Those of my readers who know me personally, will know that much of my life has been associated with pubs. I was introduced to the world of pubs by my father. Like Shakespeare, he was a pub person. Ben Johnson wrote of Shakespeare, that he was "wise with the wisdom of the alehouse and the stable, rather than learned in the solitude of books." I think Falstaff, Mistress Quickly and Sir Andrew Aguecheek can attest to that.
My father, an Inspector of Taxes no less, was nevertheless an alehouse person. When his family discovered that he sometimes frequented public houses, they were appalled. They were all teetotallers. Born in 1889, my father was one of thirteen children of a Victorian autocratic father, my grandfather being a Brigadier. Grandfather was also a cricket fan. He had a copy of Jack Hobbs autobiography. Somewhere in the book Hobbs mentioned that after winning a test match on a tour of Australia, the team had gone to the pub for a drink. My grandfather had written in the margin "Wrote to Hobbs who has assured me he has now given up this pernicious habit."
I had several silent meals at my grandfather's table, where children were not allowed to speak unless spoken to, and if Grandfather did ask you a question, you had to preface your answer by addressing him as Sir. So it was not surprising that my father had very little contact with me while I was a child.
But when I was old enough to sit on a barstool beside him at the pub, to my surprise, we communicated for the first time in my life, with no difficulty at all, even though at sixteen I was only drinking lemonade, while of course my father was not. He drank Guinness, followed late at night, by Trinidad white rum. I discovered that my tight lipped father, once settled on his bar stool, could talk to anyone in the world, on any subject they chose. He was a raconteur. Because of his father being the Brigadier, he had spent some of his childhood in India and South Africa. Before my father was born, Grandfather had lived in the Channel Islands, where he had been in command of the garrison in Jersey, where he married my grandmother, whose first language was French. Later, for reasons I never understood, and when they must have had lots of children, they lived in Alderney. My aunt told me that the butcher in Alderney when jointing a carcass used to say "Best end for the Andrewses and the rest for the Island."
When I was old enough to sit with my Dad at the bar, he was Inspector of Taxes for Hastings. The tax office was in Palace Chambers which was part of the same building as the Palace Hotel. So he had the Palace Bar in the same building as his Inland Revenue office and in the bar he had his own stool, known as Andy's stool. His employers would have been appalled to know that he was also what was known as a Bookie's runner. There were no betting shops then and cash betting was not allowed. But you could bet on credit and my father had a credit account, so used to take cash bets from all and sundry, on Andy's stool in the Palace bar, during his lunch break from the Inland Revenue. Whether the punters knew what he did for the rest of the day, I have no idea.
The beautiful wife of a great friend of mine, who thinks I lead her husband astray by taking him to the pub, says "Pubs are so boring. I can't understand why you feel you need to go to the pub when there's plenty of alcohol in the house, and it is so much cheaper." But we don't go to the pub to drink alcohol, we go for stimulating conversation, and to meet interesting people. Well it used to be like that, though I confess people now go to watch football matches and have their voices drowned out by loud music. There's a pub in Richmond with a board outside which says "This is a football free pub." It's usually packed on cup final day.
This evening, 59 years after I first sat on a barstool next to my father, I was having a pint or two in The Warrant Officer in Walthamstow. I met a Warrant Officer, not the one the pub is named after but another one, who explained to me that he had worked as a bodyguard for the Sultan of Brunei (while still in the SAS) also President Karzai of Afghanistan and had worked for various American security outfits in Iraq. I had no idea that the Ministry of Defence hired its men out to all and sundry, but apparently it's a considerable source of revenue, helping to circumvent any financial meanness to the armed forces by the Treasury.
Then we got talking to a young man who had looked down on the London Marathon from a high pod in the London Eye, and thought I could do that. He has now run a London Marathon himself and was sponsored by Fullers brewery to run the Paris marathon dressed as a bottle of London Pride. I thought you could only get London Pride on draught, but I do know I could not have had those two conversations drinking cheap supermarket cans in my own living room, though I would be a soupcon richer financially had I done so. Also I would not have rashly agreed to be the honorary treasurer for the local branch of the British Legion. Honorary of course means unpaid. An honour nevertheless. See you all next time.
Friday 20 November 2009
Sunday 15 November 2009
Day Four
Not quite correct to call this Day Four. Day Three was November 5th, so this is well, several days later, never mind, Blog Number Four.
