Two Chaps Talking

Mon vieux,

All right, I know, we've been a tad remiss of late and it's been a rather long fortnight since my last missive. One could say 'the dog ate my homework Sir,' but I don't suppose it'd work any better now than it did then. Though at least now one doesn't get six of the best. Unless one pays extra. I'm told. Apparently. Anyway New York City bends forward in a deep sweeping bow, doffs its feathered hat and issues a hearty hurrah in honour of your visit.

It's true questions have been asked about a tall gentleman dressed in black skulking about the old city docks at night, talking of cleansing the streets, and clanking his Gladstone bag and opera cane. But no harm was done and you're back in the environs of the King's Cross, a stone's throw from Whitechapel.

Now that it's all behind us I must confess to a modicum of trepidation prior to your arrival Old Top. It was our Live Reading that troubled me though not for the reasons one might have imagined. Was I getting cold feet perhaps? Nervous about standing before the select few? Turning into a big girl's blouse even? No, no, no, of course not. My concern was for something that our dear departed Queen Victoria once referred to as a pernicious heresy.

A friend of mine, who just happens to have a thoroughly splendid name, let's call him S-too, recently sent me a note with an exhortation to read an 'article' in something called the 'New York Times' (sweet isn't it - how ex-colonials take the name of our once proper (pre-Murdoch) newspaper for their own little chip rag?). The article in question harped on at length about our young scamps back home having one over the eight of an evening and making merry. All good clean fun and nothing that'd raise the eyebrow of anyone other than a bunch of Utah bible bashers on a church outing.

Funny thing is this very decent chap, and indeed the article, seemed to imply that there was something wrong with this. Bewildering. But then is it? How about if I tell you of a disturbing event that occurred with this same individual, who shall continue to remain nameless, but he knows who he is.

Making one of the better holiday decisions of anyone over here this S-too and his coterie took it upon themselves to flounce off to France, there to rent the Chateaux of a noted English Shipping Magnate. Significantly the deal included free and full access to the Chateau's superb cellar.

Well the sun smiled down on them and all was apparently tickety-boo until midway through their sojourn when the Shipping Magnate of Note (similarly well-named coincidentally) popped in to check on things. Sadly it took mere seconds for him to be driven into a spitting rage by the blatant abuse that had been directed at his pride and joy below ground.

'What the hell's wrong with you bloody people?' the S.M. of N. might have said. 'How dare you insult my cellar so?'

Had they put the Margaux '89 in the fridge to have with some fish sticks? Had they warmed the Montrachet '84 to wash down some chilli dogs? Had they devised a new drink using something called coke and the last of the 1896 Napoleon? Actually no, something much worse.

They had you see, managed to drink, over the course of five days, between twelve of them, a mere 4 bottles!

It was a diabolical liberty and no mistake.

But surely their behaviour was a flash in the pan? The rest of the country could put it away properly? For gawd's sake they invented the martini.

Another example perhaps.

Some years ago I arrived appropriately late for a dinner to honour a fading English pop star who once thought Everybody Wanted to Rule The World. I was in fact so late that he'd faded away and the half-dozen or so people left (of the local persuasion) were basking in the afterglow of his presence. There was a two-thirds empty bottle of red on the table which I poured into a nearby glass.

'Shall I get another?' I asked, holding the now empty bottle aloft.
'Oh we're pretty buzzed already,' came the reply. Buzzed, I am told means squiffy in English.
'Put away a few then? What is this, the fifth?' I smiled knowingly.
'Oh no,' they said, aghast. 'The first.'
The wine bottle fell from my hand.

So you see what I feared Old Thing, a room full of teetotal girl's blouses turning up and sipping Babycham Lite like ageing spinsters (no offence to ageing spinsters bless 'em) and therein casting aspersions on our national past-time and one of the few remaining arenas in which we lead the world.

Fortunately my fears were not realised on our Big Night and even the aforementioned S-too managed to put one or two away. I'm sure you join me, Old Thing, in congratulating those there gathered on their prodigious consumption of the right stuff and willingness to clap and guffaw where appropriate.

It was, for the night, a small corner of a foreign field that was Forever England.

G.S. the Q.

S