Some fool sent me an email about Heston Blumenthal's new cookbook, and I remembered this:
When I was growing up, we’d go to the local Berni Inn – just on special occasions, you understand - and in our local Berni, if you fancied yourself as something of a connoisseur of char-grilled flesh and fried spuds, you would head upstairs to The Duck Bar. Which, in hindsight, didn’t offer anything in variation to the downstairs menu, but we obviously felt we belonged there, because, on our birthdays, we always dined on the first floor. I remember they were pretty free and easy about serving spirit-laced coffee to children. Who’s for a Calypso Coffee, kids? With a big shot of rum, and on a school night too. Wasn’t there one called a Mexicana too?
Later, we graduated to finer establishments where the menus were in French or Italian and the only one with prices on was given to the old man and he’d ask us kids, “Which of you buggers knows any French?” None of us knew Italian, but it didn’t matter because it was all part of the dance, and once the old man had quizzed the waiter about belonging to the Mafia, all bets were off. Whatever happened, and wherever we were, Fred, my granddad, would stick with grim resolution to his standard order – Steak, chips and peas. In fairness, he used to tell the tale about being served Alsatian dog in a prisoner of war camp in Germany – he was one of those who didn’t make it back from Dunkirk and spent most of the war in captivity. On one rare occasion, meat was served to the prisoners with great ceremony and they were glad of it. When the meal was done, 2 guards proceeded to nail the skins of 2 dogs to the doors of the prison hut, thus revealing the contents of the stew. Maybe it’s not surprising that Fred’s tastes were on the conservative side. You know that stuff the adults used to tell you? That your elders and betters sacrificed a lot for you, that you don’t know you’re born, or how lucky you are? It’s all true.
Simple food. Fred would have appreciated Delia Smith, who, in one of her TV series, banged the drum for good, wholesome, unfussy dishes. Her point being that there’s too much cheffy stuff going on. Things that are too hard-to-follow, complex, or ball-achingly time-consuming, or to put it simply, an embuggerance.
I speak from a house which, were it to collapse about our ears tomorrow, could be rebuilt with copies of discarded cookery books which lurk in loft, garage, and kitchen cupboard, with plenty left over for a warming bonfire at the finish.
Gary Rhodes had a book out in which every dish looked like it had been spat on. It might well be parsnip foam, or a pea scatter, but if it looks like someone’s blown their nose all over it, then surely it lacks that all important visual appeal? I’m still trying to get my head round his instruction to wrap fish in cling film and fry it. With the cling film still on. I never tried, because the inevitable prospect of picking bits of burnt, carcinogenic plastic out of my dinner seemed devoid of appeal, visual and otherwise.
Spaghetti Bolognese. Can’t be improved on surely? Heston Blumenthal thinks so, and Mrs Bryer believed him. Chopping things for an hour or so, sweating them for maybe 4 hours more, and that was just the beginning. Adding milk. Milk? In a spag bol? It’s against the law, isn’t it? Star anise? A lot of star anise. I’ve had a star anise phobia ever since.
“What do you think?” asked Sandra, some 8 or 9 hours after slicing the first onion.
I pushed the insipid slop around on my plate for a bit, searching for something to say.
“It’s, um…” I gave up.
“It’s like sick,” she said.
It was in the black sack that the fox had ripped open overnight. A huge messy pile of Heston’s marathon spag bol had leaked over the gravel. Even the fox didn’t like it.
Friday, 23 September 2011
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Popeye's Hat
We were invited to Sunday lunch a couple of months ago with some friends who live some distance away, so were further invited to stay the night. We rose on Monday morning, descended the stairs as the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted out from the kitchen. Breakfast was in preparation and our hosts advised us that as the morning was a chilly one, they had lit a fire in the lounge, also that they’d put the news on for me. Very nice too, lovely welcome. So it was rather ungracious of me to sour the mood by voicing my dislike of the female presenter of this breakfast news programme. What’s wrong with her? I was asked. “She’s false,” I said, “although in fairness, the only person I dislike more than her is that bloke.” Heads turned screenwards as the rather self-satisfied, shiny little man who reads out the football scores greased his way into shot. Ungracious? Yes, I’ll admit to that, uncalled for etc, but was my dislike a rational one? Yes, it was. It irritates me that during Royal Ascot, which is a five-star meeting, featuring the very best of horses and jockeys and top class races, that the focus on this TV show (BBC Breakfast) by this person (Chris Hollins) is getting himself done up in morning dress at 6AM to talk about what people will be wearing and whether the Queen’s going or not, and never mind some proper journalistic-style coverage of the racing.
