Tying the knot

There was a time in my 20s when I seemed to be forever going to weddings.  I suppose that’s pretty standard for many of us.  At that age one or other of your friends is always getting hitched.  After that you hit a spate of christenings, and without wanting to be morose I dare say the next thing will be attending funerals, but, as the government keeps telling us, we’re all living longer these days so there’s still plenty of time!

I always liked going to weddings back then.  I don’t mean for sentimental reasons, and certainly not through any interest in what the bride was wearing.  I just liked the whole ritual of meeting up with your mates and their families, catching up on their news (I’m talking pre-interweb here), and necking a couple of stiff G&Ts before the service (pints of beer are far too bladder filling; I still associate drinking gin with weddings).  I even liked the singing in church, not through any love of hymns but because out of tune singing always makes me laugh.  Most of all I enjoyed the wedding reception.

For many of us, when we were in our 20s and still single or without kids, the reception was the mother of all piss ups.   With the occasional free bar and perhaps an undercurrent of inter-family rivalry, there was also untold opportunity for a memorable or embarrassing incident.  I once saw a very posh, rotund Hyacinth Bouquet-like character who, having enjoyed several glasses of champagne, was being sick on the dance floor.  I know there should be nothing in the least bit funny about that, but I nearly wet myself to see her on her hands and knees in a voluminous floral frock and an enormous hat hanging from the back of her head, coughing and retching  like a dog.  I bet I’m not the only guest who remembers that particular day for no other reason.  Similarly, when my old school friend Francis married Billie, I remember the occasion not for the quaintness of the church, nor for the splendour of the bridal gown, but for the speech given by the bride’s father.

You may have seen an old sketch in which Rowan Atkinson stands up at a reception and assassinates the character of his new son in law.  Francis’s new father in law did something similar.  The cutting sarcasm was not quite in Atkinson’s league, but from an entertainment perspective this had the advantage of being totally authentic, and what’s more the guy was completely sober, so it was a deliberate, pre-meditated act.

Obviously I’m paraphrasing here after so many years, but he started off with a lengthy summary of Billie’s academic achievements, telling us how gifted a musician she was and about their lofty expectations for her future, before saying “So you can imagine our disappointment when she announced she was going to marry Francis”.  Up to this point most people had adopted the traditional approach of pretending to listen to the speech but allowing their minds to wander towards eying up the bridesmaids or whatever, but now everyone sat up and took notice. “We had hoped she would marry a man with a proper profession, someone who could at least hold down a job.  Not a teacher who is giving up his employment, apparently to start some sort of farm.  How does he intend to support her?  The whole thing is doomed to failure.  Well, don’t expect me to put my hand in my pocket”.

Francis had indeed just left his teaching job and bought a plot of land with a vague idea of starting a smallholding.  To be fair, we who knew him well were also pretty certain it was doomed to failure, but that’s not really the point.  Francis attempted to defend himself when his turn came to speak, but it just turned into the presentation of a fairly lame business plan, even less convincing than the ones which feature on ‘The Apprentice’.  This all rather diverted attention from his father in law’s spectacular lack of manners and finesse.  The happy couple got divorced a couple of years later.  I don’t think the reception speech had anything to do with it, although it can’t have helped much.  No doubt her father will have felt justified.

My own wedding 24 years ago went pretty much without a hitch, although I did quite literally shout my own speech through sheer nerves.  My only regret is that shortly before the big day I had allowed myself to be talked into getting the world’s worst haircut.  This fact can be forgiven but never forgotten; it haunts me to this day, and all those wedding photos are a constant reminder.  Still, I suppose it could have been worse.  I could have been married in the 1970s which would presumably have involved disastrous permed hair as well as flared trousers, huge jacket lapels and shirt collars, and possibly quite a lot of beige.  I must learn to count my blessings.

Me on my wedding day. If you think the hair wasn't so very bad, trust me it really really was.

What's in a name?

