A few years ago, a distinguished cove in the diplomatic service was made High Commissioner to Australia. To prepare himself for the penal colony, he invited three predecessors to lunch, for advice. The first said that he should make contact with the Billabong institute in Sydney. They were experts on the transportees’ economy. The second
There has been a gastronomic revolution in London. For some years, the Boisdale restaurants, often mentioned here, have featured Macsween’s haggis, made in Edinburgh. It is a good drop of haggis, and the various Boisdales were using around four-and-a-half tons a year. Ranald Macdonald decided that it was time to review the competition. There was
My friends divide into three groups. There are those who are determined to anticipate Lent. There is a larger number whose January diet barely made it until Twelfth Night. There is a third group, whose dietary plans are indeed based on Twelfth Night: the characters of Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek. To which set do
As the bottles flowed, the talk ranged, to a serious vineyard, an awesome Field Marshal and a delightful restauranteur. For years, the late Tom Benham ran Monkeys as a club. He cooked game especially well and his game pudding, made of course with suet, was one of the best dishes that I have eaten. As
Housman had a point. If men could be drunk for ever, the human condition would be tolerable. But thought always forces its way on to the agenda. ‘And when men think, they fasten/ Their hands upon their hearts.’ This occurred to me in the context of Lebanon. That is a country designed to be a
In the later 1850s, Palmerston was Prime Minister: Gladstone, his Chancellor. It was a successful partnership between two very different characters. As Roy Jenkins used to say, Palmerston’s willingness to put up with Gladstone — never an easy subordinate — proves that he was more that a bombastic Regency rake. At different times, the pair
We were talking about the West of Ireland and agreed that there were few greater gastronomic pleasures than a slowly and lovingly poured pint of Guinness accompanied by a generous helping of oysters, in a village restaurant overlooking the sea where peace comes dropping slow: where exertion is left to the bee-loud glade and anyone
Good Saturday, 2015, stepping westward. Autumn sunshine: autumn leaves, almost comparable to New England: pumpkins everywhere, very New England. We were in Sherborne, a town famous for its abbey and castle, but well worth a proper Pevsner-guided exploration. There were obvious questions. When and how did the pumpkin take over from the turnip, ‘trick or
The Scots do not know what to do. For once, they have a justified grievance. In recent years, this once-proud nation has been bawling and belly-aching and girning over fictitious complaints to such an extent that Wodehouse’s crack about the ray of sunshine and the Scotsman with a grievance was out of date. It seemed
It will seem an ungrateful comment after the lunch which I am about to describe, but Manchester has some way to go. In the Midland Hotel, the principal Tory conference hotel and a grand edifice redolent of civic self-confidence from an earlier era, the northern powerhouse could sometimes be mistaken for a 40-watt light bulb.
When it comes to nightclubs, many have written, but none has surpassed the Perroquet in Debra Dowa. Le tout Debra Dowa was present, including Madame ‘Fifi’ Fatim Bey, the town courtesan; Prince Fyodor Krononin, the manager; and Seth, the Emperor of Azania. Tension is caused by the arrival of the Earl of Ngumo, six and
The Indian summer was still fending off the mists and mellow fruitfulness. But the autumn term was about to begin; the season’s changes would soon be manifest. So it was a day for anecdote and recapitulation; for telling amusing August tales, behind which lurked deeper meanings. A couple of friends had been to the Palio,
Do-orzaat. Dorset is part of L’Angleterre profonde. It is possible to find evidence of modernity, but only in limited areas. Around 120 miles from London, west Dorset and the Somerset marches are around the same distance from the 21st century, let alone the 20th. It helps that no motorway runs through the county and mobile
We were eating tapas and talking about Spain. Leaving caviar on one side, when jamón ibérico is at its best, there is nothing better to eat. In the Hispania restaurant, it is always at its best. Nothing could match it, although Hispania’s cured leg of beef, the anchovies, the black pudding and the blood pudding
The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles began proceedings with a report on the activities of our junior branch. These youngsters are not yet eligible to become drinking members, but they are chosen because of their unremitting hostility to vermin and their burgeoning enthusiasm for killing game. Young Charlie, the Nimrod of his generation, has been
Great matters were trembling in the balance. The prime minister needed cash to achieve his objective and as Parliament was not sitting to vote for supply, there would have to be a loan. The PM summoned his cabinet colleagues to seek their agreement. His private secretary waited outside the cabinet room. Suddenly the door half-opened.
‘There lies the dearest freshness deep down things’ — and also the dearest Frenchness. It is easy to be rude about the French governing elite; indeed, it is impossible to be polite about them. But there is a France profonde, with a deep-rooted identity, like gnarled, ancient vines. There are said to be nearly 400
I cannot remember a jollier lunch. There are two brothers, Sebastian and Nicholas Payne, both practical epicureans. They have made a profession out of their pleasures. For many years, Sebastian was the chief buyer for the Wine Society. As he has a superb palate and is relentless in the search for good value, he is
There is a dive near St James’s which could claim to be the epicentre of international reaction. It is also a temple of pseudo–anti-intellectuality: the only club in London where chaps pretend not to have read books. Always a cheerful place, that is especially true at the moment. Its members still find it hard to
Most of my friends are still on a cloud of post-election euphoria. There is one exception: those involved with opinion-polling. They have all the conversational self-confidence of a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland, circa Christmas 2008. I have tried to cheer them up, because there are explanations for the polls’ systemic failure. Most
