A TRUE FAIRY TALE OF NEW YORK

Many a New Year's Eve, when Vera Slapp and I were teenagers, our grandmother would tell us this salutary tale of her time in New York :

"Your Grandpa Harridan was a terror, a bootlegger, a boozer, a wifebeater and a cheat. That Christmas of 1921 had been the worst ever. He had been drunk all over the holiday, he had spent all the money, there had been no Christmas dinner and no toys for the children. Evie was two and a half, Teddy was just a baby. I had shivered in that old tenement on Amsterdam Avenue (now the Lincoln Center!) trying to keep the children warm while he had been out enjoying himself with his pals and floozies since Christmas Eve.

"Just after midnight the door burst open, and in he staggered, drunk as a lord. I positioned myself between him and the children. However I needn't have worried. He didn't even look at me. He staggered into the bedroom where I heard him pulling off his boots and throwing them on the floor. He threw open the sash window and the noise of revellers bringing in the New Year drifted up from the street four floors below. Suddenly the sound of an alarm clock burst through the muffled crowd noises. I moved nearer to the bedroom door so I could see what was happening.

"He was leaning out of the sash window, with the ringing alarm clock in his hand, shouting "Happy New Year!" over and over again in that weird Scots-Irish-American accent he had. His boots lay on the floor, and as he leaned forward he balanced on the windowledge, one of his stockinged feet waving in the air. As I looked at him, right then, I thought, I thought I could tip his other leg up ... right now .... nobody would ever know ....."

"And why didn't you do it, Nana?" we would ask disingenuously, already knowing the answer. She used to look at us both with love, and answer:

"Because if I had, I would never have had you, Daphne, or you, Vera." she replied, and then, softly, as an afterthought, "and I would have had it on my conscience for the rest of my life."

Mind how you go. Whether you are going out or staying in, I wish you a peaceful transition into the new year, and most of what you wish for in 2010. I've greatly enjoyed your company in the last 12 months, I've loved reading your blogs and I've had the added bonus of meeting some of you. I hope for more of the same in the coming year and may all your outages be little ones. I will be with you again in 2010.





Thanks to McChe for the festive artwork on the banner, and here's hoping your anus is less horribilis in 2010.

NOT WHILE THE TRAIN IS STANDING IN THE STATION

I took Eurostar to London on the Thursday evening before Christmas, and arrived in time to meet Tarquin La Folle and be dragged off to an end-of-term meal at historic London tavern Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, in Fleet Street. We sat at the very table where Dr Johnson once held court, under a brass plaque commemorating the great man's seat. The menu is very olde Englisshe, and I enjoyed a good old-fashioned steak and kidney pudding, served by ye olde traditional Estonian waitress.




On Friday I met Gorilla Bananas, who was a bit late. He panted his apologies as he unwound himself from several layers of scarves, woolly hats and gloves. "It's several degrees colder here than in the Congo," he explained with typical understatement. "And my fur is getting a bit thin in middle age." I bought him a hot chocolate to warm him up, poor old thing. Sadly the restaurant we had planned to have lunch in was FULLY BOOKED on a Friday lunchtime (so much for the recession!) so we repaired to a Pizza Express where we had some most acceptable Italian food served by a charming young Romanian waitress.

On Saturday I met the Grande Dame of the Thames Valley, Mrs Pouncer, who was looking resplendent in fake ocelot, fishnets and stiletto heeled thigh boots. She picked me up at the station and drove me on icy roads to one of those delightful country gastropubs they have down there. Unfortunately, once parked, she was unable to cross the car park which was like a skating rink without doing a Bambi. I suggested that I go in alone and have something sent out to her in the car, but she would have none of it, so I had to virtually carry her like an elderly and rather cantankerous relative to the safety of the pub's dining room. Once there, we had a delightful lunch, and the young Lithuanian waiter took the constant bottom-pinching with good humour.

Mrs Pouncer eating her soup daintily

I then proceeded to visit my cousin Vera Slapp in her bijou new des res in a chocolate-box Oxfordshire village with only one shop - Ye Olde Co-oppe - a post office that is so old the post box bears the letters GR (George Rex for the benefit of my colonial readers, meaning it pre-dates our current Queen), a beauty salon, a fireplace shop and three olde-worlde pubs, which gives you a fairly accurate picture of the type of people who live in the village. Rich and alcoholic. There is a particularly spectacular abbey, which even has a rotund and jolly lady vicar! It is not called Dibley, but might as well be. Vera's house is delightful, and this photograph of her fireplace decorated for Christmas would not be out of place on the cover of the Christmas edition of Country Life.




