logodædalus

I haven't blogged for a fucking long time. And there's a reason for that: I haven't hated my life recently. I'll happily admit that blogging was an outlet for me, a vox clamans in deserto. I howled in frustration at the world, and at times the world howled back. (Thanks for that...)

Therefore, I suppose, my life is now in a pretty good place. And it is. I'm happy to be me. I passed my PGCE (a year that will ever live in igmony, dear reader, on account of my second placement being fucking horrifying: not because of the children, but rather because of my "supportive" colleagues. I ain't bitter.) and subsequently my NQT year, which was not at all easy. I am now a proper teacher. Which is at times terrifying: they actually let me teach young people? I am now the primary non-family role model for thirty-odd eleven year old boys? Are they quite mad?

But I love it. It also turns out that I'm pretty damn good at it, which is something that never would have occurred to me. Five years ago, had anyone told me that I'd be teaching actual children French and Latin in a grammar school, I would have laughed in their face. Before clocking them one for taking the piss.

I find myself not only returning to Caecilius est in horto[1] but also trying to add in some of the stuff I wish I'd learnt at the time. As a result, my year sevens can not only confidently discuss Proto-Indo-European and Grimm's Law, but also translate into Latin such useful phrases as "the teacher beats the boys with a big stick" - magister pueros cum fuste verberat, if you're interested. I'm pleased with that.

The French side is also going pretty well. Last year it was a bit shit, given that I was teaching the boys how to describe the contents of their pencil cases, but this year with the arrival of the new exciting challenging GCSE we're talking about Alexandre Dumas (père) in year eight, which kind of suggests that I ought to have read some of his books. I haven't, but dammit, I can fake it damn well. If I can teach the boys to fake it like I can, I'll consider myself to have paid it forward.

1) Thanks to a school trip, I have actually been to Caecilius' fucking house! Those who have never studied with the CLC will never know how much of a thing this is. We took thirty-odd boys to Pompeii, and obviously our first port of call was the house of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus. While we were all shuffling about trying to get a group photo in front of Caecilus' house, a random Swedish woman walked past us and asked if we were somewhere significant. "It's Caecilius' house!" was the response. It rapidly became clear that she had absolutely no idea why thirty fifteen year old British boys were clustering around and acting so excited, and mutual bafflement ensued. Nemo erat in horto, depressingly.

Three weeks left!

Immortal gods above, but how sweet those words sound. The downside is that three weeks in secondary education is a very long time. Before half term I had a conversation with a colleague in which we were both trying to remember how long ago something had happened: we agreed that this impossibly remote event happened “back on Tuesday”. Reader, this discussion took place on Wednesday.

Before starting, I knew that the PGCE year would be tough (on thestudentroom.co.uk the thread for PGCE students is entitled “never felt so tired or stressed”- an exemplar of meiosis), but not quite this tough. They say that teaching is a marathon, not a sprint, and by god right now I feel like one of those desperately trailing along at the back of the London Marathon, wrapped in a tin-foil blanket, limping and waving feebly at the assembled spectators. Not a little of this is due to my second placement school, my time at which has been ‘challenging’, as the professional jargon has it[1]: on which more when I’ve properly had time to process what happened.

My first placement school, by contrast, was delightful. I suspect that had the order of the two placements been reversed, I would not feel quite so abused as I do now; but on the other hand, I probably would have dropped out of the course mid-October.

Nevertheless, I have only three weeks of placement left and (gods-willing) at the end of it, I will have amassed enough evidence to recommend me for Qualified Teacher Status and be all set to start my new job in September. Said job being in my first placement school: I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the fact that come September I will be teaching Latin in a provincial boys’ grammar school.

~~~~

1) ‘Challenging’, said with the correct inflection, is one of the most useful words that I’ve acquired. For example, when applied to a pupil it can mean anything from “a bit talkative” to “full-blown, I cannot believe that this child has been released into society, furniture-chewing psychopathy.”

The field of the gods is quiet tonight,
without corn, without barley.
The god sleeps, theft unseen.

The field of the gods is empty tonight,
without ward, without guardian.
Ripened corn, stolen with falsehood.

The field of the gods, without white barley,
the bull's red blood spilt on the ground.
A serpent has bound the Thunderer's feet.

The field of the gods, plundered by giants,
without land, without claim.
A mother's three sons plunder at twilight.

When I was four, I insisted that I wanted a dog. I'm not fully sure whence this inexorable conviction came, but nevertheless, I was solid on this. As young girls insist that they need a pony (preferably in pink), I wanted a dog.

For what, if I recall correctly, was the only time in which my parents actually indulged my childhood whims, we got a dog. We went all the way to Wiltshire, to a reputable kennel (as scathing as I can be about my parents, they always had a very strong commitment to animal welfare[1]) and they allowed me to pick out a puppy.

I went for the runt of the litter. Shetland Sheepdogs are, in general, bred for show. Drooping ears and short legs, with a vaguely timid demeanour. I went for the long-legged, perky-eared pup who came wagging his tail to the edge of the pen. That was my dog.

For reasons which still have yet to be determined, I initially insisted that he was called Gwalchmai. Either an irresponsible uncle had been filling my head with Arthurian nonsense, or I had just realised quite how bizarre my own middle name (Geraint) was and wanted a fellow-sufferer. Exhibiting a sound good sense which would characterise his entire life, my dog refused this moniker entirely and ended up responding only to “Scamp”.

In contrast to my actual brother, who has a good twenty-five years on me, I grew up with this dog. As well as teaching me all the things a dog is supposed to teach a young man, such as responsibility etc., Scamp was often my only friend. Shelties bond to one person and one person alone, and that dog was almost my shadow. When I was unhappy, he skulked behind me. When I was grounded, he howled outside my window. When I was happy, he would accompany me up and down the valley of the river to which I still regularly pay devotion: he would sit patiently (if puzzled) at the bank when I waded out to pour a libation. When I was in a fight, he would lick my wounds. Literally. One day before my eighteenth birthday I was badly beaten with a metal bar: when I was released from hospital and got home, he climbed on top of me, licked my scars and would not leave me for the following three days.

And ten years ago today, I killed him.

Few things make me cry. My husband accuses me, not without justice, of being cold. But this makes me cry: writing this I have tears running down my face, even a decade later.

Scamp had a heart condition. The first I knew of it, he fell over and pissed all over the place. We assumed this was just age. It happened a few more times. Annoyed, I walked him down to the PDSA, and they gave us some tablets for him. He showed some improvements. A few weeks later, the same happened, but he didn't get up again afterwards. He lay on his side twitching and whimpering. It was about eight o'clock. Mam was at work. I picked him up and carried him the two miles to the PDSA. They prescribed him more tablets. I carried him home again. He was not in a good state. I got him to drink some water and laid down with him, his back against me. He turned his head and licked my face a couple of times. His breathing was irregular. Every breath he wheezed.

So I carried him back to the PDSA. They examined him and told me he was dying. That he probably wouldn't make the night through.

That the kindest thing to do was to put him to sleep.

And I said yes.

They asked me to lay him out on the bench to administer the injection. I wouldn't. I climbed up myself, my dog in my arms, and sat with him in my lap. He didn't struggle, because he trusted me. [Ten years later, I am actually bawling my eyes out right now.] They administered the injection, and I sat with him in my lap, my face next to his, whispering him into the Otherworld.

I still haven't forgiven myself.