Today, much of the world is sniggering about the Beckhams naming their baby daughter Harper Seven.  I’m not terribly surprised.  The inflicting of such horrible pretentious names on innocent children has long been a source of irritation to me.  I know it’s really none of my business what other people call their kids, but sometimes it just gets my back up.  It’s not only the Beckhams who do this of course, and there have been plenty of column inches dedicated to the subject.  If you want to see some of the more bizarre ones, just check out this 2007 article from The Times: Linky Linky

However, whether it’s my business or not, it still exasperates me.  There seems to be an element of celebrities throwing their pretentious twaddle in your face, and you can’t help wonder how much of it is driven by a constant desire for publicity.  I get annoyed partly because they’re basically saying “We’re too special to give our child a normal name like you mere mortals”, but mostly I loathe their complete absence of forethought.  I mean, if you call your child Blue Angel, as U2’s ‘The Edge’ did (and of course his stage name isn’t in the least bit pretentious), what on earth is that child going to have to put up with, not just in their youth but all through their adult life?  And what may now seem a sweet, whimsical name becomes even more ridiculous with the passing of time.  How is Paula Yates’s daughter Fifi Trixibelle going to sound when she’s someone’s wrinkly old granny?  About as ridiculous as her three grey haired sisters Peaches, Pixie and Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily I suppose.

I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to names.  They come and go in fashion like everything else, but there’s always a pool of good solid names.  Nobody nowadays seems to call their kids Herbert or Arthur or Cedric and maybe that’s not a bad thing, although I can’t quite imagine someone called Herbert ever doing anything very wicked!  I dare say these names will return when their time comes again, like flared trousers or floral wallpaper.  This tendency for some names to drift in and out of fashion can occasionally give you a clue about someone’s age.  A Deirdre in my experience is likely to be at least middle aged, and there are loads of Darrens in their mid 30s to early 40s, but not so many under the age of 20.  Some names of course defy fashionable trends: David and Michael will probably be around forever.

As for myself I was christened Andrew Nicholas, but I’ve never used the former except when completing official forms, so when I’m being called in the doctor’s waiting room I don’t immediately realise it’s me they want.  This wasn’t my choice; my older brothers refused to call me Andrew from the moment I was born.  They insisted I looked like a Nicky, so Nicky I was called until one day I demanded that it was to be shortened to Nick, having decided that the suffix made me sound too babyish.

Some names (though not mine) run in families.  My grandfather and father were both Tom, my oldest brother’s second name was Tom, and my own son is Tom.  I wonder whether Frank Zappa’s kids Moon Unit, Dweezil and Diva Muffin have continued in a similar vein with their children?

A right Herbert ...

Out of the frying pan

Choose your weapon ...

I do most of the cooking in our house but I’m not complaining.  For starters (see what I did there?) I like doing it, and on a more practical level I nearly always get in from work before my wife, which means either I do the cooking or else we have to wait until late in the evening before we can eat.  Since I walk around like a bear with a sore head if I’m the slightest bit hungry, the decision is easy.

I have a shelf full of cookery books written by all the usual suspects: Nigella, Jamie, Delia (notice how we know them by their first names?), but while I have been known to follow one or two of their recipes to the letter, what puts me off is that they invariably call for some crucial ingredient like lemon grass or Mongolian yak’s blood which I haven’t got in stock.  Even so, I like to look at their books and drool over the pictures; I’m drawn in much the same way to cookery programmes on TV.  I know I shouldn’t watch them quite so avidly and that this sort of thing is what’s killing off ‘proper’ television, but I’m a pseudo-foodie who can’t help himself.

Despite all the reading and TV watching my repertoire in the kitchen is remarkably and depressingly limited.  A lot of my dishes for example involve just a variation on the same sauce.  So the tomato sauce that is the basis for my spaghetti bolognese is not a million miles away from the one I use for curry, chilli, lasagne and occasionally shepherd’s pie.  It’s just a question of adjusting the flavour by adding or removing different herbs and spices.  I do a pretty good paella (it’s not exactly how I’ve had it in Spain, but if I can be immodest for a minute I do prefer mine), a passable stir fry (heavy on the ginger and soy sauce) and a half decent Sunday roast. The rest is often just convenience food.