But if we move into the realm of irrational dislikes, there are some queer ones about to be sure. My mother can’t bear Cary Grant - and therefore I have decided I am probably adopted, or if my ma can’t see the greatness in the best screen actor of all time I should like to be placed with a new family. She also spits fur balls at the sight of Gloria Hunniford, John Wayne, and the insurance ads featuring both the meerkats and the opera singer. I don’t like Jeremy Paxman either, she said. “I do,” I protested. Well, I knew you’d like him, she said, pointedly.
A colleague can’t bear Frank Sinatra as she says he looks too pleased with himself, but she adores Robbie Williams – whose smirk is of course off the scale and in inverse proportion to his talent. At least Frank had the chops.
I have never seen Friends. People used to say they were like Joey or, one of the other ones, and I had not a clue. Reason? I could never get past that weedy theme song. Now and again I thought I give it a go, but as soon as these guitar-toting do-gooders said they were going to be there for me I decided it was time I was going to be somewhere else and right sharpish. I don’t care for the local TV weatherman because he wears brown suits, but the rest are probably too numerous to mention. Easier to ask me who I do like.
Sandra throws things at Fiona Bruce, little old wine drinker Jilly Goolden and Countryfile’s Julia Bradbury. None of whom bother me. But when we sat down to watch Zoolander we glanced at each other after a bare few minutes and knew we had to re-think things. Reason? The spectacularly annoying Owen Wilson made his way onto the screen prompting a joint dash for the off-switch.
Mrs Bryer wins this one though. “Shall we watch The French Connection?” I asked. No, she replied, I don’t like it. “What do you mean you don’t like it? What’s not to like about The French Connection?” I don’t like Gene Hackman’s little pork-pie hat, she said. Can’t argue with that.
But if we move into the realm of irrational dislikes, there are some queer ones about to be sure. My mother can’t bear Cary Grant - and therefore I have decided I am probably adopted, or if my ma can’t see the greatness in the best screen actor of all time I should like to be placed with a new family. She also spits fur balls at the sight of Gloria Hunniford, John Wayne, and the insurance ads featuring both the meerkats and the opera singer. I don’t like Jeremy Paxman either, she said. “I do,” I protested. Well, I knew you’d like him, she said, pointedly.
A colleague can’t bear Frank Sinatra as she says he looks too pleased with himself, but she adores Robbie Williams – whose smirk is of course off the scale and in inverse proportion to his talent. At least Frank had the chops.
I have never seen Friends. People used to say they were like Joey or, one of the other ones, and I had not a clue. Reason? I could never get past that weedy theme song. Now and again I thought I give it a go, but as soon as these guitar-toting do-gooders said they were going to be there for me I decided it was time I was going to be somewhere else and right sharpish. I don’t care for the local TV weatherman because he wears brown suits, but the rest are probably too numerous to mention. Easier to ask me who I do like.
Sandra throws things at Fiona Bruce, little old wine drinker Jilly Goolden and Countryfile’s Julia Bradbury. None of whom bother me. But when we sat down to watch Zoolander we glanced at each other after a bare few minutes and knew we had to re-think things. Reason? The spectacularly annoying Owen Wilson made his way onto the screen prompting a joint dash for the off-switch.
Mrs Bryer wins this one though. “Shall we watch The French Connection?” I asked. No, she replied, I don’t like it. “What do you mean you don’t like it? What’s not to like about The French Connection?” I don’t like Gene Hackman’s little pork-pie hat, she said. Can’t argue with that.
Friday, 24 June 2011
My Night With Thin Lizzy
The River Bar was the coolest hang out in town. My eyes were well and truly opened when my mate Graham Scott and I went down there one summer lunchtime. This was where all of the town’s 'heads' gathered. The place where, in the words of the Sounds magazine lonely hearts ads, freaky guys met up with groovy chicks. For a 16-year-old this was the world I’d been looking for. The smell, the incredible aroma that was new to me, but I would come to adore. The smell of patchouli oil, Afghan coats, dope and greasy denim. Aaaah!