~~~~

1) Well, I say that. On the one hand, my mam would only ever buy free range eggs, but at the same time one of my earliest memories is curling up on mam's fur coat in the corner of a pub[2] when I was probably about three or so. It was the eighties, and mam was a big fan of Dallas and Dynasty.

2) I am not unaware of the irony in this.

I can’t remember precisely what it was that made me think of teaching as a career. I always wanted to be a teacher when younger, and my going to university in the first place was vaguely motivated by this as some kind of end goal (although, in honesty, my major motivation was simply to escape). However, think of it I did, and began to look into doing a PGCE. I was ambivalent about the entire affair, having convinced myself that I really didn’t like children, my thoughts probably clouded by wholly inaccurate memories of what a bunch of little shits I and my peers were at school[1]. Grudgingly, I booked a placement on the School Experience Programme, classroom experience being a prerequisite even to get to interview stage. Gloomily, I predicted that I would hate it, and that frankly I was only getting into this for the money, and much gritting of teeth would serve to get me through.

Consider my surprise then, when I discovered that I loved every moment. Rather than just sitting at the back and observing lessons, the teachers at my host school got me involved in the actual teaching process right from the start. It was utterly exhilarating. Being called “Sir” and “Mr Jones” took some getting used to, I will admit. I’d only just become accustomed to being called “Chef”. The day also changed my mind about how I wanted to do my training. No university-based PGCE course for me, I wanted to be in the thick of it right from the start. I got home and began to draft my application for a place on the School Direct scheme. I submitted my application just before the Easter holidays, and of course a frought couple of weeks followed as I waited for a response. Why it never occurred to me that it was bloody Easter and there would be nobody there is entirely beyond me.

Two days after the end of the holidays, I was invited to interview. This took place last Thursday, and by Ogmios it was one of the most gruelling interview processes I have ever experienced in my life: about five hours. I also had to go into work straight afterwards[2], and was utterly exhausted by the time I got home. However, a sleepless night followed. The following day I received an email saying that I had impressed the interview panel, and only one portion of the interview remained. Normally, a candidate would be observed interacting with some pupils, to get a feel for how well they do with children. Now, this should have happened on the Thursday interview, but the school at which it was being held was in the middle of an OFSTED inspection. So this final part was held yesterday morning.

I had been advised that I didn’t have to dress up for the interview (good, I’ve only got the one suit and an evening of being hung up in the office at work has done it no favours in the odour stakes), but to be on the safe side I chose slacks, blue shirt and tie and a brown blazer. With my glasses on, I looked so teacher-like that I actually felt somewhat disturbed. Finding the school where the interview was to be held was something of a difficulty, particularly given that I was a touch hung over (foolish boy!): it turned out to be in the middle of a 1970s-vintage suburban estate of neat little bungalows with well-tended gardens and old men glaring suspiciously at sixth formers smoking furtively just beyond the school perimeter. Feelings of biliousness fled as I entered the school, to be replaced not with anxiety but anticipation. Oddly, I didn’t feel at all nervous, in spite of having not even the first idea of what was expected of me.

I was only told what I was going to do while being escorted down the corridor toa small classroom. Inside was a group of six pupils from Year 7 (about 11 or 12 years old). I was to introduce myself, attempt to elicit some language from them, maybe try to teach them something. And that, my dears, was the entirety of my brief. Panic flared momentarily as I crossed the threshold and found six faces staring at me expectantly. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. I was magnificently unprepared for this.

“Bonjour les étudiants! Je m’appèle Monsieur Jones,” I said cheerily. Oddly, it seemed that my voice had deepened by about an octave.

“Bonjour monsieur” they trilled in unison. I sat down, suddenly feeling astonishingly calm. I adjusted my glasses, forgot entirely about the pair of teachers conducting the observation and smiled.

“So, tell me, what have you been doing in your most recent lesson?” It turned out that they had been studying directions. Now, it’s been a good eighteen years or so since I covered the same ground, and actual situations in real life where one needs to give somebody directions to la plage or similar are uncommonly few. I got them to recap what they had learnt and then explained that I was new to the school and horribly lost: could they direct me to the canteen? So I got each of the six to direct me around the school and then taught them how to say how to go upstairs and downstairs in French. I realised I hadn’t asked them their names, quickly rectified the situation. We returned to the little directing game (because I had no idea of what else to do), and soon enough had them giggling as they got themselves lost in the school as well. One lad was rather quiet, so I drew him into the discussion (thank fuck, I remembered his name). By this point I was flying, and surprisingly really enjoying myself. We switched to English, and I asked them about how they had adjusted to moving from primary school to secondary, what their favourite subjects were and so on. Then they had a turn asking me questions: one of the girls entirely flummoxed me by asking me where I was teaching at the moment. The allotted twenty minutes flew by, and before I knew it I was bidding them au revoir, bonne journée and walking back along the corridor.

One of the interviewers asked me how I thought it had gone, whether I had found it at all uncomfortable or nerve-wracking. I averred that yes, for an instant, it had been the scariest thing I’d done in a while, but I thought it had gone well. It came to light that being thrust into this situation with the bare minimum of preparation was the whole point of the exercise: to see how well I could think on my feet. In retrospect, there are some things I would certainly have done differently had I my wits wholly about me: got them interacting with each other perhaps. Certainly I would have reviewed the vocabulary they had been taught first- embarrassingly, my mind rebelled and replaced tout droit with tout directe, and I’m sure I said it twice by mistake. But on the whole I don’t think I did badly.

And, it seems that I didn’t. I received an email this morning offering me a place on the training course beginning this September. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet, but great gods above, I am going to be a teacher. Bloody hellfire. Me, a teacher.