The gap is due to the fact that I have been away. A dear friend of mine, eternally young I had thought, suddenly and inexplicably became 60 years old. Impossible! Then I realised that she was still twenty when I met her, so I have known her forty years. But she is a mere slip of a girl compared to me. And bless her, she invited a few select friends and family to celebrate her birthday at Ashbourne Hall in Derbyshire.
Wow, eighteen of us, two from New York, others from Wales, London, Peterborough, Whitstable, Leeds, all arrived at this very elegant house in Ashbourne. Young people still sound of limb carried the suitcases of us oldies up to our rooms where we found free sweeties and a neatly typed timetable. Tour of house, hugs with old friends, sun shining, huge drawing room with deep cushioned chairs, reminiscing chat, dishes full of chocolates. Lovely, but somehow avoided by me. I am already large enough.
Timetable said Light Lunch in the dining room, glass roofed, looking out on a back patio with hot tub, several young people already in the hot tub, glasses of something in their hands. I sought out my old friend from NY (birthday girl's brother) who as our chef for the evening was already busy in the kitchen. I guessed correctly that he would have access to red wine, which I much prefer to champagne. You always need red wine in the kitchen, for cooking, or you just need it, whatever. This was an elegant kitchen such as you see pictured in Country Life or the Sunday Times "Style" supplement, though if you are trying to cook a meal for 18, you become acutely aware that neither of the two ovens will accomodate a dish for more than a family of four. But brother from NY would cope, somehow. He used to cook in the kitchens of cruise liners, so this was easy.
Delightful salad lunch was followed by a two hour walk along the Tissington Trail. Those who could not contemplate a two hour walk were able to hire bicycles. I walked and managed to get a considerable way before the cyclists passed me by, but naturally they got to the pub a long time before I did.
As I staggered into the village of Thorpe, I was pleased to see the Dog and Partridge, imagined a pleasant hour in a traditional friendly bar, sipping drinks before a real fire, chatting with friends before making my mellow way back to afternoon tea and pre dinner drinks at the Hall. Then I saw the notice, "Open 11.00 am to 3.00 pm and 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm." It was five to three.
"A pint please."
"You do realise we close at three o'clock," said the landlady, noticeably hostile.
"Yes I do," I said. "I saw the sign outside, but it's only five to three and I've just walked all the way from Ashbourne, so I think I need a pint."
She served me without a hint of a smile. I sat down with the cycling party. A mobile phone rang. Our hostess's sister received a call from the rest of the walking party. Her conversation included the words "You'd better hurry up, they close at three." The landlady who was clearly listening, said to the barmaid, "Time to lock the front door." The walking party were therefore advised, "Don't bother. They've locked the door."
Thinking what a friendly pub this is, anxious not to make the landlady any more unhappy then she was already, I managed to down my pint by five past three. The cycling party finished their drinks and left. I made my way out of the back door into the yard where was the Gents. It was locked. I returned to the bar and said to the landlady, "Excuse me, is the Gents locked?" and she replied, "Yes, we lock it at three."
I said, "Well, are you not going to help me? I've just walked all the way from Ashbourne."
"We close at three. We lock the toilets at three."
"But you kindly served me with a pint. Are you now denying me toilet facilities?"
"Toilets are locked at three."
"But the law allows customers twenty minutes drinking up time, after the official closing time. There's still fifteen minutes to go. Surely it would be reasonable to expect a publican to provide toilet facilities during that time."
She looked at me with such venom that I believe she wished she possessed the power to shrivel me, then said to the barmaid, "Oh all right Jane, go and switch the alarm off and I'll let this gentleman into the toilet."
I went out of the back door and waited by the Gents, thinking how can the alarm be on when the back door is still open? I stood outside the toilet for ten minutes and no one came to unlock it. I went to the back door of the pub, only to find that it also was now locked. So I returned to the Tissington Trail and peed against a tree.
Please note. The Dog and Partridge, Thorpe, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire. To be avoided. Why do people keep pubs if their customers are such an inconvenience to them?