The River Bar was attached to a once-swanky hotel, and in an attempt to keep up, or perhaps keep going, they used to run discos on a Thursday and Friday, but on Saturdays, the news was that Saturdays would feature live rock music. Live music, here and just a bus ride away. Wow, this was going to be something, right?
We went along, whoever was on, we went along. Be it Graham Parker and The Rumour who were great, or be it Budgie. Who weren’t. I remember giving up on Budgie and going outside, hanging around the river bank, popping back in to get another drink, but never entertaining the idea of going somewhere else. Hanging in there, but keeping Budgie at a suitable distance. Although we could still hear them, so it wasn’t entirely successful. Incidentally, nowadays Budgie’s frontman and singer, we’ll call him The Head Budgie, Burke Shelley looks like Charles Hawtrey.
So, hanging around and being regular faces brought benefits. Graham got a job as a humper. “What’s that?” I asked. He explained that he had to be there on a Saturday lunchtime, and when the band’s gear arrived he assisted with carrying it into the venue. He was doing other stuff now too. There were several points of entry into the hall, so doors had to be manned. A table was placed there in an attempt to prevent free entry. For this, he got free admission, a hot meal and a few quid.
We saw Curved Air there in the company of an audience who numbered less than 20 – which was rather more than the post-Wings Denny Laine got at the leisure centre up the road (The Mull of Kintyre sideman's foray into a bagpipes'n'moptop-free outfit being pretty much responsible for the venue's first foray into music promotion being their last.)
My chance came when someone dropped out and Graham asked if I wanted to do some humping that weekend. For Thin Lizzy. Now, this wasn’t much of a deal at the time, because Thin Lizzy had had their hit with Whisky In The Jar a few years previously and with nothing to follow, they weren’t much of a draw. But this, although we didn’t know it at the time, was the tour that laid the foundations for them getting big again, and properly this time.
We hung around, we humped the gear in. We dealt with questions from the promoter like “What is it you do exactly?”. We buggered off for a bit. On return Graham was summoned and ordered to deliver another crate of beer to the Lizzy dressing room, from which he reckoned he returned high on the aroma of herbal smokes. Easy to believe when later, having deserted my post, I stood 3 feet from Phil Lynott as he played bass with one hand, sought desperately to remain upright, while examining a bottle of beer as if it were a work of fine art and all to establish whether there might be a mouthful left in it.
I say I deserted my post. Well, earlier I sat at my designated double swing doors with table set across them. Doors swung open. Five large gentlemen stood there.
“You can’t come in this way,” I squeaked.
“We’re with the band sonny,” said the biggest, in a deep, gravelly baritone. He loomed over me like a thundercloud.
“You’d better come in then,” I said. Helpfully moving the table out of the way, ushering them through, making my own way towards the stage, and thus resigning from my first and last rock-related position.
In those days, you see, the broadest point of my frame was my haircut, not that this ever-expanding tumble of golden curls got cut very often. The rest of me was about 6 inches across at my widest and if I were to lean in a corner I would occasionally be snatched up by a passing char who had mistaken me for a mop. And I wasn’t about to die for rock ‘n’ roll.
The River Bar was attached to a once-swanky hotel, and in an attempt to keep up, or perhaps keep going, they used to run discos on a Thursday and Friday, but on Saturdays, the news was that Saturdays would feature live rock music. Live music, here and just a bus ride away. Wow, this was going to be something, right?
We went along, whoever was on, we went along. Be it Graham Parker and The Rumour who were great, or be it Budgie. Who weren’t. I remember giving up on Budgie and going outside, hanging around the river bank, popping back in to get another drink, but never entertaining the idea of going somewhere else. Hanging in there, but keeping Budgie at a suitable distance. Although we could still hear them, so it wasn’t entirely successful. Incidentally, nowadays Budgie’s frontman and singer, we’ll call him The Head Budgie, Burke Shelley looks like Charles Hawtrey.
So, hanging around and being regular faces brought benefits. Graham got a job as a humper. “What’s that?” I asked. He explained that he had to be there on a Saturday lunchtime, and when the band’s gear arrived he assisted with carrying it into the venue. He was doing other stuff now too. There were several points of entry into the hall, so doors had to be manned. A table was placed there in an attempt to prevent free entry. For this, he got free admission, a hot meal and a few quid.
We saw Curved Air there in the company of an audience who numbered less than 20 – which was rather more than the post-Wings Denny Laine got at the leisure centre up the road (The Mull of Kintyre sideman's foray into a bagpipes'n'moptop-free outfit being pretty much responsible for the venue's first foray into music promotion being their last.)