Vera is also something of a Delia, but I was cock-a-hoop to find she had never made her own sausage rolls! I gave her my secret tip: three layers of ready-made puff pastry rolled together make wonderfully light and puffy rolls. Don't forget the sausage meat. Vera and Cyril usually come to Brussels for the Christmas markets, but as I hadn't even made it to one myself this year, Vera rustled up some home-made vin chaud, or as it it now known even in Belgium thanks to Cyril's lack of French and poor hearing, banjo. Christmas just isn't Christmas without a sausage roll and a banjo. We had a delightful dinner at one of the olde-worlde pubs in the village where we had the dining room to ourselves and the full attention of the delightful young Czech waiter, who seemed to know Vera well. Very well. Unless his name is actually "Darling".

On my return from London I met up with Madame DeFarge for a festive libation or three and a bite to eat in London's trendy Pimlico district. We had never met before, but I had no trouble identifying the lady in the Phrygian bonnet knitting in the corner of the pub. Madame DeFarge is excellent company, erudite and witty, and I was surprised to find I could understand every word she said despite her broad Glasgow accent after two pints of Italian lager and a packet of Macadamia nuts.

During all my time in the UK I was keeping a weather eye on the telly whenever I could to check the situation of Eurostar, which had managed to have FIVE - not two, not three, not four, but FIVE - of its trains all break down at the same time from the wrong kind of snow. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, one breakdown is unfortunate, five is sheer carelessness. Thousands of passengers were unable to travel due to three full days of inactivity from the Anglo-French transport consortium. Last Tuesday - the day I was due to travel - a limited service resumed. I called Eurostar to find out what was going on, and got a recorded message telling me that I would not be able to travel until Wednesday while they cleared the backlog. I luckily managed to extend my hotel booking for an extra night and, having not much to rush back for, shrugged my shoulders gallically and looked forward to an extra day shopping.

I decided to stop by St Pancras anyway to see if it was as bad as they said. Imagine my shock when I got there to find NO-ONE! It was just like a normal day. No queues. No pandemonium. I approached a young man in a Eurostar armband, who told me that I could travel that day if I wanted. "That's no good!" I spluttered. "I've paid for another night's accommodation now!" He suggested I come back the same time the next day and assured me I should be able to just walk onto a train.

St Pancras International is not the worst place to spend hours hanging around for a train. It is spacious and full of shops and good restaurants. I lunched with an old friend from Paris, Neave Stoppes-Wittering, who was our wardrobe mistress at the Folies Bergère. We had the best fish and chips I have ever had at the Betjeman Arms, served by a charming Polish waiter. The sticky toffee pudding was small, but exquisite. Sticky toffee pudding is one of the great things about this country, and why I shall always be proud to be British.



I duly returned to St Pancras around 10.30 the following day, after a fairly leisurely session in Sainsbury's, to find the queue stretching halfway up the Euston Road. Almost speechless with horror, I asked an official how long was the wait. He estimated about seven hours! I nearly fainted. It was very cold outside. However, I girded my loins and parked my Big Green Tesco Bag (which is blue) at the end of the queue behind some equally horrified Americans who were very chatty and who kindly bought hot chocolate for our little group, including the young couple in front of them. I think they're still trying to apologize for Dubya. The Dunkirk spirit was soon rippling down the entire line, and friendships were forming the length of the queue, regardless of nationality. We stood shoulder to shoulder and shuffled forward a few metres at a time. There were no free hot drinks until we reached the Salvation Army stall some 90 minutes down the line, and once we got inside the terminal where we didn't need it, volunteers couldn't wait to foist polystyrene cups of hot tea and coffee on us. By this time I had spent a good two and a half hours with the couple of middle aged teachers from Savannah, GA and their retired friend Gaylord from Atlanta, who was spending his autumn years travelling around the world, and we had bonded. We took photographs of each other, exchanged e-mail addresses, I shared my Sainsbury's pork pies with them and we hugged on going our separate ways (they were going to Paris).

I finally climbed aboard the Eurostar five and a half hours after joining the queue, and exactly 24 hours after I should have travelled. It could have been worse. I wasn't stuck in the tunnel all night and didn't have to stagger down a mile of track hauling my matching luggage.

And it's an ill wind, as they say. Gaylord and I are planning a holiday together next year. But not on Eurostar.