So, in the four months that intervene, I’ve set myself a few goals. Of course, I want to discharge my last duties as head chef with a degree of honour: after I finish this post I’m going to have to start work on finalising the summer menu, and giving some thought to arranging for a successor to take over at the beginning of August, as I am not going to finish Saturday service on the 31st and then rock up at my new training school on the 2nd of September. I also need to get my driving license, and stop pootling about town on a provisional license that expired three years ago (to have a new career stymied by a bloody traffic offense would just be embarrassing). I’m also going to have to come to some kind of solution for my alcohol problem, although I rather believe that not working in a sodding pub will go some way towards this goal.

For the first time in absolutely ages, I feel excited and positive about the future. I dare not leave the flat for fear of having somebody take offense at the stupid grin I can’t seem to get off my face.

~~~~

1) More sober reflection on this has led me to conclude that my memories should not be counted as representative. Not only does everything seem far more significant and important than it actually is when one is a teenager, but I should have also remembered that what seems daring and astonishingly badly behaved when a teenager probably won’t seem the same as an adult. Gobbing wads of chewed-up paper at the back of David Parker’s head in History class is rather put into perspective by getting into fistfights in town centre gay bars. Besides, children are largely little shits to each other, not their teachers.

2) I deftly parried questions on why I had turned up to work in a suit by claiming to have been in court all day. It is a damning indictment of my character as perceived at work that this was accepted without question by my colleagues. One even cracked the old “what do you call a Welshman in a suit?” joke. The sods.

It pains me to note that I have not updated this blog on a regular basis for at least six months. This is hardly for want of anything to blog about: rather my life has been embarrassingly full of incident since last October.

Daccapo, then. It should come as no surprise to long-terms readers of my oft-drunken rantings here that I have for some time felt a certain dissatisfaction with my life and its (lack of) direction. This has, over the years, manifested itself as periodic bouts of despair and rather more frequent bouts of alcohol abuse (the two not being unlinked). By September of last year, I had become largely resigned to my lot, however, and was busily mentally preparing myself to knuckle down to as much of a career in hospitality as I could scrape together, and to put all thoughts of postgraduate study and its financial infeasability as far out of mind as possible.

Then something wholly unexpected happened: the general manager at the Bear was fired, and the head chef Jimmy was promoted in his place. As his sous-chef, I was unceremoniously pushed into his position; as locum tenens at first, formal promotion and linked pay rise six weeks later. Adjustment was difficult for both of us: for my part it was difficult to stake out a claim to the kitchen as my own domain, with my own stamp on it (Jimmy had been head chef there for a full twelve years), and for his part adjusting to his new rôle as GM took an entire change in thinking. More difficult for him perhaps was to stop regarding me as his sous-chef and right hand man, my previous experience in front of house management not making my life much easier: for a period I found myself trying to run the kitchen on my own while simultaneously supporting him in his new rôle. Throughout the period leading up to Christmas my own position was rather schizophrenic: head chef one minute and de facto assistant manager the next. Eventually, however, we both settled into our new positions and the umbilical was cut. The addition of a proper assistant manager to the team and gaining my own sous-chef greatly helped on both counts.

It turns out that we make a surprisingly good team. Takings are up on the previous year, and positive reviews on Tripadvisor (that vile nest of vipers) for both the food and the quality of the service soared. Since I’ve taken over in the kitchen, the food has become distinctly more Mediterranean in outlook, which has not gone unnoticed by the customers. One even said that the Bear is now one of the best places in Twynham to eat Italian food, which made me blush rather.

By February, then, we were feeling fairly confident. It was then that we got our first review in the local rag since the management changeover. It was good. Very good, in fact. The reviewer praised the food far more than it deserved, and we saw something of an upsurge in custom for a few weeks. This was my first proper review as head chef, the first time that my work had been noticed and commented upon in the press. I should have been absolutely thrilled: the first of many triumphal moments in my career as a head chef. Instead, I found myself struggling mightily to actually give a shit.

Yes, mes chers lecteurs, turns out that being head chef just ain’t all that. I found myself utterly indifferent to the entire affair. The following week I (deliberately) fucked up an entire weekend’s ordering, just to see if getting in any kind of trouble would move me to actually feeling some kind of involvement in what I was doing. Nope. Not at all.

Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t actually dislike my job. But nor did I actually enjoy it. Predictably, this set me off on another bout of mental crisis, with commensurate reliance on the help of Messers Jameson and Walker. This was not at all helped by me undergoing yet another late-twenties crisis, in which I firmly convinced myself that oh my God, I’m almost thirty and have achieved almost nothing, nothing goddammit. Of course, I was entirely beating myself up with no real reason. By most measures I was not unsuccessful: ten solid years of marriage, running my own well-regarded kitchen at the age of twenty-nine, a good academic degree under my belt, decent enough prospects in my chosen profession.

The last, however, was the real foundation of my fug. Catering isn’t my chosen profession, and never has been. I fell into it by accident after I had totally fucked up my actual plans for the future through drug addiction. Since at least 2005, my life has essentially been a series of fitful attempts to rectify this situation. Realising this, and recognising that resigning myself to an unsatisfactory situation has never been something I’m good at, I decided that it was time to consider my options.

Post-graduate study was out. While I would love to apply for an MPhil at Oxford in Historical Linguistics (and am reasonably confident that academically at least I would have few difficulties in being accepted), this is really just an instance of intellectual vanity: what on earth would I do with such a degree after two years aside from being pretty much in the same situation as I am at the moment, just rather more inappropriately qualified? I looked at getting a job outside the trade, and realised quickly that I am woefully underqualified for any but the most entry-level of positions in essentially everything. I even considered working in a call centre (for all of five minutes), but quickly thought better of it[1].

~~~~

1) I have worked in one before. Aside from the entire affair being wholly soul-destroying and responsible for severely aggravating a case of agoraphobia I never even knew I had, the milieu of a call-centre is actually not at all dissimilar to that of a restaurant: people in their early twenties looking to make money to be spent on booze and nights out. These days, one’s twenties appear to be an over-extended adolescence, and frankly on the threshold of being thirty this is exactly what I wanted to get away from. It is a sign of my increasing removal from this demographic that entirely unexpectedly I now seem to own more blazers than I do hoodies.

A poem:

Cíad nain anach:
    láima aras;
níche srí;
    á·dele laer;

Fáe chán chelc;
    tomm i·anár;
stíad sén rath;
    belc úire i·ngaer;

Áccairn rámal;
    ascáile chád;
amáe stain;
    úam i·fáun.

Amáe celc;
    ráim i n·áe;
clechna lú;
    sin nen chíad.