My chance came when someone dropped out and Graham asked if I wanted to do some humping that weekend. For Thin Lizzy. Now, this wasn’t much of a deal at the time, because Thin Lizzy had had their hit with Whisky In The Jar a few years previously and with nothing to follow, they weren’t much of a draw. But this, although we didn’t know it at the time, was the tour that laid the foundations for them getting big again, and properly this time.
We hung around, we humped the gear in. We dealt with questions from the promoter like “What is it you do exactly?”. We buggered off for a bit. On return Graham was summoned and ordered to deliver another crate of beer to the Lizzy dressing room, from which he reckoned he returned high on the aroma of herbal smokes. Easy to believe when later, having deserted my post, I stood 3 feet from Phil Lynott as he played bass with one hand, sought desperately to remain upright, while examining a bottle of beer as if it were a work of fine art and all to establish whether there might be a mouthful left in it.
I say I deserted my post. Well, earlier I sat at my designated double swing doors with table set across them. Doors swung open. Five large gentlemen stood there.
“You can’t come in this way,” I squeaked.
“We’re with the band sonny,” said the biggest, in a deep, gravelly baritone. He loomed over me like a thundercloud.
“You’d better come in then,” I said. Helpfully moving the table out of the way, ushering them through, making my own way towards the stage, and thus resigning from my first and last rock-related position.
In those days, you see, the broadest point of my frame was my haircut, not that this ever-expanding tumble of golden curls got cut very often. The rest of me was about 6 inches across at my widest and if I were to lean in a corner I would occasionally be snatched up by a passing char who had mistaken me for a mop. And I wasn’t about to die for rock ‘n’ roll.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Shortcuts (A piece from the Why The Long Face? radio show)
It’s a film. The character over there whom we know nothing about yet is introduced to the audience as being selfish, arrogant and deluded. He’s smoking a roll-up of dubious provenance and at last we pan back so that a guitar case is revealed to be sitting beside him. This is the dramatic portrayal of the musician. They do the something similar when they want to signify a writer – except they substitute a half-empty bottle of scotch for the joint and a pencil sits in for the old banjo.
I realise that there are artistic factors at work here, and the director needs a shortcut to save 2 things. Firstly, time, and secondly, the audience having to think too hard when he wants them to be concentrating on his carefully designed tracking shot. But is it really necessary for the lawyer to always be the one who’s in a tearing hurry? ‘Sorry, I’m due in court’, they’ll gasp as they struggle with the hugest of humungous bundle of files underarm, papers spilling out, yet being caught by a handy and handsome-stroke-pretty passer-by when it’s necessary to engineer a little love interest.
In the old days if you saw someone in a mac, in the pissing rain, lighting up a fag and looking for a pub that was open then that person was bound to be a copper, if he had an ex-wife and a boss who didn’t like him, well that was the full set and he was obviously a very good detective, if not a very good husband or much of a team-player, but you marry the job don’t you, love?
Journalists also ticked most of those boxes, but they tended to have bad teeth and a rather seedy air about them.
You want a loose-ish woman? Then get the wardrobe department to dress her in stilettos and a pencil-skirt. Make sure her highlights are overdue, she has a slightly knock-kneed walk and can hold a glass of gin at a 30 degree angle. Job done.
On the other hand, if you’re casting a vicar he must have a big set of teeth that wrap around his chops like a corner sofa in white leather. Well, not really, but ever since Dick Emery played such a character that’s what I expect from a vicar. To the extent that one of the experts on the Antiques Roadshow – the one with the large specs, the slightly greasy hair in a side-parting and, most crucially, the mouthful of teeth – is known round these parts as Dick Emery.
If a murderer’s involved this will invariably be the loner, the outsider. The kids throw eggs at his windows, and he is what used to be called the local nutter. In fact, life imitates art here, as I believe there have been certain high-profile, real-life cases in which they’ve been so pressurised for a result, that the police still rely on this theory, regardless, or in spite of, or possibly because of, offender profiling like they have on telly. Which leads them to arrest the local oddball, even though he’s likely to be freed on appeal in a few years when all the fuss has died down.
During a murder mystery we were watching, I said to Sandra, “Look, you can tell she’s supposed to be a librarian, ‘cause she’s wearing glasses.”