Hope you had a merry little Christmas. Just New Year's to get through now.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

NOT taken with my new camera

I'm loading up the reindeer for my annual visit to UK, but I shall be back before the bells ring out for Christmas. I'm meeting Bananas, Mrs Pouncer and Madame Defarge - one at a time, so they can each get the full benefit - not to mention painting the town pink with Tarquin La Folle and doing a bit of cottaging at Vera Slapp's bijou abode in Deepest Oxfordshire. Or was that the other way round? Anyway, I hope I'll have a bit of shopping time so once the chocs and electric custard are distributed I can load up with bacon, sausages, pork pies, Stilton and all manner of gorgeousness in my Big Green Bag (which is blue) from Tesco, paid for in Euros at a very favourable exchange rate. Shopping is one of the best things about Christmas.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with some seasonal tunes to sing along to on my widget. I'll be home for Christmas.

BRING ON THE ELECTRIC CUSTARD

The Christmas season is in full flow here in Brussels, and it's parties, cocktails and dinners all the way to the pharmacy. After drinks last Tuesday with Tia Marianna who jetted in from Nicaragua (via Bridport) looking for all the world like a voluptuous Central American socialite (eat your heart out Bianca Jagger) I later espied Europe's no.2 nobody, Catherine Ashton, tucking into a lamb biryani with her team in a local curry house. So Mrs High Representative has not yet become Mrs High Roller (She will, Oscar, she will). I was so impressed I had to tell the first three people I met in the pub afterwards. I might as well not have bothered. "Who?" they said. It's enough to make Peter Mandelson do a turn in his Armani suit.

Baroness Ashton: once seen, never forgotten

I'm off to Antwerp Christmas market this weekend to stock up on De Klok Advokaat. This is a rare delicacy which is like catnip to my sybaritic friends Vi Hornblower and Vera Slapp, who eat it straight out of the jar. The best way to describe it would be: if Ferrari made custard, this is what it would taste like. It's like yellow rocket fuel you eat with a spoon. A dollop on a mince pie or a slice of Christmas pud - if you can get your hands on some - would make an interesting alternative to brandy butter, and would also come in handy if you run out of firelighters.

Dick Advokaat: no relation

Next weekend I shall be back in Blighty where I will be lunching, drinking or otherwise indulging with friends, family and a select number of bloggers: my dance card is full, so don't try and book me for lunch. I shall also be painting Oxford Street red with Tarquin La Folle and will spend a couple of days at Vera Slapp's new bijou olde Englishe cottage in Oxfordshire.

I hope to bring back some photographs taken with my new camera. I have just taken delivery of a Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ6 with a complete panoply of bells and whistles. I looked at mega-zooms, SLRs, super-compacts, I consulted with Kim Ayres the society photographer, I browsed e-Bay, Amazon, WhatCamera? Men's Health and Pig Farmers Weekly, and was finally convinced after a consultation with Bruce "Dingo" Swagman, my Aussie mate, who's just come back from Oz and got some bonzer shots with this little beauty.

Dingo is a fascinating character. A former Tasmanian motorcycle racing champion, he used to do the Wall of Death act at the Folies Bergère back in my dancing days. One Anzac Day he rode his Triumph Bonneville down the Champs-Elysées with Orinoco Flo McCluskey on the back, Dolores Entwhistle and Hattie Mildew-Spliff hanging off the sides and myself on his shoulders steering the bike with my feet while Dingo played Waltzing Matilda on the didgeridoo. Such thrills! It was like Happy Valley but without the money.

Something like this, but with feathers

Dingo's getting on a bit now, and has had to trade the Bonneville in for a mobility bike on which he has attached a bendy mast flying the Aussie flag in memory of his cameo role in Quadrophenia, and always carries a photo of Gough Whitlam in his wallet.

DEVINE COMEDY

On Monday Millicent Tendency bundled up from Paris for the St Andrew's Day lecture at Scotland Europa, the unofficial Scotch Embassy here in Brussels. In solidarity and in memory of Grandpa Harridan, the Gorbals Gobshite, I went along as well. The title of the lecture was "A Puzzle from the Past: Why did the Scottish Enlightenment happen?" A question, I think you'll agree, that keeps most of us awake at night. In the spirit of the occasion I donned tartan tights, and an outsize tam o'shanter. Think Vivienne Westwood meets Brigadoon. I heard several gasps of admiration from the Scottish guests, who had not gone to as much trouble.


McChe's kilt being currently in Paris (!), he decided to go dressed as Enlightenment Man, in frock coat and top hat, although I'm not sure everyone recognized him as such.




The speaker was Professor Tom Devine, OBE, holder of the Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History and Palaeography at Edinburgh University, Director of the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies, "widely acknowledged as Scotland's leading historian" (Wikipedia). Funnily enough I had been watching the documentary "Balmoral" the night before and up had popped the Prof as a talking head, I was thus able to recognize him immediately in the crowd at the pre-lecture drinks and point him out to McChe and Millicent. He hadn't brought the William Fraser Chair with him, so he had to stand up for most of the lecture.