Afternoon tea at the Hall was as elegant as you would expect, though some of us lurked in the kitchen where hostess's brother was still preparing dinner. In the kitchen we drank beverages other than tea. Chef was drinking Jamieson's Irish Whiskey, not noticing that as the level in his glass went down, his wise American better half was topping it up with water, thus ensuring that we all enjoyed our dinner later. I continued to sample the excellent red wine, of which there seemed to be an inexaustible supply.
Then it was pre dinner drinks. Once again I had to escape to the kitchen to find red wine rather than champagne. But back to the drawing room for a fantastic cake cutting, all candles successfully extinguished in a single blowing. Conversation, reminiscances, memories, holidays we've had together down the years, some of us for many years, some of the younger ones only recently, thanks for this and that, family, friendship, lovely.
The dinner went on all evening. Food came, served by younger members of the family who worked tirelessly. Wine flowed. I could not believe that it would not run out, but it did not. I can tell you it costs a lot of money to make certain that the booze will not run out. Oh, and I don't usually bother with dessert, but those poached pears were heaven.
Later, foolish games, which I did not understand, being too old I suppose. I went to be a burden to my bed at two o'clock, so missed my brother in law trying to climb inside a cupboard to illustrate a word in a charade. He looked deservedly jaded at breakfast, which he arrived at when most of us had finished.
Breakfast was brilliant too. Everything, even black pudding. Of course eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, but little miniature mountains of baked mashed potato, soft and juicy, (nothing like the dried up hard hash browns of Little Chef and Wetherspoons) and bubble and squeak, and porridge and cereals, toast and preserves, prunes, fruit. You could have nibbled on for ever.
The official timetable said "Pub Lunch." I looked forward to that. But first I did a walk round a very pleasant park with a lake and lots of children out with their dads feeding ducks. London seemed very far away. At the corner of the park was the Ashbourne War Memorial, with a boys band playing and wreaths laid by dignified men wearing not just poppies, but also the medals they had won, remembering their friends who had not made it to join them on Remembrance Sunday 2009.
Chef, hostess and birthday friend's brother, had already told me that the best pub in Ashbourne was undoubtedly the Market Tavern, rather than the one the group had selected for pub lunch. He had never been in there, neither had I, but I also had looked round the town and come to the same conclusion. He may have emigrated to the Big Apple but he still retains the old instincts. He was right. A traditional English pub, with proper beams and real ale, or just "Ale" as his American consort correctly called it, as she supped a pint of Old Specked hen. But the real joy, and the reason I knew chef had instinctively chosen the right pub, was it was full of men of a certain age, wearing suits and ties, with poppies in their lapels and their medals on their chests. I had no medals, but I wore my poppy with pride.
Later that afternoon we went to Chesterfield, subject of another blog, another day.
The gap is due to the fact that I have been away. A dear friend of mine, eternally young I had thought, suddenly and inexplicably became 60 years old. Impossible! Then I realised that she was still twenty when I met her, so I have known her forty years. But she is a mere slip of a girl compared to me. And bless her, she invited a few select friends and family to celebrate her birthday at Ashbourne Hall in Derbyshire.
Wow, eighteen of us, two from New York, others from Wales, London, Peterborough, Whitstable, Leeds, all arrived at this very elegant house in Ashbourne. Young people still sound of limb carried the suitcases of us oldies up to our rooms where we found free sweeties and a neatly typed timetable. Tour of house, hugs with old friends, sun shining, huge drawing room with deep cushioned chairs, reminiscing chat, dishes full of chocolates. Lovely, but somehow avoided by me. I am already large enough.
Timetable said Light Lunch in the dining room, glass roofed, looking out on a back patio with hot tub, several young people already in the hot tub, glasses of something in their hands. I sought out my old friend from NY (birthday girl's brother) who as our chef for the evening was already busy in the kitchen. I guessed correctly that he would have access to red wine, which I much prefer to champagne. You always need red wine in the kitchen, for cooking, or you just need it, whatever. This was an elegant kitchen such as you see pictured in Country Life or the Sunday Times "Style" supplement, though if you are trying to cook a meal for 18, you become acutely aware that neither of the two ovens will accomodate a dish for more than a family of four. But brother from NY would cope, somehow. He used to cook in the kitchens of cruise liners, so this was easy.
Delightful salad lunch was followed by a two hour walk along the Tissington Trail. Those who could not contemplate a two hour walk were able to hire bicycles. I walked and managed to get a considerable way before the cyclists passed me by, but naturally they got to the pub a long time before I did.
