WMD' he still slid in a ''NOO-cull'r' in every speech.
Why would the leader of the free world continue to make an error of that
magnitude? There are several possibilities...

a) His cluster of aides, his speechwriter, the bloke on the other end
of his earpiece and even his driver are completely unaware of the pronunciation
of this key word and are thus unable to advise him. Percentage likelihood:
20%

b) They know, they've tried, but he's too arrogant to listen. Percentage
likelihood: 40%

c) He knows but he continues his mispronunciation to endear himself to
voters. Percentage likelihood: 80%

d) It doesn't matter how many times they tell him, he just drools a little,
smiles and forgets. Percentage likelihood: Too frightening to contemplate.

None of these scenarios look particularly good for George.

It's spelt 'nuclear'. Concerning, resembling or pertaining to the 'nucleus'.

NEW-KLI-USS.

It's not just sloppy, Texan drawling. The man has TOTALLY REVERSED THE
ORDER OF TWO SOUNDS. You have to have major brain damage or have been
brought up in a hollow in the Appalachians to speak that way. He's not
some inbred redneck, for Christ's sake, he's the Persident of the Untied
Tastes.

On an entirely unrelated note, every chap I know in the UK seems obsessed with something called the iPod. This boon to man is capable, one is told, of storing one hundred thousand songs in something the size of one's cigarette case.

I am baffled. Surely any song a gentleman requires has a tune he can hum and words he can sing along to. It is hard to imagine that, after 'Land of Hope and Glory', '47 Ginger Headed Sailors' and 'Nimrod' a chap would have need of more. I have devised, therefore, a simple system which uses the power of the educated brain to store and replay tunes at will.

1) Take two whisky tumblers and tie into place over the ears with an old pair of braces or two MCC ties knotted together.

2) Sit in your armchair and enjoy the experience, humming or, like those beheadphoned morons on public transport, occasionally breaking into arrythmic bouts of finger drumming

3) Have a glass of sherry

If you require a memory upgrade in order to store more tunes, drink less and attend the opera more.

Bung Ho

Posted by S at 09:36 AM | Permalink

Dear Boy,

In my time in the US I learned the one thing they definitely do better
than us is restaurants. The Americans have got this whole eating out thing
rather well organised. The food is good and resonably priced, staff are
helpful and friendly and, notwithstanding an exruciating few moments when
an out-of-work actor reads you the specials list , the whole experience
is efficiently charming.

It's not just the posh restaurants of Manhattan or Los Angeles either.
Across that great nation, the tiniest of roadside hash-houses (at least
those not owned by global industrial slop manufactories) seem to actually
care that you have a pleasurable meal. For an Englishman this is indeed
a revelation. For years we have endured a service ethic that ensures that,
even if the waitress hasn't actually spat in your lunch, you wish she
would in order to relieve the terrible psychological burden of pent-up
class hatred and personal loathing she is clearly dragging around on her
shoulders like a rucksack of resentment. The English restaurateur has
traditionally added to the bitterness of the experience through the belief
that the survival of his enterprise is dependent on getting you in, fed
and out within 45 minutes and that using ingredients of above animal feed
grade is a kind of slow commercial suicide.

So when almost any American culinary development crosses the pond I'm
the first in line to utter a loud hurrah. I even admit that, when the
first Starbucks opened here, I was a regular and happy patron. If you
worked anywhere out of reach of Soho, as those with long enough memories
will confirm, coffee was served from drip filter machines and tasted uniformly
repellent. There was a brief moment of something like pleasure, as you
slopped it into the styrofoam cup, in that you could at least imagine
you were somehow involved in a 70's American cop show. It only took one
sip before you recalled that Starsky never actually drank the stuff -
he either slammed the cup down on the Captain's desk while shouting something
about '…getting the DA off my back' and handing in his badge or
it spilled into his partner's crotch as his car powered off in hot pursuit
of a perp.

No, strange as it may seem in hindsight, there was a time when a grande
triple cap with a vanilla shot and a free cardboard sleeve was the best
thing going.

I even, God help me, remember a cold Sunday night in Edinburgh, when,
after experiencing the mid-range catering of the City, I snuck into the
Hard Rock Café in the simple belief that they'd be unable to fuck
up a burger. I wasn't disappointed - though I noted with strange pleasure
that the smaller branches in relatively out of the way places seem to
get the bin ends of the memorabilia stock. I'm as big P Funk fan as the
next guy but I found "Belita Woods' grey knit jacket worn during
an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show" hard to love. Isn't the idea
of memorabilia that it's supposed to remind you of something?

So generally, you're likely to find me in favour of pretty much anything
you feel like sending over in the food and catering dept, with one huge
exception.

A new restaurant has opened here called the Wolesley. It's run by the
same team that managed to make the Ivy so fashionable and it's very highly
thought of. I suppose I should have been put off by the mention of US
slebs in the press coverage - if 'Bob' De Niro, Brad Pitt and Gwyneth
Paltrow actually deigned to eat at all the restaurants that claim them
they'd be in constant transit between them and eating eighteen meals a
day. I'm not sure if Gwyneth actually eats any more does she? I sat next
to her at Nobu when they were filming Shakespeare in Love here and I seem
to remember she at least downed a bit of a roll - but that was some while
ago and pre-Atkins.