Unashamedly stolen from the magnificent Steve over at Lathophobic Aphasia, who in turn stole it from elsewhere. A short questionnaire addressing the hard-hitting issues affecting the place in society of the modern gay man:

How old were you when you knew you were gay?

God, I can’t remember. As far back as I remember having any kind of interest in unclothed human beings, it’s always been directed primarily towards the male of the species. I never played “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” games as a child (as far as I remember): I honestly can’t recall being all that interested in it.

One of my first memories of sexual arousal, however, one that still (coruscatingly) remains with me comes from my final year of primary school: I would have been about ten or so and just becoming aware of other people as sexual beings. Back then our teachers would get changed for PE in the same room as us (something which would cause not a little alarm and panic these days), and I recall looking up to see my teacher in the act of dropping his trousers. The image rather burned itself into my mind.

When did I realise that such feelings weren’t shared by other boys my age? That I might be one of them? Probably about age thirteen or so. I refused to admit it even to myself for at least a further three years, reassuring myself that it was “just a phase” while furtively staying up to watch Eurotrash on my tiny black and white telly in the hope of some gratuitous male nudity. Comical dubbing still causes a stirring in the loins even to this day.

Have you ever had sex with the opposite sex?

Oh god, yes. Not a few times: both in one night stands while utterly plastered and seventeen (the two being largely synonymous in my case), and with a couple of long-term girlfriends- in so far that one has “long-term” relationships when still in one’s teens. Given that I’m in a long-term relationship with another man and that my primary sexual attraction is towards other men, “gay” does not seem an inappropriate self-designation, but the fact of the matter remains that “bisexual” probably better describes my orientation in practical terms. Or it could just be that I’m not all that fussy.

Who was the first person you came out to?

Gods, I can’t remember. I think it might have been one of the members of the musical theatre group my mother participated in when I was sixteen or so, but I can’t be sure. I can’t even recall if my first coming-out-ee was male or female, gay or straight.

Are you out to your family?

Yes. I came out to my mother pretty early, and my father not long after that. Both of them were distressingly accepting and supportive (although my mother initially didn’t believe me, and replied airily “don’t be daft, you’d make a crap gay”), which really didn’t fit in with the angst-ridden scenario I’d constructed in my head.

All that said, however, I’m still not technically out to my grandmother. It’s pure cowardice. Given that I’ve not mentioned a girlfriend for some twelve years now, and I’ve spent the last ten living with another man (who is quite clearly A Gay), I think she might have guessed. She’s stopped asking me when I’m going to “settle down”, at least.

Do you want children?

Why, when beef is so cheap these days?

Do you have more gay friends or straight friends?

The vast majority are straight. Certainly, the only other homosexual I interact with on a daily basis is my husband.

Were you out in school?

No. All-boys grammar school. I’m sure the lads I was fucking at the time might have had an inkling, though.

Have you ever done Crystal Meth?

Surprisingly, no. It wasn’t all that popular in the late 90s, at least not down our way.

Have you ever been in a sling?

No.

Have you ever done a 3-way?

I object to the vocabulary choice of this question. “A 3-way” is not an action. One has a 3-way, or is in a 3-way. But yes. Not since I’ve been married though. I’m the violently jealous type, and it would all end up in blood.

Have you ever dressed in drag?

No.

Cher or Bette?

Neither. Dolly Parton all the way, baby!

Have you dated someone of a different ethnicity?

Yes. Well, for “dated” read “fucked”. If you line up my previous conquests, it all gets a little bit United Colors of Benetton. Or Crimewatch.

Been to Fire Island? Saugatuck? Key West? Ft. Lauderdale? Palm Springs?

Aside from “somewhere in the USA”, I’m honestly not sure where Saugatuck is. But no, I’ve never been outside of Europe.

Have you ever barebacked?

Well, yes. This was due to 10% drugs and/or alcohol (or just haste, on one occasion), and 90% youthful stupidity. At eighteen, one doesn’t really believe that things like HIV could actually happen to you. It took a nightmare HIV scare and an embarrassing little infection which necessitated a few trips down le centre de dépistage to take the entire affair seriously. On the other hand, after a few years together, the husband suggest we cut down on the number of condoms we were buying. I thought he meant we would simply dispense with them: we just stopped having sex as frequently. A disappointment.

How many Madonna CDs do you own?

None. I barely own any CDs at all these days: my entire music collection is pretty much on mp3. Aside from a few early 80s vinyls, which I treasure but have nothing to play them on.

Name of your first love?

Can’t remember. Marcus, I think. Actually, no, it turns out to be James, on re-examination of the school photo.

Do you still talk to him?

No, haven’t seen him since school.

Does size matter?

My husband reassures me that it doesn’t.

Biggest turn on?

Too many to mention. I’m an equal-opportunities pervert. I will confess a weakness for men wearing a shirt and a pair of tight black trousers, though. This has occasionally led to trouble at work. Apparently managers look unkindly on chefs knocking off the waiting staff on the premises.

Biggest turn off?

I find men who are too “put-together” a turn off: immaculate hair, sculpted body, hairless torso, elaborate yet chic tattoos, fashionably tight clothing? All does nothing for me. I prefer my men a bit rough around the edges, personally. Also piercings below the neck.

Ever been harassed due to your orientation?

Once or twice, when I was younger. I might have mentioned an occasion here before. It tends not to happen anymore, which is a godsend as I’m not entirely sure I’m wholly beyond the stage of wanting to settle such things with my fists.

Worst gay stereotype that applies to you?

What, aside from an unquenchable yen for the cock? I dunno. I can be unnecessarily spiteful at times, but I’m not sure if that’s being a bitch or just not having worked out all my anger issues. Or just having an utterly poisonous personality.

Would you marry if you could?

Good god no. One husband is more than enough, thank you.

Would you rather be rich and smart or young and beautiful?

In honesty, I’d be happy with just the rich, and let smart go hang. Although being young and beautiful might be a novel experience: I feel sure that when I was young I was doing it all wrong, and I’ve never been beautiful.

Ever had sex with more than one person in a day?

More than one person in an hour, actually. I see no reason to go into details here.

Do you have any tattoos?

Yes, a couple. One says “but the Devil sends cooks...”, a sentiment which just reeks of gay lib attitudes.

Do you have any piercings?

Not anymore. When I was eighteen and such things were fashionable, I had my eyebrow pierced and a couple of rings in my upper ear. I grew out of it. I was once tempted by a nipple piercing, but the piercing artist (why are people wielding piercing guns considered to be “artists”? It utterly baffles me.) informed me that I have unusually small nipples and that the endeavour would be entirely fruitless. Piercings of the genitals nauseate me, and navel piercings on men are risible.