As I staggered into the village of Thorpe, I was pleased to see the Dog and Partridge, imagined a pleasant hour in a traditional friendly bar, sipping drinks before a real fire, chatting with friends before making my mellow way back to afternoon tea and pre dinner drinks at the Hall. Then I saw the notice, "Open 11.00 am to 3.00 pm and 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm." It was five to three.
"A pint please."
"You do realise we close at three o'clock," said the landlady, noticeably hostile.
"Yes I do," I said. "I saw the sign outside, but it's only five to three and I've just walked all the way from Ashbourne, so I think I need a pint."
She served me without a hint of a smile. I sat down with the cycling party. A mobile phone rang. Our hostess's sister received a call from the rest of the walking party. Her conversation included the words "You'd better hurry up, they close at three." The landlady who was clearly listening, said to the barmaid, "Time to lock the front door." The walking party were therefore advised, "Don't bother. They've locked the door."
Thinking what a friendly pub this is, anxious not to make the landlady any more unhappy then she was already, I managed to down my pint by five past three. The cycling party finished their drinks and left. I made my way out of the back door into the yard where was the Gents. It was locked. I returned to the bar and said to the landlady, "Excuse me, is the Gents locked?" and she replied, "Yes, we lock it at three."
I said, "Well, are you not going to help me? I've just walked all the way from Ashbourne."
"We close at three. We lock the toilets at three."
"But you kindly served me with a pint. Are you now denying me toilet facilities?"
"Toilets are locked at three."
"But the law allows customers twenty minutes drinking up time, after the official closing time. There's still fifteen minutes to go. Surely it would be reasonable to expect a publican to provide toilet facilities during that time."
She looked at me with such venom that I believe she wished she possessed the power to shrivel me, then said to the barmaid, "Oh all right Jane, go and switch the alarm off and I'll let this gentleman into the toilet."
I went out of the back door and waited by the Gents, thinking how can the alarm be on when the back door is still open? I stood outside the toilet for ten minutes and no one came to unlock it. I went to the back door of the pub, only to find that it also was now locked. So I returned to the Tissington Trail and peed against a tree.
Please note. The Dog and Partridge, Thorpe, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire. To be avoided. Why do people keep pubs if their customers are such an inconvenience to them?
Afternoon tea at the Hall was as elegant as you would expect, though some of us lurked in the kitchen where hostess's brother was still preparing dinner. In the kitchen we drank beverages other than tea. Chef was drinking Jamieson's Irish Whiskey, not noticing that as the level in his glass went down, his wise American better half was topping it up with water, thus ensuring that we all enjoyed our dinner later. I continued to sample the excellent red wine, of which there seemed to be an inexaustible supply.
Then it was pre dinner drinks. Once again I had to escape to the kitchen to find red wine rather than champagne. But back to the drawing room for a fantastic cake cutting, all candles successfully extinguished in a single blowing. Conversation, reminiscances, memories, holidays we've had together down the years, some of us for many years, some of the younger ones only recently, thanks for this and that, family, friendship, lovely.
The dinner went on all evening. Food came, served by younger members of the family who worked tirelessly. Wine flowed. I could not believe that it would not run out, but it did not. I can tell you it costs a lot of money to make certain that the booze will not run out. Oh, and I don't usually bother with dessert, but those poached pears were heaven.
Later, foolish games, which I did not understand, being too old I suppose. I went to be a burden to my bed at two o'clock, so missed my brother in law trying to climb inside a cupboard to illustrate a word in a charade. He looked deservedly jaded at breakfast, which he arrived at when most of us had finished.
Breakfast was brilliant too. Everything, even black pudding. Of course eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, but little miniature mountains of baked mashed potato, soft and juicy, (nothing like the dried up hard hash browns of Little Chef and Wetherspoons) and bubble and squeak, and porridge and cereals, toast and preserves, prunes, fruit. You could have nibbled on for ever.
The official timetable said "Pub Lunch." I looked forward to that. But first I did a walk round a very pleasant park with a lake and lots of children out with their dads feeding ducks. London seemed very far away. At the corner of the park was the Ashbourne War Memorial, with a boys band playing and wreaths laid by dignified men wearing not just poppies, but also the medals they had won, remembering their friends who had not made it to join them on Remembrance Sunday 2009.