Now I'm obviously aware of the necessity of creating the right sort of
image in launching a venture like this so I wasn't expecting to get a
nine o'clock four-top on a Friday. I asked the bookings person for an
eight o'clock on a Tuesday. That's reasonable isn't it?

They couldn't fit me in on the next Tuesday, it seemed, but I remained
reasonable. I'm not, after all, interested in seeing or being seen - I
just want to have a nose around the place and check out the food. How
about the following Tuesday? No? The next one? By the time we were three
months out for a table and it still wasn't happening, I confess, the humour
of the situation became stretched.

'Is there some problem with Tuesdays that I'm unaware of? I asked

'Well no, Sir. At least not three months in advance. It's just that we
don't do eight o'clock. We can seat you at our seven or ten thirty sitting'.

It's not that my pride is affronted, it's just that it's so bloody unprofessional.
Sure you need to keep tables available for slebs at the key time and I'm
sure there are many who will book them, but real restaurants in Europe
have never needed to do this sort of thing. Call any proper restaurant
owned and run by Frenchmen or Italians and you'll get a table exactly
when you want it. You'll note, as you walk in, that there are many tables
in various sizes and a line of two-tops down one side that can be pushed
together to seat anything from diner a deux to the last bloody supper.
They don't turn away business if they can possibly help it and they manage
demand. If they still have too many people for places they put their prices
up. It is not, as they say, rocket science.

There is an old restaurant rule that runs something like this. A satisfied
customer will tell his friends. A dissatisfied customer will tell twelve
of his friends. What America has now sent us is a corollary. Turn one
customer away and he will tell all his friends who will, in consequence,
be desperate to eat here.

I suppose if those friends also try and are refused you get a massive
and ever increasing body of willing potential customers who never actually
attend. A world famous and entirely empty restaurant is finally a possibility.

Semper Fidelis

T

Posted by T at 08:52 PM | Permalink

New York City
Saturday 7th February 2004

Mon vieux,

Did you know that the trajectory of an arrow is determined by two points - the forward one being determined by the arrow lying on top of the hand that holds the bow, and the rear one by the nock of the arrow positioned on the string between the index and middle fingers? Indeed, without a middle finger the gap is too great and the flight path of the arrow would be erratic. Troubling, no? Not least if you're grossly outnumbered by hordes of crossbow wielding Frogs. Say, at the battle of Crecy in 1346. But more of this later.

In the meantime I'm afraid it falls to me to pass on some terrible news. The kind of news that'll reduce the club bar to stunned silence, followed by a quiet sob and strong manly grasping of shoulders for support. I have, you see, sinned most egregiously. I have fallen from grace. Fallen in fact into the embrace of the Fickle Mistress.

I could try to excuse myself by saying it was only for a few days. Or that I did little or nothing of any worth (just like the old days). Or indeed that I was only helping out a pal in need. All of this is true and yet I fear I must stand straight like an English longbowman and offer a mea culpa.

There was an invasion over here. Discordant wavering multitudes of denim-clad young things foisting their wares on hapless septics from Iowa or somewhere. A pal was attempting to so foist and asked me to stand around knowingly and draw these hoi poloi into his web. Clearly a chap can't say no to a pal and so for three days I was gainfully employed in the service of the Fickle Mistress.

What does all this have to do with bows and arrows you may ask. Well I'll tell you. Imagine if you will a chap such as oneself smiling brightly and encouraging appallingly dressed farm labourers who own shops in Kansas to peruse one's pal's wares. Roll up, roll up, one might say. Come ye forth one and all. Lovely-jubbly indeed. And come forth they did. Placing orders for my pal's trinkets by the sack full.

All was tickety boo until a foul individual from a temple of tat here in New York turned his nose up at my invitation. Not one for taking such a snub lying down I called after him. Turn again, said I. He didn't and so I was compelled to search around in the pockets of my fine worsted for a suitable gesture. Finding the good old two-fingered salute I offered it to him with bells on. It was while I was sheathing this weapon that a comely young maid took it upon herself to fill me in on the history of this enormously useful signal.

Apparently when the gallant English popped over to France to put it up the Frogs sometime in the Fourteenth Century they took along a smashing new invention called the longbow. English longbowmen trained for years to be able to master this nifty toy and it enabled them to take care of the garlic eaters at four hundred paces and not get so much as a scratch in doing so. It was so successful that the score at Crecy was 4000 French dead to 50 English (mainly from the pox passed on by complaisant local dames).

Understandably perturbed by such a bloody nose the French would react very unsportingly to any of our chaps who fell into their hands. They would in fact cut off their index and middle fingers and send them back to the English unable to draw the bow they had spent their lives mastering.

Hence upon seeing their foes the English would make it clear that they were going to give them a seeing-to by sticking two fingers up at them.

'Look' the gesture said, 'I have my longbow-drawing fingers, and verily you are fucked.'

So my gesture to the tat-merchant had a glorious history as well as a thoroughly modern interpretation. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, non?

It almost makes one forget the Mistress.

Yours in recovery,

S

Posted by S at 04:45 PM | Permalink