I have my favourite pans and my favourite kitchen knives, and if they get scratched or damaged a day of national mourning is declared.  I’ve been known when out shopping to leer at woks and garlic crushers.  I almost cried with joy when my wife brought home some egg poaching pods which work brilliantly and have solved my own singular incompetence at poaching an egg.  They now stay in one piece with a lovely runny yolk.

On the down side I’m a bit rubbish at cooking any fish other than the most basic, like salmon fillets.  Actually I can cook it OK, but it’s all the preparation that trips me up.  I’ve tried gutting, cleaning and filleting mackerel, etc., but the result was not pretty.  I know a fishmonger would do it for me but I really ought to master these things for myself.  I never make puddings and pastries or bake cakes; I probably could but I’ve never really tried.  For all my love of food, I don’t really get excited about puddings.  I like them well enough and I’ll eat them if they’re put in front of me, but apart from pancakes I’ve never felt the urge to make one.

After all that bragging about my prowess, you may be wondering what we had for dinner tonight.  The answer is egg, chips and peas with white bread and butter and a cup of tea.  I bet Nigella likes a chip buttie now and then.

Can you imagine a world without chip butties?

Between the covers

Untold wealth

You can’t beat a good book. Well you can, but as far as life’s more gentle pleasures are concerned, there is something very satisfying about losing yourself in a really good book.

And for me, it generally has to be a novel. My favourite reading is fiction, although I do read factual stuff too.  I’m happy to read a biography if the subject is interesting to me, and books on social history are usually welcome, but for relaxation, perhaps something to read by the pool or more likely while tucked up in bed, a good meaty novel is my escape route of choice.

Short stories are OK, but I tend to avoid them nowadays. The problem with the short story is that it’s either badly written, in which case it appears to be a fudge job in which the author apparently started off with an idea and just gave up, or else it is so well written that you enjoy it but feel short changed, as if the author should have kept going and made a ‘proper’ novel out of it.  I can’t off the top of my head think of a single short story which didn’t roll one way or the other, not one which made me think “great story, I’m so glad it ended just when it did”.

Of course, hypocritically, if I ever tried to write something to be published by, you know, an actual publisher in actual book form, I would almost certainly go for the short story, because I’m too bone idle to put the physical and mental effort into writing anything more epic.  And I could guarantee that my short story attempts would fall woefully short of anything worth reading.

So, a novel it is.  I love Dickens, Trollope, Hardy, Austen, Eliot and others of that ilk. It’s partly the way you get a sense of social history from reading them, especially Dickens who gives you a real feeling of what made people laugh, what they ate, how they dressed and so on.  I don’t pretend it’s an entirely accurate portrayal of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  This is particularly so if you read someone like Austen who never dips below those of the ‘gentleman’ class when choosing her protagonists, but even so, her observations on social etiquette alone are worth reading.

There is a whole mountain of genres I have no interest in reading. I’ve never enjoyed Sci-Fi for example, and I tend not to ‘travel’ too far.  I don’t know why, but books set outside Europe usually leave me cold, with a few notable exceptions (such as John Le Carré’s ‘The Constant Gardener), so I tend to avoid them.  I’m fully aware that this is a ridiculous prejudice and that I’m probably missing out on a wealth of brain food, but I can’t help it.  And besides, I like to re-read the novels I have enjoyed many times over a period of years.  My wife will ask me why I’m reading ‘Pickwick Papers’ for the umpteenth time, and it’s simply because I like it.  To me it’s only like digging out a record you haven’t heard for a while and having the pleasure of getting to know the songs again.

At least I’ve cured myself of one thing. I was probably well into my 30s before I realised that the world will not end if I don't finish reading something. There was a time when I forced myself to read books I wasn’t enjoying right to the bitter end. Not anymore; why waste time when there are better things to read?  It’s not like I’m going to take an exam or anything.

And that reminds me; in my English A level exam I answered a question on Dickens’ ‘Bleak House’ without having actually read the book. The exam was a disaster; I have no idea what possessed me to do something so arrogant.  About 10 years later I decided to read ‘Bleak House’, just to see what I’d missed out on.  I absolutely adored it. Perhaps we do get a bit wiser as time passes after all.

Mr Pickwick; one of Dickens' earliest - and best - creations.