Chef, hostess and birthday friend's brother, had already told me that the best pub in Ashbourne was undoubtedly the Market Tavern, rather than the one the group had selected for pub lunch. He had never been in there, neither had I, but I also had looked round the town and come to the same conclusion. He may have emigrated to the Big Apple but he still retains the old instincts. He was right. A traditional English pub, with proper beams and real ale, or just "Ale" as his American consort correctly called it, as she supped a pint of Old Specked hen. But the real joy, and the reason I knew chef had instinctively chosen the right pub, was it was full of men of a certain age, wearing suits and ties, with poppies in their lapels and their medals on their chests. I had no medals, but I wore my poppy with pride.
Later that afternoon we went to Chesterfield, subject of another blog, another day.
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Day Three
Well, today I took a day off from everything. no number crunching, no email, no writing poetry, no work on my novel (see blog Day Two), no entertaining of wife or offspring or even grand offspring. I went to Oxford, selfishly on my own.
Went to a lecture at the Bodleian Library by Justin Reay, who is working his way through Samuel Pepys' naval papers in the Bodleian collections. I won't say too much about the lecture, which was fine, but Sam Pepys, known for his diaries, also left 150,000 manuscripts, bits of paper if you like, but all either official papers, or his comments, on his work as clerk to the Navy Board and the Admiralty. When he retired he refused to let the authorities have his papers, which is why we still have them today. Nobody has worked their way through all of them, but Justin Reay is doing his best and will publish a book in 2010.
That was my reason for going to Oxford today. After the lecture there was wine and sandwiches, fine, except that the sandwiches were served at large square tables in a confined space, so that once you were seated, there was no way you could get out for a second glass of wine, so I only had one. Talked to a charming elderly lady, who I think would also have liked to get out for a second glass of wine. She worked for 40 years as an administrator of the Ashmolean Museum. She knew a bit about a contemporary of Pepys, Peter Mundy, a merchant trader from Penryn near Falmouth in Cornwall, who kept a much longer diary than Pepys, and was with Pepys at the restoration of Charles 2nd. But I know more about Peter Mundy than she does, so I might tell you a bit about him in a later blog, like the fact that he sailed from Cornwall to India and saw the Taj Mahal under construction, and returned some years later when it was finished.
Anyway, there I was in Oxford, so I walked along the edge of Christ Church meadow, by the River Thames, though being Oxford the Thames has to have a different name, which is the Isis, so I walked along by the Isis. The students, in very slender boats, eight to a boat, with a little fellow as cox, sometimes a girl, were practicing their rowing among the swans and geese and ducks. They have young men on bicycles riding along the towpath with megaphones telling them what do do. Apparently this has something to do with producing the next generation who will be in charge of our destiny. I know these hooray henrys have been in charge of our destiny throughout my life. I have survived, so I'm not too worried about it. We'll vote for them when its their turn, and we'll all cope with whatever mess they make.
On my way to the railway station, I called in at the Randolph Hotel, as you do, and had a glass of wine in the Morse Bar. The Randolph is a very posh hotel. It is the equivalent of popping into the Dorchester or the Ritz in London, but of course its not, its in a provincial city, Oxford. So it is not quite so devastating on the wallet. The Morse Bar has comfortable chairs and you don't have to go to the bar, there is waiter service. I have no idea what they charge for beer, but I can tell you a glass of red wine is £7.25, much more than I would ever pay for a bottle at home (I know rent, rates, barmen, waiters, heating, of course I know all that) so before you venture in there you have to decide, is this really worth the expense to an old aged pensioner. Of course it is, if you can afford it. It is served in a crystal glass, and the waiter brings the empty glass to your table, shows you the wine, pours a bit into your glass, gives you a sniff, allows you a taste, just as if you were buying the bottle. So of course you say its OK. It would be so embarrasing to say otherwise, unless you're an anarchist, bent on causing mayhem in the Randolph Hotel. After all you are not buying the bottle, just a glass.
Kevin Whately, the actor who plays Morse's sidekick Lewis, swept into the bar followed by an entourage of about eight assorted minders. He had a quick word with the barman then swept out again. The hangers on all sat down and proceeded to consume numerous assorted drinks which presumably went on to Kevin's bill. They certainly didn't pay. Must have cost him a fortune.
