Buckingham Palace

Monday night I went to Buckingham Palace, well not exactly Buck House itself and not to meet Mrs Queen herself. It was a reception for Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts in the Queen's Gallery of Buckingham Palace to look at some pictures, drink some wine and eat some canapes, all very nice, but lots of shuffling around, which is hard on the knees of an old fogey. There were plenty of Chippendale chairs which looked very comfortable, but I assumed, I think correctly, that they were not there for the likes of me to sit upon. But there were benches in the middle of each room, such as you see in most art galleries and I finally found a space on one, bumping bottoms with a lady simultaneously sitting the other side of the bench at the same time, and how we laughed and apologised and so on, and all was well.

I found that by sitting still on the observation bench you were more likely to have your glass filled up by the circulating young persons, than if you continued shuffling around in front of the pictures. Similarly you got offered a regular supply of food titbits. I once went to a Buckingham Palace garden party (as a guest - it was my illustrious wife who was actually invited), and it was there that I learned that royal sandwiches are rectangular, with no crusts, about the size of three and a half postage stamps. Well, royal canapes are much more amazing, or maybe not - my knowledge of such things is quite limited. Anyway, as you know they are titbits of food on a small round biscuit which you can pick up, pop into your mouth, chew a bit and swallow in one go. But that is not the whole story. These were little miniscule meals. Never mind your prawn cocktail on a biscuit, anybody can do that, but I had several Sunday dinners on biscuits. A tiny curl of rare roast beef, a bit of leaf (Sprout? Who knows?) a dob of really tasty jelly-gravy. I expected this to be on a little round biscuit, and indeed it was, but the thinnest of thin biscuits, and between the biscuit and the beef, veg and gravy, it was mashed potato, faintly buttery, exquisite. I ate about a dozen of them. Sunday dinners for very little people, but it makes my mouth water, remembering them.

When I first arrived, I watched the guests arriving after me. The invitation had said "Lounge Suits" so I was in my bank manager and funeral suit, obviously accompanied by collar and tie. My wife calls it the power suit. Then to my horror I saw two young men arrive, indeed in suits, but without ties. They were admitted. How the world has changed. I cannot imagine going to Buck House with an open necked shirt, can you? Of course you can't.

Well it was very pleasant talking about Rembrandt to the lady on the other side of my bench, whose bum I had accidentally bumped, then I noticed a man in the passing throng who got my undivided attention.

He looked exactly like me. I see myself in the mirror every morning, so I  know what I look like, bald head, bit of grey hair round the baldness, grey beard tending towards white around the chin, like Sean Connery with glasses. In fact I have several times been mistaken for Sean Connery and on one occasion gave a child his autograph. So this man looked exactly like me.

Having had several glasses of wine, I ventured up to said gentleman and said "Excuse me. I hope you won't think me impertinent, but every morning when I look in the mirror I see you." He said he had spotted me earlier and thought the same thing. His wife said "You look more like his brother than his brother does."

So, there he was, my doppelganger. Apparently we were born within months of each other. I asked him "Have you ever been mistake for someone famous?" Guess what he said. Of course you guessed it, Sean Connery, though he had never gone so far as to give an autograph. We have agreed to meet again to find out what else we have in common. I hope we do not cause a rupture of the space/time continuum, or a black hole, or a variation of history, future or past. Oh, I forgot to say, we not only look alike facially, we are the same height and shape. I will find out, but I bet you we weigh the same.

I will report in a later blog.