Two Chaps Talking

Mon Vieux,

Ah the life of a poor sap in the tropics old man; 'tis never easy. When old Mr. Kelsall et al cast us out into the world I wonder if it was here in the colonies they had in mind for yours truly. Methinks perhaps not.

When the mulligatawny that is summer weather descended some time last week I happened to be in something called the meat-packing district. Not, as one might readily imagine, a euphemism for the stomping ground for friends of Mandelson and Spacey, but rather a place where lorries turn up of a morn and unload well, meat, there to be packed into boxes or something and forwarded to the ever-expanding consumer (Gawd how it's expanding!). Anyway there I was with the OB&C and some dear pals strolling from boite to bar to hostelry, when all of a sudden I felt a certain sponginess about the soles. Ye gods. A tidal wave brought on by this country's Dear Leader's belief in the bible rather than science? Was I about to see animals trotting two-by-two into a big wooden boat? Some no doubt would like to think yes.

Checking that the Desert Boots were still impeccably sand imagine my surprise, if you will, when I beheld an area of sogginess, emerging so it seemed from a rather tackily adorned doorway nearby.

Some horrendous effluent from the meat-packing doings of the daytime perhaps? Or a lorry of ice fallen on hard times and letting its cargo seep through the cracks? Maybe a poor wee kitten being freed from up a tree by burly local firemen to the accompaniment of copious weeping?

If only it were old thing, if only. Now you know me to be an open- and fair-minded sort of chap. Each to his own and all that. Hmm, well that's all very well up to a point. But when poncey Ruperts and their gakked-up coterie infest a place with their so-called exclusivity and sadly deluded waiting-list-to-join, well a chap can only take so much. That their soggy carpets made themselves felt even unto the very road upon which I trod, well that's just taking it a bit too far dontchathink?

Curling an eyebrow and glancing to the side I caught sight of a sadly out of touch entrance hall straight out of the interior magazine du jour staffed by a comedy, though not comely, frippet with a copy of Polo Monthly in one hand and the keys to Daddy's Aston in the other. Ghastly, to use their own parlance.

Moving away with all speed my soles dried out instanter and all was well with the world. Alas the same cannot be said for the meat packing district which must now be stricken from one's maps. Think the Notting Hill invasion of the trustafarians circa 1990. And if the Soggy House weren't bad enough there is now a growing mass of what are called 'boutique' hotels sprouting up like the hairs on a Euro trash arriviste's un-waxed chest. Euch!

Moving on I have a question with regard to social etiquette upon which I'd like your point of view. Very recently the Trouble and I attended something called a film premiere during which one is required to sit through a cinematic entertainment before being filled to the gills with free plonk and canapés. Simple enough you'd think. But, and here's the prob. At the to-the-gills-filling stage one was put before a chap who happens to be a titan of Wall Street. A titan of such magnitude that a sky-scraper in Times Square bears his name. Now my question is this: where this titan has more money than the Almighty is it done, en passant, to slip in a quick request for a Bentley? I mean, he's probably got more than he can even remember buying and he certainly wouldn't miss one.

Same thing happened at another gathering of late when I found myself across the table from a chap whose Ma and Pa account for a sizeable percentage of a certain nation's GDP. Tearing a piece of bread for reasons that will soon become apparent the words; 'Pass the salt, oh, and could I have a small house please?' were on the tip of my tongue. But frankly I doubt it would've got me one. Play their cards' damnably close to their chests these titans.

Moving on (sans Bentley and small house alas) we're about to celebrate the 60th anniversary of one of our dear country's and others' finest hours. That of Operation Overlord and the immortal D-Day. Without wanting to harp on in general terms, though you and I would welcome any who did, let me share with you a memory of someone who was there.

Some eight years ago one was invited out on a yacht skippered by pal's father-in-law; a fine upstanding gentleman called Ted. We roughed it on the boat for three days, sailing in and out of, and drinking, various ports, and braving the tempestuous North Sea. Along the way we ate, drank and were merry; we swapped sea-faring stories; cooked nosh in the galley and, at Ted's instruction, always mopped our plates with a piece of bread to ease washing-up and avoid waste.

Big deal? Who hasn't used a freshly baked chunk of ciabatta to mope up the last of one's arrabiatta in the hills of Tuscany? But this was Mother's Pride white sliced and we were eating beans and sausage and egg. Not quite so tempting some might say.

Thing is; Ted picked up this habit during the Second Little Unpleasantness while in the Paratroop Regiment.

And, along with many thousands of other Paras, Ted jumped out of a plane over France on D-Day.

And not only that.

In 1994 on the 50th anniversary of D-Day, while in his seventies, Ted jumped out of another plane over France to commemorate his fallen comrades. He and other veterans were encouraged not jump due to terrible conditions, but you don't tell men like Ted what to do.

So when a man like Ted encourages a chap to wipe his plate then he need seek no further opinion. I mop my plate with pride and will continue to do so no matter where I am or who I'm with. And bugger the consequences.