Would you date a smoker?

I’m married to one. I am one.

Do you know anyone who has died from HIV?

Yes.

Grinder or Scruff?

I know what the former is, but not the latter. In a committed, long-term relationship, such things are unnecessary. One can spend all afternoon trying to have sex but failing without recourse any technological aids.

Are your best years behind or in front of you?

I really don’t like to contemplate the question. I’m pushing thirty and am going through not a little panic that the former might be the case.

Got Porn?

Yes. I refuse to divulge exactly how much, for fear of seeming like some kind of sad, flasher-mac wearing, basement-dwelling pervert.

Make out music?

No. I’ve mentioned before that my musical tastes aren’t really suitable for this kind of thing. Making out to Squeeze’s Up The Junction would rather kill the ambiance. God only knows what impression The Jam’s Going Underground would give.

Ever been in love with a straight guy?

Yes, at school. Although “love” is perhaps the wrong word to describe this particular species of adolescent crushing and obsessiveness.

Did you ever have sex with him?

Yes, the ultimate result being us awkwardly avoiding each other for the rest of term. Some things are far more satisfying in thought than in deed.

Have you ever been to a nude beach?

No, in spite of living remarkably close to one. I have little desire to get my cock out in public. Not only that, I am phenomenally hairy and feel rather uncomfortable even taking my shirt off in public, let alone my pants.

Have you ever been to a bath house?

Not personally. There’s one just opposite the stop from which I catch the bus to work, and it’s always interesting to watch the furtive comings and goings. Some men will brazenly walk directly from their car and straight up to the front door with an insouciant grin, others will scuttle past, turning in only at the very last minute. I have yet to recognise any locally significant figures of authority, though, which is disappointing.

What gay gene did you miss out?

I wasn’t aware that we’d determined it was wholly genetic? Oh, I see. Probably the ones responsible for cleanliness, at the very least.

Alfie Boe: Chipper Jesus?

The Hellenes, I often think, are those Reconstructionists who have the greatest stylistic elegance and panache. For example, witness the following Hellenic marriage ritual:

It looks recognisably like a wedding (something most Neopagan "handfastings" fail to entirely), yet is also clearly a Pagan ethnic ritual. The costumes are elegant and unfussy, with a few nods to classical clothing here and there but far from being the getup of a re-enactment group. The ritual actions look on purpose, and the liturgy has only minimal reading from a print-out. (Why is it so difficult for most Neopagans involved in ritual to just sodding learn their lines? If you absolutely must read from something during ritual, at least make the effort and read it from an appropriately grimoire-like bound book. Not a printed sheet of A4.)

Contrast, if you will, virtually any video of a Druid rite. The robes are preposterous, the beards menacing and the delivery wooden. Actions lack any grace, and what are supposed to be portentious silences appear to simply be awkward moments in which the participants have momentarily forgotten what they're supposed doing.

Αλλοίμονο

I don't post enough about food qua food. Plenty of bitching about cooking it for people I don't much like, but not all that much about actual food. While this is never going to be a recipe blog (I lack the appropriate camera skills), it would be remiss of me as a chef to not include the occasional recipe.

So here is something from this weekend's specials board:

Braised saucisson sec with lentils and caramelised apple

You will need:

• about two inches of saucisson sec, or similar dried sausage
• a handful of lentils, maybe 150g? Use lentilles vertes or Puy lentils, not the nasty red things hippies eat. Soak them overnight, or for a few hours before you intend on eating them.
• a clove of garlic.
• half an onion.
• a couple of cèpes. Fresh, for preference, although dried and reconstituted also works. In extremis, normal field mushrooms work, but avoid the fancy Asian shit.
• a good glug of a decent red wine
• thyme. As much as you can stand.
• veal stock. Or beef stock, if you're not in the habit of making your own.
• half an apple.
• maybe 100g of sugar? Possibly less.

(This is actually how chefs work. I have yet meet a chef who will religiously measure out ingredients instead of just eyeballing them. This is why we don't all have lucrative cookbook deals; and why those of us who do get ghost writers in to actually do the testing and measuring minutiae.)

What you need to do:

Dice your onion and slice your sausage, the latter on the bias to a thickness of about three millimetres. A pound coin. Any thicker and the sausage is a bit chewy, thinner than this and it burns too quickly. Chuck both in a frying pan over a medium heat with some low-grade pomace and sauté. Sliver your clove of garlic and chuck it in after a couple of minutes. This is also an appropriate point to add your thinly sliced cèpes. Sauté for a further few minutes until the garlic and onion begins to colour, then add the lentils. Muck it about a bit. Use some of that wristy motion and toss the whole lot like you're some kind of pro.

Glug in the wine (actually, no, if you've got it lying around, use vermouth. Not the sweet kind, obviously. That'd be wrong. Or use beer. It gives a really interesting dimension to the finished dish. Just don't use a nasty beer like Budweiser.) and let reduce for a few minutes. Add in enough veal stock to cover the whole to a depth of about half a centimetre. Add the thyme: a good pinch or so. Enough that you can taste it. Obviously fresh thyme, the dried stuff is of the devil and sticks between your teeth unpleasantly. Perhaps a quick squirt of tomato purée would not be contraindicated at this point. Cover and allow to simmer over a low heat for about fifteen to twenty minutes, or until the lentils are tender. You might need to top up the liquid occasionally. Use water for this, not stock, otherwise it will go salty.

Meanwhile, take your apple and core it. Then cut it about a bit artistically. I slice it thinly horizontally, giving pleasing rings of apple. But you can be a bit butch and cut it into wedges. Either works. Take another pan and put the sugar in it. It should be a fairly small pan, as you're not caramelising that much. Sprinkle over the merest suggestion of water and place it over a medium heat. Allow the sugar to caramelise to a very light brown: just after it stops bubbling, basically. Because you're not a big girl, you do not fear hot sugar and throw your apple slices/segments in with insouciant abandon. Muck them about a bit in the pan (do not stir vigorously: you are not attempting to make candy floss.), ensuring that the apples are fully coated in the caramel.

By now, your sausage-mushroom-lentil mix should be ready: glistening invitingly in the pan, with only the merest of liquid sheen over the lentils. If it sticks to the bottom of the pan, you should have added more liquid earlier. This weekend I've been finishing it with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a few drops of balsamic vinegar. So do that and then serve over a couple of thick slices of toasted sourdough. Garnish with the caramelised apples, and perhaps something peppery and leafy. Rocket is my normal standby, but at this time of the year it tends to be a bit grim. You can sort yourself out at this point really. Cress isn't actually a bad shout.

