Up to the nearby village to post a letter. This was the view yesterday morning from the square. One of the few pictures you'll see in this self-indulgent nonsense that doesn't include a glass. After going to the post office I went to the bar to (yes, really) buy a newspaper. For the first three years I'd walk in and it would fall silent, and all the old boys playing cards would stop shouting at each other, turn and stare intently at me for a full five seconds like out of a John Ford film, and then resume their game, but with the volume right down. After seven years, one or two of them actually say good morning. The bar is festooned with dead animals, guns, pennants from hunting clubs and football teams, bottles carved out of wood, faded photographs and acres of real Formica. Paying for the paper, I felt a severe tug of envy when the octagenerian next to me ordered and necked in one go a glass of amaro (q.v.). At a quarter to nine in the morning. If I wasn't Anglican I'd have had a go too, but I've not only got a drink problem but also too much Protestant guilt.
13 comments:
Ron, don't get too matey, Matey or you could end up mounted (on a plaque on the wall, obviously).
I think you've made that picture up or it's one from you holiday snaps album. All I can see in Slawston this morning is a black labrador crapping on the lawn opposite and people walking up the street to a funeral.
Blimey Ron - who needs a glass with a view like that, neck it straight from the bottle as God intended.
No Protestant guilt here. Just slugged a full glass of Barbera d'Asti with my poached eggs on toast. Perfect start to a day.
Now this could open up an interesting line of comment. What's the earliest you've taken alcohol in the morning? Not counting having not gone to bed.
Mine is a big glass of Southern Comfort on the sailing barge Beric in Brightlingsea harbour at about 7.30am.
Now this is an interesting one. In my former London life, the F-word and I were served breakfast in bed at the Fulham flat of a glorious alky hooray called Chris Jones. Breakfast was a Bullshot which is vodka and beef broth. I reckon it was probably at around eight o'clock, which is a bit late but when you've been drinking claret and tawny port until three in the morning, not bad.
Does whiskey on your porridge count ?
Chris Jones used to hunt with the Beaufort. And he insisted on making the Bullshot with Stolly. Squire
Ashley would doubtless approve. I think whisky on porridge counts, but only if you're telling the truth and it was a decent slug.
I found out this afternoon at a football match what the word crepuscular means.
Champagne breakfast at Claridges with Jimmy Woods after a promo on 'The Big Breakfast' for our smash hit children's show 'The BFG', 1992? Must have been about 07.30. I know it was ridiculously early. We tried it again a few months later but they twigged we weren't guests (can't think why)and wouldn't serve us any booze. Seems like a lifetime ago but I'm not bitter. Gaby Roslin looked fantastic, Chris Evans was very tall. I expect he still is.
Can we have some more accurate timings on this? Particularly about the whisky infested porridge.
Actually, I've just set my alarm for five o'clock just so that I can down a Special Brew.
As porridge is really not a pre 07.00 meal for me (unlike black pudding & kidneys) my whiskey hardly counts as "early". I did once have a T off booked for 09.00 at the oldest golf course in Ireland, (cricket tour - not really a golfer) but as I know we'd had at least 2 Bloody Marys and 1/2 dozen pints of Guiness at breakfast before kick off we must have started bloody early. I remember enquiring at the pro' shop for Golf Buggy rental deals and being told "You must be fucking joking".
There's no doubt that Jeff had it sorted with his vodka fridge next to his bed, I recall him referring to the vodka squeeking to him from the fridge as he woke, only thing is - it probably wasn't very early.
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