Britain’s Got Talent

I’d like to introduce you to my namesake nephew, Jack. He’s fourteen and bursting with the energy and confidence that I never had at his age. If your ears can stand it watch his plucky performance in front of his peers at a school assembly. He’s got the look and the moves though sadly not the voice. He learns, he thinks and writes poetry. He’s good with a football and with a pen. He enjoys life and loves his family. He’s a young man of rounded ability. Let’s give it up for the much maligned state school system.

Vipers in Paradise

We heard glad tidings. The Vipers and their dreadful old colonial ways have returned to Blighty. Thankfully, the British Raj is no more and neither are they. Bossy Chrissy intends to return now again to torment the natives. Even better news is that I’ve managed to persuade mother, sister, brother-in-law and their large brood over for my bi-centenary in October. It’s expected to be the best party since the fall of Constantinople.

Jack the Mascot

I have just reconnected with a long lost Blighty pal. His name is Andy and, nowadays, he’s someone awfully important in local government. We first became acquainted many moons ago at a drunken trivial pursuit work shindig. We were on opposing teams. I was the captain of my team which I called Kings and Queen. His team was called Gail Tisley’s Chin. The chin won by a nose. We got chatting afterwards over a tankard or two and thereafter became pals. Andy is a Barnsley lad with thick accent to match and a call a spade a spade Yorkshire charm. I was a cynical old pro and he was the new kid on the block at the tender of just 21.

Andy is irrepressibly heterosexual and so secure in his sexuality he isn’t fazed by mine in the slightest. I dragged him around the gay fleshpots of Soho. He didn’t flinch from the lecherous shenanigans. He assumed the role of my bodyguard protecting me from the wanted attentions of the dive bar boys, much to my distress. He used to drink in Earls Court, a gay mecca in those far off days. He isn’t bi-curious. It was the only place to get an after hours drink back then.

Andy decided to get hitched and held his stag do in Blackpool. A bit of a cliché but great fun nonetheless. It was thirty straight lads and me. I was the little gay mascot. I got chatting to one of his unsuspecting northern mates. ‘I hear a poof’s come along for the ride,’ he said. ‘That’ll be me,’ I replied. Despite the macho bravado from the boisterous boys I was the only one who actually got a ride that weekend.

Eventually Andy moved on to a better job and we lost touch. It’s an all too common problem for the transient workers of London. He’s still married to pretty little Jill and a proud father of two boys. They’ll grow up happy and well-balanced. Andy will make sure of it. I’m looking for a trip down memory lane when I’m next back in Blighty.

More Cheesy Tales

A few days ago I posted a tale of two cheese shops. What I shamefully failed to mention is that Yellowwedge Cheese (the shop) and What’s for Tea Tonight, Dear (the blog) are hoping for a gong from the Observer Food Monthly Awards. The shop is owned by David and his partner Philip and caused quite a stink in 2008 by running away with the British Cheese Award for Best New Cheese Retailer. Not bad for a couple of old reprobates.

Philip is a treasured old soul and the Imelda Marcos of scarves (the wrap-around-the-neck kind, not the bad hair day kind). He never travels by open top car for fear of being strangled like Isadora Duncan. He and I worked together for donkey’s years. I managed him for a while though I was always left wondering who really worked for whom. His innate intelligence is beautifully blended with creativity, wit and style, and the ability to drink me under the table.

Philip sent out a begging letter a short while ago. He wrote:

Dear Friends,

Voting in this year’s Observer Food Monthly Awards is open now and will close on 24 June. There are several categories which might be of interest (you can vote in as many or as few as you like) but I’m shamelessly trawling for votes in the categories:

Best food blog (UK based)
Best independent local retailer

My humble recommendations for your consideration in these categories being:

What’s for Tea Tonight, Dear
Yellowwedge Cheese

I’ll leave you to work out which is in which category!

I’d be grateful for any support you’re happy to offer so if you have friends, family, colleagues, schoolmates, children, parents, students, tutors, parishioners, customers, clients, readers, editors, drinking buddies, PAs, personal trainers, hairdressers, naughty bits on the side or anyone else you think may be interested then please feel free to GO VIRAL and forward freely!!!