Serve with something red and full of body. An agressive wine.

Intoxicated, I worship my gods in the dark,
Carry me there, carry me home.
Through the land of dawn's dark sister,
Carry me safe until the gates are opened.

Sometimes prayers fall silent halfway through. Sometimes composition is to difficult: the central image is too weighty to be supported by surrounding ornamentation. Sometimes, a hymn never really gets started. In those cases, we're left with fragments. Some of them good and worth returning to. Most of them not. However, out of some kind of spiritual housekeeping, in this post I offer up some of the fragments that I've been carrying around.

  For Rigantonā:

  For the ancestors at Samonis:

  For Latis:

  A fragment of a poem for Lugus at Lughnasad:

  Another one for Lugus:

  Sucellos Cintuatīr:

  Noudons:

Your average Brit, I have noticed, behaves radically differently while on holiday in contrast to when he or she is at home. It seems almost impossible that the Tourist sitting in front of me, clad in shorts, ill-fitting T-shirt and a miasma of sweat and suntan lotion, is the same shirt and tie-wearing white collar worker that lives next door to you. Having had the oppurtunity to observe a number of them at close hand over the years, I have reached the conclusion that at some point between (say) Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Moriconium (perhaps somewhere halfway along the A31), the Householder submits to a wholly perplexing transformation and becomes a Tourist.

What marks the Tourist out, to me, is his slavishness to convention. He thinks that because he is On Holiday, he must do those things which are done while On Holiday. It’s the urge that makes holidaymakers walk along the prom in the rain, swaddled in weatherproof gear and struggling to hold their hoods in place while battling into the gales at a forty-five degree angle. The reason why they sit in deckchairs eating 99s when the south coast is seeing its wettest March in decades. It’s the primal instinct which compels entire families to disgorge from their people-carriers in beach carparks, laden down with windbreakers, lilos, beach umbrellas, silly straw hats, those huge inflatable rings much-favoured by small children, beach-balls, garish swimming shorts, buckets, spades, suncream, sunglasses and myriad other impedimenta. It’s why they eat fish and chips.

Those of you with good memories may recall my mentioning having worked in a chippy. By which I do not mean your average punningly-named[1] neighbourhood fish and chip shop. I mean that for three years I was a manager at a 300-cover fish and chip restaurant located directly on the beach, with an attached takeaway outlet. I have, believe me, seen the Tourist’s mania for battered fish and chips at close hand, in all its gory, white-fleshed detail. It scares me. The chippy was located on the pier approach. Next door there was a ghastly chain pub serving generic pub food; accross the plaza a kind of surfer-themed burger joint; at the end of the pier a fairly unremarkable seafood restaurant; two hundred yards down the beach an entirely remarkable seafood restaurant. Along with stalls selling bugers, hot-dogs, ice-creams and so on and so forth. However, only at the chippy would there be a queue of more than a hundred people waiting to be seated. On a regular basis, a waiter would have to be sent to the back of the queue to inform the people waiting there that it would take at least an hour to get to the front of the queue, let alone be seated. Yet still they would queue, so great is the imperative that while At the Seaside, one should eat fish and chips. I still have nightmares about one August bank holiday. I spent the entirety of my three thirteen-hour shifts behind the frying range, mechanically dunking fillets of cod into rice flour, then batter, then hot oil. The till reports at the end of Monday revealed that we had served more than five thousand meals that weekend. Five thousand. Admittedly, Jesus managed the same over the course of a single evening using only two small fish (we used about a ton, all told), but I still think it’s pretty impressive.

The link between being At the Seaside and fish and chips is a remarkably strong one. In fact, one can use it as something of a tell when dining in a pub within five miles of the coast: chain pubs will serve normal pub food, indistinguishable from all the other pubs in the estate- a Harvester is a Harvester is a Harvester, be it situated on the beach or in the middle of Birmingham. Freehouses, however, will most likely style themselves as “specialising in seafood”. In many cases, this equates to a prawn cocktail (defrosted, water-sodden shelled prawns in a mix of cheap ketchup and mayo, lounging forlornly on yellowing iceberg) among the starters and then scampi and battered cod amongs the mains. Some self-consciously “traditional” places might have a pint of prawns on the menu, but it’s often rather uninspiring. I am fortunate that the Bear is not such a pub: the Head Chef is actually really good with seafood, and our weekend specials can vary from homely traditional classics like whisky-potted shrimp to elaborate Thai-influenced dishes with strangely named fish and red curry paste. I’ve learnt a great deal over the past year. Coming from a background in patisserie and viande mainly, I confessed during my interview that I knew dick about fish, and now I occasionally contribute the odd seafood special myself. I have a particular weakness for pork and fish together, so my suggestions have been things like garlicky king prawns with chorizo, salt cod and saucisson sec, trout wrapped in bacon.

However, the Tourist generally does not find such gastronomic triumphs tempting. (Besides, it is particularly heartbreaking to send a dish like these and have the customer request tartare sauce.) No, sir, after a long day working very hard at relaxing, with truculent young children in tow who would rather be playing X-box or MySpace with fellow prepubescent hoodies, he knows exactly what he wants: he wants cod, he wants it in batter, and he wants it served with chips, mushy peas and a wedge of lemon[2]. This, of course, gets pretty damn vexing. Unfortunately, visitors to Twynham are generally unaware that far from being a touristic hotspot, the town is actually just a place where old people come to collect their pensions until they die. There literally is fuck all to do here: we’ve got a big church, a rather underwhelming ruined castle and a market on Mondays which sells bird-houses, enormous knickers and knock-off country and western CDs. And that’s it. As a result, prospective day-trippers discover that by about two o’clock they have seen and done everything that there is to be seen and done in town. The children are moody and hungry, you’re in desperate need of a pint, and oh look, that pub has a wonderful large courtyard where we can sit outside. (Twynham is also remarkably child-unfriendly. There isn’t a pub anywhere with an actual garden or play area for children. The Bear’s courtyard is about the only place in town where kids can run around, let off steam and piss everyone in the vicinity off.) So, just as lunch service is winding down and I’m thinking about sitting down with a cup of coffee and a cigarette, bloody tourists come in all afternoon demanding battered cod and chips.