So there I sat sipping my wine from its crystal glass. Oh I forgot to mention, the £7.25 includes your own little compartmented glass dish with nuts, biscuits, two sorts of olives, sticks for the olives and a teaspoon.
A photographer with one of those big cameras you see on the news when they mention paparazzi. He looked round the bar obviously looking for K Whately who was no longer there. "Too late mate, he's gone," said one of the gang, but Ken Livingston's right behind you." I looked the way the man was pointing, out of the doorway of the bar where you could see the Reception desk, and sure enough there was Ken in a long grey mac signing in with the lady he has recently married.
The photographer thought they were having him on, but after a while he did look round, by which time Ken Livingstone had gone. He did not quite understand why they were all laughing. He should have just stayed by the door. Interesting people come in all the time.
In 1954, I was secretary of the Oxford University English Club and we persuaded W Somerset Maugham to come and speak to us. Some of us, the committee, arranged to entertain him for dinner before the meeting, and because he was a world renowned author, it had to be at the Randolph. We met him and led him to the Dining Room (naturally called the restaurant nowadays, but the dining room then) and the waiter showed him the menu. We all wondered whether we would be able to afford the bill if he ordered the most expensive dishes on the menu, every item of which was way beyond our own individual means.
He studied the menu for some time. The waiter obviously knew he was the guest of honour, so went to him first. Somerset Maugham had a rather miserably sour way of speaking, a sort of peevish whyne. He was eighty years old at the time, and very wrinkly.
He said "I would like a Melton Mowbray pork pie, if you please." The waiter said, "Certainly Sir, I will see whether that can be arranged." In a few minutes the Manager arrived and said, "Would Sir require anything with the pork pie?"
"English mustard, Coleman's of Norwich if you please."
"Certainly Sir. The pie will be with you just as soon as we can obtain it from our butcher."
The poor butcher was probably at home bathing his kids, or at the pub, or making love, or whatever, but a man he did not know, would never meet, demanded a Melton Mowbray pork pie. In order to remain the supplier of meat to the Randolph Hotel, he had to produce the pie, and he did.
Ten minutes walk from the Randolph took me to the station and the train back to London. A very satisfactory day I think.
Went to a lecture at the Bodleian Library by Justin Reay, who is working his way through Samuel Pepys' naval papers in the Bodleian collections. I won't say too much about the lecture, which was fine, but Sam Pepys, known for his diaries, also left 150,000 manuscripts, bits of paper if you like, but all either official papers, or his comments, on his work as clerk to the Navy Board and the Admiralty. When he retired he refused to let the authorities have his papers, which is why we still have them today. Nobody has worked their way through all of them, but Justin Reay is doing his best and will publish a book in 2010.
That was my reason for going to Oxford today. After the lecture there was wine and sandwiches, fine, except that the sandwiches were served at large square tables in a confined space, so that once you were seated, there was no way you could get out for a second glass of wine, so I only had one. Talked to a charming elderly lady, who I think would also have liked to get out for a second glass of wine. She worked for 40 years as an administrator of the Ashmolean Museum. She knew a bit about a contemporary of Pepys, Peter Mundy, a merchant trader from Penryn near Falmouth in Cornwall, who kept a much longer diary than Pepys, and was with Pepys at the restoration of Charles 2nd. But I know more about Peter Mundy than she does, so I might tell you a bit about him in a later blog, like the fact that he sailed from Cornwall to India and saw the Taj Mahal under construction, and returned some years later when it was finished.
Anyway, there I was in Oxford, so I walked along the edge of Christ Church meadow, by the River Thames, though being Oxford the Thames has to have a different name, which is the Isis, so I walked along by the Isis. The students, in very slender boats, eight to a boat, with a little fellow as cox, sometimes a girl, were practicing their rowing among the swans and geese and ducks. They have young men on bicycles riding along the towpath with megaphones telling them what do do. Apparently this has something to do with producing the next generation who will be in charge of our destiny. I know these hooray henrys have been in charge of our destiny throughout my life. I have survived, so I'm not too worried about it. We'll vote for them when its their turn, and we'll all cope with whatever mess they make.