Philip

PS in the new category of Best Cookbook my vote goes to Lucas Hollweg’s Good Things To Eat

If I didn’t agree to plug the nominations Philip threatened to dispatch a Lancashire bomb (a black waxed cheese in the shape of a sphere with string poking out the top). No pressure then.

Finger Lickin’ Good

Liam’s kid brother called by for a couple of days. These days he’s a very important businessman and had been attending a conference in Izmir. For some inexplicable, obscure family reason his name is Troy. The only other Troy I know used to be a stripper whose real name is Nigel and is hung like a Trojan horse. Our Troy inherited the entrepreneurial gene in the Brennan Clan and is doing very nicely whereas Liam will remain a penniless creative genius, to be applauded only after his demise. My brother-in-law wears his success in an unassuming, non-showy way. He shares our solid liberal values. I think of him as the acceptable face of capitalism, particularly when he insists on picking up the tab for his poor relations.

The Brennan brothers enjoyed a two-day fraternal love-in of liver failing proportions with me in tow. Naughty boy Troy has a desert dry wit, a mischievous streak and an unhealthy obsession with Kentucky fried chicken. Bodrum has already succumbed to the American cultural imperialism of Mcdonald’s, Burger King and Starbucks. The locals are lovin’ it. I must confess I’m partial to a Big Mac myself from time to time. It’s good for lining the stomach before hitting the sauce. I assume it’s only a matter of time before Colonel Sanders invades our shores with his secret blend of eleven herbs and spices.

We competed to see who could drink who under the table blending grape with the grain diluted with Rakı chasers. I can proudly declare that this diminutive English proddy romped home. So much for the legendary Irish reputation for hard drinking. My emerald lads conceded defeat with typical Celtic good humour. ‘I ain’t care,’ Troy slurred as we poured him into his cab for the airport carrying his liver in a jiffy bag.

Troy is a quality pro bro.

Check out the book

Don’t Dilly Dolly on the Way

P1020709 — Move along the bus. Plenty of room on the roof

Charlotte and Alan invited us over for dinner in Yalıkavak. Charlotte used us as guinea pigs for her latest culinary acquisition, a lavishly produced padded vegetarian cookbook. The meal was splendid. As usual, we journeyed by dolly and, as usual, it was chock-a-block. It was a lively excursion. We were entertained by an animated row between the driver and an unseen female passenger at the rear of the bus arguing about the distance covered by an indi-bindi (short hop fare). Her loud and persistent protests were met by a robust stern-ward defence by the driver who feverishly waved about his official fare chart. Since he was paying little attention to the road ahead, he was oblivious to the small scooter carrying four individuals slotted together like Lego that weaved ominously in and out of the traffic around us. A disaster was averted by an evasive wrench of the steering wheel prompting a sudden lurch of the bus. All in a day’s work by a dolly driver.

Give Me a Hand

Now we’ve moved to the big city, we had to go to the bank to change our branch. A simple enough procedure, I just had to write (yes write) a short letter requesting the change. Now, teacher Clive’s hand is lucid and tutorial. You can almost imagine three neatly ruled lines. Maurice’s hand is precise, crisp and artisan as befits his elevated status as an engineer. Philip’s script is stately, born of a more genteel age and fashioned down the years to a pleasing flourish. I can imagine him as a medieval monk devoting his life to illuminating the Gospels (and buggering the rector in the rectory). The common denominator here is that all of these marvellous hands are easy on the eye and perfectly legible. My small missive, on the other hand, was not. Furthermore, even after just three simple lines, my hand ached. A dozen or more years tapping on a keyboard has rendered my handwriting laboured and indecipherable; pretty to look but as Liam said, might as well be in Gujarati. So there it is. I have been permanently disabled by new technology.

So You Think You Can Write a Pop Song?

Listen to this and then read the story.

The Promise

Liam’s been setting some lyrics to music. The words in question were penned by our nephew and my namesake, Jack. The prose is very deep, very torch song – all lost love, bitterness, angst and misery. It’s entitled the Promise. It escapes me what a 14 year old adolescent could possibly know about mislaid love. I put it down to the comprehensive system. Classically trained Liam can’t do hooks and struggled with the composition. He’s developed a deeper appreciation of the well-crafted three minute pop song. What you heard was the result. Not a pop song perhaps, but beautiful nonetheless.