Ultimately, I have no idea why. For a start, I find cod a particularly insipid fish, and don’t understand what’s so great about batter. I suspect that the impulse for fish and chips isn’t simply a desire for “plain food”- we do after all also have a steak pie and a burger on the menu- rather some kind of morphic resonance with the presque-marin environment. Perhaps they (rather charmingly) cling to the belief that the fish is caught and landed locally? It almost certainly isn’t. For a start, although Twynham technically has a harbour, it hasn’t supported a fishing fleet for the best part of a century. About the only seafood landed on the Quay are crabs caught by children on bits of string. These days, the harbour is more of a marina where the pleasure-craft of the rich bob unused for much of the year.

And there’s also the question of the fish. Neither cod nor haddock is endemic to the Channel. Rather more likely is it that your cod has been caught somewhere in the north Atlantic by some industrial trawler, not a picturesque little fishing boat. And that’s even when your fishmonger is a reputable local supplier who deals only in fresh fish. It’s far from unlikely that in fact, the cod has been caught and frozen, flown to China to be boned, skinned and filleted and then flown back to the UK to be distributed by a national foodservice company such as Brakes or 3663. And don’t even mention scampi: the fishmonger we use is entirely reputable but even as far as he’s concerned breaded scampi comes out of the freezer in bags.

What I would love to see is a new, liberated tourist, who has broken free of the shackles of convention and woken up to the fact that there is more to life than cod and chips. That a seaside holiday doesn’t mandate battered fish, fish whose most recent stopping-point was a refrigerated transport container somewhere outside of London. That perhaps if you do feel the need for something fishy when by the sea, it might be a good idea to seek out an independent place which serves locally-caught fresh fish, cooked in inventive ways. I would also like to see this New Tourist before the summer holidays, as my fryer can only take so many fish at a time and the less strain placed upon its ageing mechanisms the better.

~~~~

1) Should I ever find myself opening and running one, I’ve already decided that it will be called “Oh, Cod, Why?”

2) The truculent young children will opt for chicken nuggets, generally. I always skimp on the chips and send a gratuitous amount of dressed salad with them, out of spite. The wails of “mummy, I don’t like salad!” can sometimes reach the kitchen, which brings a spark of glee to my cold, black heart.

I fucking swear to god, the next Union Flag I see I will douse in gasoline and burn, like some kind of agitated Iranian. The Bear has the damn things everywhere, of course, and indeed some customers have been asking if we’re operating as some kind of BNP recruitment centre. It’s not just at work, either: when in Tesco’s earlier, I saw a box of Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers emblazoned with the bloody technicolour dishcloth.

I am aware that it’s all in honour of the pleasant old German lady who’s been occupying Buckingham Palace for sixty years. I’ve been doing my best to blithely ignore it all, putting the thought of a four-day bank holiday weekend firmly out of my mind. This has become increasingly difficult. A small child wearing a plastic Union Jack trilby cannonballed into me earlier, singing what I assume was supposed to be “God Save the Queen”, if atonally keening that phrase over and over again with no reference to the actual tune does indeed count as such. The urge to strangle it[1] with the bunting it was trailing behind itself was overwhelming.

Even though I find the ubiquity of the British flag (and that dreadful Diamond Jubilee logo[2]) to be remarkably unBritish, it is not this that irritates me. Nor is it the programme of (non-)events that irritates me: if the nation wishes to spend its money organising street parties in order to eat sponge cake and damp sandwiches with people they would never even dream of conversing with on any other day of the year, that is entirely up to them. If Sir Paul McCartney, JLS, Jessie J and other acts who tick all the appropriate minority checkboxes want to bawl their way through forgettable “hits” in front of Buck House, good luck to them. If floating down the Thames in a flotilla of dinghies seems to you to be the ideal way to fête Her Maj, good on you (do be careful, though, you might float all the way out of London: be warned that “official” celebrations outside the capital are strictly forbidden.)

No, what irritates me is that rather than having any time off at all, I shall instead be doing fifty-two hours on shift over the four days. I hope it fucking rains.

~~~~

1) Current fashion, and the reticence of many “Yummy Mummies” to subject their darling sons to regular haircuts, has led to a veritable host of prepubescant children of ambiguous gender. Frequently, one can only be sure that the child in question is female if it is wearing a skirt.

2) Yes, I know it was designed by a six year old. I still think it’s bloody tacky. The Canadian and Australian Jubilee emblems are far more restrained and tasteful.

Cosài, n’amaic mai blogare a declarat de recènt ca jal è « el blogare pezur del mun » devoit a cal ca nun a postat nògla pe doje jèdme. Jèu lo recusài complait. O jèu san de clar el blogare pezur del mun, devoit a cal ca nun postài nògla despòi decèmbro, lanaica. Nun ai a avoit mult de blogar.

Peraltro, sebèn ca jèu n’aja nògla d’interesant a dair, chisài ai na caosa interesant en çal jèu lo pòs dair. Çò jè jal ca vojaltrei lezaitei acà — la lènga se daiç el dravean. Çalei d’èntra voi chi avaitei boane memòrie potratei nè recordarvo sa mai blog precedent. Jèu l’ai modificat bèn despòi.

El dravean jè na lènga romànica — d’evident — favlata antel zoi-zàpad del ch’è l’Òngrea en univers nòstro, jèntro Lac Pelsun e la Drava. Jèu maçnài ca jala av cènc annei ao bein çò adura, potèstro o paoc mai. Man recòrd ca jèu l’ai comensata durant el praim an mai al’unitversitat : le motivaseunei maje principale jara n’amurèt pel dalmasun veglot e n’envaja de crajar na lènga romànica bèn faça. Le lènge romàniche reçaip raje crítiche antela comunitat conlang : jale san criticate comu nojante ao banalei. Çalei ca cognusç mult dela filològea romànica – jèu me setài roi de maçnarme comu filologista – soal deriderle a caosa de soi manc de probaveltat : paochei capèsc comu complecata jè l’evoluseun stúrica dela famègla romànica.

Adunc, a mai la verisimilitúden jè fòrt important. Comu na varietat dela periférea, jala varda mult arcaïsmei perdoitei antele lènge del « còrd romànic » — j.j. français, catalan, taglan — de manèra fonològica e morfosintàctica. Pe esamplo, la leniseun intervocàlica jè assènta, e lei nomei ambizènerei san bèn mai frecoant ca en taglan ao spagnol vedran. Le caose noave san partazate cu le altre varietatei dela periférea, comu romanèsc, taglan del zoi e el veglot : la scàmbea del sistema bicasual romànic alei pluralei vocàlichei jè n’esemplo boan acà. Cèrtei, ai av multe inovaseunei specífiche ala lènga, comu l’/ɔ/ paragog, e la metafonesi trelusa antele furme vèrbalei.