McChe's new best friend

The lecture was most interesting, although the Eminent Historian's train of thought does ramble about a bit, and I kept losing the thread, especially when I realized that I had forgotten to bring a change of shoes and was sitting next to the Chief Wizard or whatever he's called of the Brussels office in the mud-splattered boots in which I had just hiked across the park. Still, it was edifying to be in the presence of a real intellectual and the only historian to have been honoured by the Queen with the Terry's Gold Medal. Professor Devine has a lovely rich West Coast brogue tinged with a Conneryesque way of pronounshing his esshes which fair warmed the cockles of ma heart.

In the course of his lecture he made a few good suggestions, such as trying out an alternative to democracy for a couple of years, making tartan illegal and not blaming England for everything that has ever gone wrong. As soon as he invited questions from the floor, wee Millicent abseiled off her chair to the ground and started haranguing the poor man about Scottish independence. The Eminent Historian was very tactful, but it was pretty clear that as someone who is the beneficiary of considerable research grants from London, he was not going to be drawn on the thorny question. Another lady raised a question that was so long it almost turned into another lecture. When we were eventually invited to repair to the bar for refreshments (cheeses, wines and Scottish sushi) there was an audible "wheesh!" of relief from the assembled Jocks.

It is a myth that the Scots don't like the English. Everybody was very friendly, especially when they heard my dulcet south London speech patterns, and in no time I was swapping phone numbers with Highlanders and Lowlanders alike and explaining the blood ties between the Fowlers and the Beales. At one point I spotted McChe lurking on the edges of a circle of people hanging on the Eminent Historian's every word, and prayed he wouldn't have one of his bursts of Tourette's which occasionally takes hold of him when in the presence of greatness and white wine in equal quantities, as Jimmy Bastard will attest.

Millicent and I got caught up in other conversations and raiding the freebies which were rather generous (nobody will ever have to buy their own USB key in this town) and the old Dunfermline Chardonnay was slipping down nicely. The crowd started to thin and I was able to catch sight of the Eminent Historian's bowed head, deep in conversation with someone who was bending his ear .... with horror I saw it was McChe! Millicent and I looked like mirror images of "The Scream" as we tried to lip read from the other side of the room.




We whiled away another ten minutes perusing an exhibition of photographs of well-known Jocks alongside their favourite Burns poems. The exhibition was entitled "As Others See Us", which is a maxim we should all take to heart, some of us more than most. As I slurped down the Pitlochry Zinfandel, I edged closer and closer to the picture of Malcolm Tucker, who had chosen "To my Jeans". I hope they cleaned the lipstick smears and saliva off before Alex Salmond did the official unveiling the following day. I'm afraid I've developed a fearsome crush on him. Malcolm Tucker, not Alex Salmond.

Malcolm Tucker by Ross Gillespie and Tricia Malley

We had to hang around for ages waiting for Professeur Emérite McChe and his new BF to wind up their conversation, but as we thought the Eminent Historian might be offering him a job we thought it worth waiting. I even offered to drive McChe to Edinburgh. That night, if necessary. The pair of them were actually chuckling about something, and I'm sure I caught the word "wankers", although I might have been mistaken. While we were hanging about minesweeping the last few glasses of Pinot Noir Cuvée Kilmarnock we struck up one of those dregs-of-the-party conversations with some loitering natives of Scotia, who suggested going off for a bite to eat. Now this NEVER happens with the English, or the Welsh for that matter, so I literally leapt in the air at the idea of some spontaneous interregional dialogue with our friends from over the border. The Scots thought I was attempting some kind of Highland Fling and the next thing I knew we'd stripped the willow right up the Rue Archimède and straight into a pizzeria. On the way we lost several members of our party, including McChe who was last seen wandering down the Rue de la Loi arm-in-arm with the Eminent Prof expounding on how Albert Camus nearly played in goal for Celtic, but by this time we were a very merry band and were incapable of counting heads anyway.

Much red wine flowed under the bridge and I recall some pasta appearing at some point, so I guess I must have eaten something. The conversation was loud and hearty. By the time we got to the point where 20-euro notes were being flung onto the table with gay abandon and ladies who had officially stopped smoking were bumming fags off a lady who hadn't (ahem), the rest of the tables had upended chairs on them, the owner was standing pointedly by the open door looking at her watch and I had acquired something of a Tannochbrae lilt to add to my glottal stops.



But n'importe, dear friends - the Union is safe. I have made sure of that. Since Bert's quite sudden and heartless defection from the KNOB* I am abandoning brass bands to take up Scottish dancing. My Cowdenbeath entrechat is the talk of Belgium.



* Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band