But my theory doesn’t always hold true, as Mrs Bryer replied, “Wouldn’t be the fact she’s surrounded by shelves full of books then? In a big building marked Library?”
Never said it was foolproof. Did I?
I realise that there are artistic factors at work here, and the director needs a shortcut to save 2 things. Firstly, time, and secondly, the audience having to think too hard when he wants them to be concentrating on his carefully designed tracking shot. But is it really necessary for the lawyer to always be the one who’s in a tearing hurry? ‘Sorry, I’m due in court’, they’ll gasp as they struggle with the hugest of humungous bundle of files underarm, papers spilling out, yet being caught by a handy and handsome-stroke-pretty passer-by when it’s necessary to engineer a little love interest.
In the old days if you saw someone in a mac, in the pissing rain, lighting up a fag and looking for a pub that was open then that person was bound to be a copper, if he had an ex-wife and a boss who didn’t like him, well that was the full set and he was obviously a very good detective, if not a very good husband or much of a team-player, but you marry the job don’t you, love?
Journalists also ticked most of those boxes, but they tended to have bad teeth and a rather seedy air about them.
You want a loose-ish woman? Then get the wardrobe department to dress her in stilettos and a pencil-skirt. Make sure her highlights are overdue, she has a slightly knock-kneed walk and can hold a glass of gin at a 30 degree angle. Job done.
On the other hand, if you’re casting a vicar he must have a big set of teeth that wrap around his chops like a corner sofa in white leather. Well, not really, but ever since Dick Emery played such a character that’s what I expect from a vicar. To the extent that one of the experts on the Antiques Roadshow – the one with the large specs, the slightly greasy hair in a side-parting and, most crucially, the mouthful of teeth – is known round these parts as Dick Emery.
If a murderer’s involved this will invariably be the loner, the outsider. The kids throw eggs at his windows, and he is what used to be called the local nutter. In fact, life imitates art here, as I believe there have been certain high-profile, real-life cases in which they’ve been so pressurised for a result, that the police still rely on this theory, regardless, or in spite of, or possibly because of, offender profiling like they have on telly. Which leads them to arrest the local oddball, even though he’s likely to be freed on appeal in a few years when all the fuss has died down.
During a murder mystery we were watching, I said to Sandra, “Look, you can tell she’s supposed to be a librarian, ‘cause she’s wearing glasses.”
But my theory doesn’t always hold true, as Mrs Bryer replied, “Wouldn’t be the fact she’s surrounded by shelves full of books then? In a big building marked Library?”
Never said it was foolproof. Did I?
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Beached
“On the beach you can dance to the rock and roll.” The rock and roll – so say Cliff Richard one time.
Or as The Who put it, “A beach is a place where a man can feel he’s the only soul in the world that’s real.” And in my experience, having never actually danced like Cliff on the sands at Weymouth or Worthing myself, The Who are a little more on the money. Despite Cliff having the more obviously appropriate name to be linked with seaside fun, of course.
Some years back, we’re on the beach, Sandra and I, and as is the way of these things I got up to take myself off for a stroll. We’d been there for the best part of the morning and, once you’d lathered up with factor 8 (which in those days was considered to be so strong that it was akin to popping on a burka) and read for a bit and looked out to sea, and nudged your snoozing better half because that’s definitely a whale surfacing right there and not a turtle. Well, once you’ve done all that, and watched the tide coming in or going out, and gone for a cooling dip or two, and come back and brushed off the sand that’s stuck to your feet on the way back, but however diligent you are with brushing it off as you squat on the edge of the sunbed there’s still plenty to be found in your shoes as you slip them on and announce you’re going for a walk. And d’you wanna come? And she tilts her head up above her Susan Lewis novel, and the silence and the reflection of yourself in her shades is enough to tell you that, no, she isn’t coming, which is fine – because there’s nothing like exploring on your own, as when you discover something – well, who are you going to come back and tell?
Away I went, it wasn’t too crowded anyway, but after a quarter-of-a-mile the people had thinned out delightfully, and after twice that I was truly alone. I struck out along a spit of sand which led to a spectacular nowhere in particular. Surrounded now on three sides by the sparkling crystal sea, I slipped off my shoes and walked on into the end of the world. The last Man on Earth.
“You’ve got to see this,” I suggested a couple days later, “this is where I walked the other day. It’s fabulous, so isolated, you’re like the only people on the planet.”