On my way to the railway station, I called in at the Randolph Hotel, as you do, and had a glass of wine in the Morse Bar. The Randolph is a very posh hotel. It is the equivalent of popping into the Dorchester or the Ritz in London, but of course its not, its in a provincial city, Oxford. So it is not quite so devastating on the wallet. The Morse Bar has comfortable chairs and you don't have to go to the bar, there is waiter service. I have no idea what they charge for beer, but I can tell you a glass of red wine is £7.25, much more than I would ever pay for a bottle at home (I know rent, rates, barmen, waiters, heating, of course I know all that) so before you venture in there you have to decide, is this really worth the expense to an old aged pensioner. Of course it is, if you can afford it. It is served in a crystal glass, and the waiter brings the empty glass to your table, shows you the wine, pours a bit into your glass, gives you a sniff, allows you a taste, just as if you were buying the bottle. So of course you say its OK. It would be so embarrasing to say otherwise, unless you're an anarchist, bent on causing mayhem in the Randolph Hotel. After all you are not buying the bottle, just a glass.
Kevin Whately, the actor who plays Morse's sidekick Lewis, swept into the bar followed by an entourage of about eight assorted minders. He had a quick word with the barman then swept out again. The hangers on all sat down and proceeded to consume numerous assorted drinks which presumably went on to Kevin's bill. They certainly didn't pay. Must have cost him a fortune.
So there I sat sipping my wine from its crystal glass. Oh I forgot to mention, the £7.25 includes your own little compartmented glass dish with nuts, biscuits, two sorts of olives, sticks for the olives and a teaspoon.
A photographer with one of those big cameras you see on the news when they mention paparazzi. He looked round the bar obviously looking for K Whately who was no longer there. "Too late mate, he's gone," said one of the gang, but Ken Livingston's right behind you." I looked the way the man was pointing, out of the doorway of the bar where you could see the Reception desk, and sure enough there was Ken in a long grey mac signing in with the lady he has recently married.
The photographer thought they were having him on, but after a while he did look round, by which time Ken Livingstone had gone. He did not quite understand why they were all laughing. He should have just stayed by the door. Interesting people come in all the time.
In 1954, I was secretary of the Oxford University English Club and we persuaded W Somerset Maugham to come and speak to us. Some of us, the committee, arranged to entertain him for dinner before the meeting, and because he was a world renowned author, it had to be at the Randolph. We met him and led him to the Dining Room (naturally called the restaurant nowadays, but the dining room then) and the waiter showed him the menu. We all wondered whether we would be able to afford the bill if he ordered the most expensive dishes on the menu, every item of which was way beyond our own individual means.
He studied the menu for some time. The waiter obviously knew he was the guest of honour, so went to him first. Somerset Maugham had a rather miserably sour way of speaking, a sort of peevish whyne. He was eighty years old at the time, and very wrinkly.
He said "I would like a Melton Mowbray pork pie, if you please." The waiter said, "Certainly Sir, I will see whether that can be arranged." In a few minutes the Manager arrived and said, "Would Sir require anything with the pork pie?"
"English mustard, Coleman's of Norwich if you please."
"Certainly Sir. The pie will be with you just as soon as we can obtain it from our butcher."
The poor butcher was probably at home bathing his kids, or at the pub, or making love, or whatever, but a man he did not know, would never meet, demanded a Melton Mowbray pork pie. In order to remain the supplier of meat to the Randolph Hotel, he had to produce the pie, and he did.
Ten minutes walk from the Randolph took me to the station and the train back to London. A very satisfactory day I think.
Monday 2 November 2009
Day Two
Got an email today from someone in America, wanting to link my blog to websites which would pay me. Seemed very suspicious, so I did not respond. If they mean business, they will surely contact me again.
As I said on Day One, I used to be an accountant. I was contacted today by an ex client whose company accounts are about a year late, so he is in line for all sorts of dire penalties. Companies House have said he must get his accounts to them by November 11th (Armistice Day) or else. Or else what, I am not quite sure. Anyway, I have been beavering away at the number crunching all day to try and get him off the hook, for a largish fee. I am supposed to be retired, cultivating my garden, dozing in front of the telly, for which I am now exempt from the licence fee, eating cake and drinking tea in Community Centres. No thank you.
Tonight, if I wasn't writing this blog, I would be working on my new novel, called "Holding Hands at midnight."
Holding hands at midnight
Neath a starry sky,
Nice work if you can get it,
And you can get it if you try.
1937 song by Ira Gershwin 1896 - 1983.