Ask Angela

I’ve been working on a website for our friend Angela. A vetpat of distinction, Angela is like a delicious transatlantic cocktail – a Fulham girl with a Yankee twist. She provides a one stop shop for all of your needs in the Bodrum area. We have first-hand experience of Angela’s great service – fast, efficient, friendly and cost effective. Take a look at Ask Angela and if you need any help, give her a call.

PS I don’t get a penny!

Sweet Swedes and Wretched Russians

My faith in our distant Nordic cousins has been mercifully restored by the arrival of Joel and Mikaela, a sweet couple from the northern pinelands of Mother Svea. They own a Tepe house on the level beneath us. Joel is a tall, slim, handsome older man with silver hair and a laid-back charm. His wife Mikaela is the archetypal Aryan beauty, a blue-eyed blond bombshell. Their warm and kindly disposition is a welcome respite from the grumpy old Danes next to us. They invited us in for tea. Their grand villa is a picture of understated Scandinavian chic. We chatted away for hours, a delicious smörgåsbord of wit and wisdom.

I recalled my first visit to Stockholm when I was a hormonal adolescent. The little local grammar school I attended laid on the most incredible journeys designed to broaden horizons and expand the mind. One early morning in 1975 twenty or so sweaty boys boarded a train at Victoria Station and headed for the coast. We sailed on the morning tide to Flanders where we began our grand passage across the great North European Plain.

First stop Berlin. It was the height of the Cold War and we spent two days exploring the cruelly divided city, escorted through the wall at Checkpoint Charlie. Onwards east, our carriages were pulled by an ancient steam locomotive that choo choo’d through a flat, monotonous landscape. As we neared Poland our party was raided by a detachment of East German border guards brandishing Kalashnikovs. The mean-looking, chisel-chinned troopers in tight beige uniforms rifled through our belongings and ransacked the couchettes. Perhaps they were looking for Levi jeans. Calm was quickly restored and we continued our incredible journey. A brief stop in Warsaw precluded an excursion to the city. We continued on across the Soviet border to Smolensk where the entire train was silently raised from its bogies and placed onto a new set of wheels to fit the wider Russian railway gauge.

Second stop Moscow. Tsar Brezhnev was on the Soviet throne and we were tightly chaperoned by an over-painted woman in cheap scent. She was tailed by the KGB. Shops were empty save for Russian dolls, and strangers approached us in Gorky Park wanting the clothes off our backs. Moscow was drab but the metro was palatial. The Kremlin was magnificent and Red Square was vast and windswept. Lenin in his marble tomb looked like a Madam Tussauds’ dummy. The comrades around us looked fed up and miserable as they shuffled dutifully past the macabre exhibit.

Third stop Leningrad that was. The Venice of the North was a more visually pleasing spectacle with imposing baroque architecture painted in multi-coloured delicate pastels. The majestic enormity of the Winter Palace containing the Hermitage Museum was too vast to comprehend. As if Peter the Great’s grand imperial capital wasn’t grand enough we embarked on our fourth stop, a day trip to Novgorod, one of the most celebrated cities of medieval Rus. This ravishing city is twinned with Watford of all places.

Fifth stop Helsinki across the Gulf of Finland. This picturesque and verdant city reminded me of a mini-St Petersburg. Our whistle-stop excursion was all too brief.

Sixth stop stunning Stockholm where we expected to see a sex shop on every corner. It was the sexual repressed seventies when buttoned-up Brits were convinced that emancipated Swedes were at it morning noon and night. We were disappointed.

We steamed back to Blighty across the cold northern seas in a Ruskie rust bucket that saw service in World War Two. We shared the wreck with a party from an all-girl’s school in Scarborough. I watched the boys chase the girls and wondered what all the fuss was about. Our teachers allowed us to take a drink at the bar. Perhaps this is where my gradual but certain descent into alcohol dependency all began.

Final stop Tilbury Docks and back to earth with a bump. Three weeks for 150 quid which my parents saved for months to pay. All in all a fantastic adventure that was a little lost on a bunch of post-pubescent fourteen year olds whose main preoccupation was masturbation.