However, the Robinson Crusoe on an all-inclusive thing pales into blank depression and disappointment when one finds out that others have not only discovered the last place on Earth, but are busy discovering it with surfboards and shouting and, well, to be fair, I think there were only a couple of other fairly quiet people there, but they ruined it for us, as I’m sure we did for them.
Back we go to our rooms of an evening, and we shower away the grit, the sweat and the suncream, until we’re as pink and scrubbed as we were as babes, but then we slap on the greasy after-sun lotion and douse ourselves in pungent insect repellent, so we’re ready to face the evening all stinking and slippery.
Better by far to have the simple life. On a jet-lagged early morning walk in Sri Lanka we paused under the palm trees that ringed the beach, watching the waves break as the huge tropical sun burst into view over the horizon. “Look at that old bloke,” I remarked. “Sitting on the beach there, what a way to start the day. He’s getting up now, look, adjusting his sarong, and kicking sand into the hole, and euw, wiping his bottom with a handful of sand. Still quite a way to start the day. Perhaps we’ll go up the far end today, though, and no digging…”
Or as The Who put it, “A beach is a place where a man can feel he’s the only soul in the world that’s real.” And in my experience, having never actually danced like Cliff on the sands at Weymouth or Worthing myself, The Who are a little more on the money. Despite Cliff having the more obviously appropriate name to be linked with seaside fun, of course.
Some years back, we’re on the beach, Sandra and I, and as is the way of these things I got up to take myself off for a stroll. We’d been there for the best part of the morning and, once you’d lathered up with factor 8 (which in those days was considered to be so strong that it was akin to popping on a burka) and read for a bit and looked out to sea, and nudged your snoozing better half because that’s definitely a whale surfacing right there and not a turtle. Well, once you’ve done all that, and watched the tide coming in or going out, and gone for a cooling dip or two, and come back and brushed off the sand that’s stuck to your feet on the way back, but however diligent you are with brushing it off as you squat on the edge of the sunbed there’s still plenty to be found in your shoes as you slip them on and announce you’re going for a walk. And d’you wanna come? And she tilts her head up above her Susan Lewis novel, and the silence and the reflection of yourself in her shades is enough to tell you that, no, she isn’t coming, which is fine – because there’s nothing like exploring on your own, as when you discover something – well, who are you going to come back and tell?
Away I went, it wasn’t too crowded anyway, but after a quarter-of-a-mile the people had thinned out delightfully, and after twice that I was truly alone. I struck out along a spit of sand which led to a spectacular nowhere in particular. Surrounded now on three sides by the sparkling crystal sea, I slipped off my shoes and walked on into the end of the world. The last Man on Earth.
“You’ve got to see this,” I suggested a couple days later, “this is where I walked the other day. It’s fabulous, so isolated, you’re like the only people on the planet.”
However, the Robinson Crusoe on an all-inclusive thing pales into blank depression and disappointment when one finds out that others have not only discovered the last place on Earth, but are busy discovering it with surfboards and shouting and, well, to be fair, I think there were only a couple of other fairly quiet people there, but they ruined it for us, as I’m sure we did for them.
Back we go to our rooms of an evening, and we shower away the grit, the sweat and the suncream, until we’re as pink and scrubbed as we were as babes, but then we slap on the greasy after-sun lotion and douse ourselves in pungent insect repellent, so we’re ready to face the evening all stinking and slippery.
Better by far to have the simple life. On a jet-lagged early morning walk in Sri Lanka we paused under the palm trees that ringed the beach, watching the waves break as the huge tropical sun burst into view over the horizon. “Look at that old bloke,” I remarked. “Sitting on the beach there, what a way to start the day. He’s getting up now, look, adjusting his sarong, and kicking sand into the hole, and euw, wiping his bottom with a handful of sand. Still quite a way to start the day. Perhaps we’ll go up the far end today, though, and no digging…”
Saturday, 8 January 2011
Typhoid Mary (Summer 2010)
I spent much of the other weekend in the garden with Lily, who is nearly 4, and growing up at a quite dizzying rate. Until recently she was easily entertained by being spun around in the chair in my study, or by being given a pad of post-it notes and red felt tip, or half a pint of lemonade and a slab of chocolate on the morning that her parents were due to arrive to pick her up, but now..