In 1961 I was going home from the pub when I came across a young woman, lying in the gutter with a broken arm and ribs and a brutally kicked in face, and one eye so swollen you couldn't see the eye at all. No mobile phones in those days and difficult to find a phone box, so quicker than an ambulance was to pop her in the back of the car and take her to hospital, which I did, and I stayed all night to see she was OK.
It turned out she was a prostitute, and a lesbian, which was OK by me, quite interesing I thought. I contacted her girlfriend about clean clothes and stuff, and I kept in touch, regularly visiting while they kept her in hospital. In those days they kept you in hospital until they were sure you were better.
At that time I worked in a bakery and I rented a room from an American couple. He was stationed here in the USAF. I did not know he was an armourer handling tactical nuclear weapons. That means small ones you can put on a helicopter, though their bang would be as big as Hiroshima. Anyway, because of the sensitive nature of his job, the FBI or the CIA had investigated me. When I was a student I had supplied Radio Moscow with reception reports on various wavelengths in various parts of Britain. In return they had played the whole of Brahms' second piano concerto on Moscow Mailbag (about 40 minutes). But poor old Sergeant Rick, my landlord was told "Get rid of that commie, or be confined to base and separated from your family." He had a little boy aged 6 months and they kept him most of the time well wrapped up in a drawer of the sideboard in their living room, as I assumed Americans were wont to do, with the drawer partially open, naturally.
So I was homeless. The girls took me in because I had been so good to them. So suddenly I was living with two very attractive lesbian prostitutes. I continued to do so for a considerable time, and a very happy time. And that is the basis of my next novel, which is coming along nicely, but you will have to wait. No further information will be forthcoming until it is finished and published, which may not be for a while. I have only done 200 pages. The last one was 538.
See you again soon.
As I said on Day One, I used to be an accountant. I was contacted today by an ex client whose company accounts are about a year late, so he is in line for all sorts of dire penalties. Companies House have said he must get his accounts to them by November 11th (Armistice Day) or else. Or else what, I am not quite sure. Anyway, I have been beavering away at the number crunching all day to try and get him off the hook, for a largish fee. I am supposed to be retired, cultivating my garden, dozing in front of the telly, for which I am now exempt from the licence fee, eating cake and drinking tea in Community Centres. No thank you.
Tonight, if I wasn't writing this blog, I would be working on my new novel, called "Holding Hands at midnight."
Holding hands at midnight
Neath a starry sky,
Nice work if you can get it,
And you can get it if you try.
1937 song by Ira Gershwin 1896 - 1983.
In 1961 I was going home from the pub when I came across a young woman, lying in the gutter with a broken arm and ribs and a brutally kicked in face, and one eye so swollen you couldn't see the eye at all. No mobile phones in those days and difficult to find a phone box, so quicker than an ambulance was to pop her in the back of the car and take her to hospital, which I did, and I stayed all night to see she was OK.
It turned out she was a prostitute, and a lesbian, which was OK by me, quite interesing I thought. I contacted her girlfriend about clean clothes and stuff, and I kept in touch, regularly visiting while they kept her in hospital. In those days they kept you in hospital until they were sure you were better.
At that time I worked in a bakery and I rented a room from an American couple. He was stationed here in the USAF. I did not know he was an armourer handling tactical nuclear weapons. That means small ones you can put on a helicopter, though their bang would be as big as Hiroshima. Anyway, because of the sensitive nature of his job, the FBI or the CIA had investigated me. When I was a student I had supplied Radio Moscow with reception reports on various wavelengths in various parts of Britain. In return they had played the whole of Brahms' second piano concerto on Moscow Mailbag (about 40 minutes). But poor old Sergeant Rick, my landlord was told "Get rid of that commie, or be confined to base and separated from your family." He had a little boy aged 6 months and they kept him most of the time well wrapped up in a drawer of the sideboard in their living room, as I assumed Americans were wont to do, with the drawer partially open, naturally.
So I was homeless. The girls took me in because I had been so good to them. So suddenly I was living with two very attractive lesbian prostitutes. I continued to do so for a considerable time, and a very happy time. And that is the basis of my next novel, which is coming along nicely, but you will have to wait. No further information will be forthcoming until it is finished and published, which may not be for a while. I have only done 200 pages. The last one was 538.
See you again soon.
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