Now we take up our respective positions under an apple tree. Me in my big garden chair, her in one of the miniature pink ones, and as we cluster around the matching tiny pink table with its little parasol, she takes a sip from her Sponge-Bob cup and looks across at me coolly.
“So,” she begins, “remind me what we were talking about last night?”
The first time this happened I was genuinely thrown, it was if one of our resident ghosts, perhaps Cinderella Bawden herself, had taken possession of the poor child.
As an aside, I have to report that as I type the name Cinderella Bawden the hairs on my arms are standing to attention.
From, what were we talking about last night, we proceed into what counts for me at least as a philosophical discussion about all sorts of unexpected subjects, and then we run around for a bit and have an ice-pole from the freezer and I pretend to be a monster and then if someone falls over and scrapes her knees it’s invariably Sandra whose presence is called for and I become aware of my standing when things of true import are taking place.
I don’t know why it is that small children seem to have permanently runny noses, and as Lily marries that up with a nasty and perpetual cough, and either Sandra or I come down with something shortly after she’s come to stay, I’ve dubbed her Typhoid Mary.
During the weekend I often reassured her that none of the many bees about the garden would harm her. “If you leave them alone,” I said, “they’ll leave you alone.”
After Sunday lunch, everyone was in the kitchen when I dashed in from the garden and stuck my hand under the cold tap, then, in a fruitless attempt to get it off, sloshed olive oil over my ring finger which was already starting to swell and squeeze up and out at the sides of my wedding band. I have to report that, amid the rather diffident response, there was actually some mild hilarity, one wag observing, “Bees won’t hurt you then?”
And they won’t, unless you happen to be tidying away a little pink chair underneath which a fat, drunken, orange bumble bee was sleeping one off. His angry ginger genes aroused when I tickled him inadvertently, he responded in the only way he knew.
I’m glad, of course that it was me and not Lily who took the hit. It’s been a bit irritating for a week and now it’s the same colour as my balls were after the lump was removed. But I’m also pleased because, given the fact that she’s a walking Petri dish full of all sorts of viruses and malevolent bacteria, God knows what might have happened had bee venom been introduced to the mix. It would have made the millennium bug and bird flu look like a load of fuss about …um, nothing…...Ahhh...
Now we take up our respective positions under an apple tree. Me in my big garden chair, her in one of the miniature pink ones, and as we cluster around the matching tiny pink table with its little parasol, she takes a sip from her Sponge-Bob cup and looks across at me coolly.
“So,” she begins, “remind me what we were talking about last night?”
The first time this happened I was genuinely thrown, it was if one of our resident ghosts, perhaps Cinderella Bawden herself, had taken possession of the poor child.
As an aside, I have to report that as I type the name Cinderella Bawden the hairs on my arms are standing to attention.
From, what were we talking about last night, we proceed into what counts for me at least as a philosophical discussion about all sorts of unexpected subjects, and then we run around for a bit and have an ice-pole from the freezer and I pretend to be a monster and then if someone falls over and scrapes her knees it’s invariably Sandra whose presence is called for and I become aware of my standing when things of true import are taking place.
I don’t know why it is that small children seem to have permanently runny noses, and as Lily marries that up with a nasty and perpetual cough, and either Sandra or I come down with something shortly after she’s come to stay, I’ve dubbed her Typhoid Mary.
During the weekend I often reassured her that none of the many bees about the garden would harm her. “If you leave them alone,” I said, “they’ll leave you alone.”
After Sunday lunch, everyone was in the kitchen when I dashed in from the garden and stuck my hand under the cold tap, then, in a fruitless attempt to get it off, sloshed olive oil over my ring finger which was already starting to swell and squeeze up and out at the sides of my wedding band. I have to report that, amid the rather diffident response, there was actually some mild hilarity, one wag observing, “Bees won’t hurt you then?”
And they won’t, unless you happen to be tidying away a little pink chair underneath which a fat, drunken, orange bumble bee was sleeping one off. His angry ginger genes aroused when I tickled him inadvertently, he responded in the only way he knew.
I’m glad, of course that it was me and not Lily who took the hit. It’s been a bit irritating for a week and now it’s the same colour as my balls were after the lump was removed. But I’m also pleased because, given the fact that she’s a walking Petri dish full of all sorts of viruses and malevolent bacteria, God knows what might have happened had bee venom been introduced to the mix. It would have made the millennium bug and bird flu look like a load of fuss about …um, nothing…...Ahhh...
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