De recènt, pòi d’acherait na còpea del tesi « The Linguistic Unity of Northern Italy and Rhaetia » (Hull, 1982), jèu ai soloit revisar la stúrea fonològica e alcoinei aspectei del gramàtica, en façant el dravean mai comu lei veçainei soi mai praçainei. San del’opineun ca’l latàn de Panògna setà plaça en o continuum cu lei latainei de Raetia, Noricum, Illiria e çò ca daiç Hull « Padànea » — o tèrm gloreus prestat malgratamènt sa naseunalistei de carater mai dubitavlo — e cosài el dravean mai jè de ressemblat açò : n’isola romànica en o mar de barbarei, favlanei zarman, sclavan e ongran.

Adunc sai. Sebèn jèu n’avis nògla de dair acà, nun foi osos.

Christmas can suck my balls.

Roll on January.

One of the most significant results of civilisation, in my opinion, is the phenomenon of eating out. Note that I don’t call it a by-product. Eating out- that is the very existence of places which exist solely to provide meals to other human beings, from Alain Ducasse Plaza Athenée in Paris to a Harvester in Barnstaple (and I use “meal” in its loosest sense there, of course)- is not a by-product of civilisation, but an integral and necessary result of the rise of civilisation. From a purely practical point of view, should one consider “civilisation” to be inextricably connected to the rise of urbanism, it’s a simple fact of urban planning that in pre-modern times, population density can only grow so high without open ovens in every Roman insula or Mohenjo-Daro block becoming hazardous. As such, when they wanted a hot meal, residents of ancient Roman blocks of flats would repair to the local caupona or popina[1], rather than subjecting the city to Neronian-scale fires every other week by cooking their dormice in domestic ovens.

Civilisation is ultimately what’s responsible for elevating the prototypical mealtime of Homo sapiens from squatting around a campfire gnawing on a haunch of wooly mammoth to sitting around a mahogany table with a bewildering array of cutlery. With this civilisation of eating, it ceased to be simply an act of providing the body with fuel but instead became a complex socio-cultural performance which we Anglophones refer to as dining. Now, here in the barbaric northwestern fringe of Europe, it’s really only a performance that we’ve engaged in for the past few centuries. In evolutionary terms, that’s no time at all. Far from long enough for it to become a matter of genetic instinct. Indeed, eating out is fraught with pitfalls of etiquette and the potential for social and interpersonal humiliation. The successful negotiation of this complex nexus of social conventions is what makes dining in a restaurant or pub a joy: it improves the flavour of the food. It makes you a better human, an urbane individual of taste and distinction, in the eyes of your companions and those who have the privilege to serve you.

Which is why I feel it is a public service to offer these few small words of advice to those who decide to eat out, in the earnest hope that they might avoid some of the graver embarrassments which might befall the unwary potential gourmand:

1) Your waiter has given you a menu for a reason. Contrary to expectations, behind those swinging doors there is not some Aladdin’s Cave of ingredients, with which the chef might knock you up absolutely anything you want, from Thai Green Curry with Pak Choi and Midgets to Flautist’s Liver with Fava Beans and Chianti. On the contrary, in the kitchen are those ingredients necessary to cook those dishes on the menu. And nothing more. It is utterly astonishing (to me, at least) how few people realise this. What’s on the menu is what we can cook for you. That’s why it’s on the frigging menu. Not only that, the menu also represents the totality of what chef is willing to cook for you. Exactly as it is described on the menu. We don’t just knock these things up in a spare five minutes. We actually research them, calculate the cost of each dish, from which supplier we’re getting the produce and how much of it we’ll need. So, for the love of every god in the sky, never go off-menu. If there’s something you don’t like on the menu, don’t fucking ask if chef is willing to replace the cheese for bacon, the beans for peas, the bread for pancakes etc. Pick something else. Something you will eat. If there’s absolutely nothing you want on the menu: go somewhere else.

It’s not just because it fucks up my GP (gross profit, what we’re all targetted on). And it’s certainly not just because I’m an awkward shitbag. Far from it: if you’re a vegetarian, I’m more than willing to make you up some vegetarian gravy, to leave off the bacon etc. On the other hand, if you’re a vegan, you shouldn’t be eating in public. Seriously. I respect your lifestyle choice, just don’t ask me to cook for you. And if you have allergies, I will do my utmost that you can eat my food without dying of anaphylactic shock. On the other hand (this is something of a pet peeve of mine) if you’re not allergic to something, but just really don’t like whatever it is, don’t tell the waiter that you have allergies. If you really don’t like tomatoes, I won’t put them on your burger. Don’t tell me you’re allergic to the damn things, or I’ll have to change the whole of your dish.

No. The real reason is that chefs are machines. We know every dish on the menu, and we can cook them on auto-pilot. Special requests make us stop and have to think about what we’re doing, and that just slows down the whole of service. It fucks us over entirely: I’ve made Diane sauce to exactly the same recipe throughout my career; some thirteen years. Some twatbag asks for it with wholegrain rather than dijon mustard and I essentially have to relearn something that I could otherwise do without thinking, and thus taking time from what would otherwise be spent on other meals. You are making your whole table’s food late, and everyone else who’s ordered after you.

And, while I’m on the subject, if there is a separate daytime and evening menu, never try to order something off the daytime menu in the evening. It’s eight o’clock and the rest of your table has ordered steaks, fresh fish, mussels. Great dishes, proper restaurant food. And you want a cheese sandwich on brown. I’m sorry my friend, but you are a grade-A cunt. If all you want is a cheese sandwich, fucking stay at home. Or go to Subway (they’re about as likely to make you a plain cheese sandwich on brown as I am.) I’m just not going to do it, and you should be ashamed for even asking.

2) Which, with the special requests, brings me to my next point. Don’t ask for the sauce on the side. It annoys the hell out of me. Have you ever tried pouring à la minute peppercorn sauce from a frying pan into a milk jug with an opening less than an inch across? It’s just sodding awkward. “Sauce on side” diners are generally those who order well-done steak (don’t). They’re generally the ones who only eat “plain food”. I do not work in a Berni Inn. If you want plain chicken and chips, either fuck yourself and re-educate your tastebuds or go somewhere else. This isn’t the eighties, we don’t serve food in baskets anymore. People who are only willing to eat “plain food” should not eat out unless they’re going to a sodding McDonalds. Such people are to be shunned.

(I’m serious about not ordering well-done steak. Just don’t. Particularly not if it’s fillet: you’ll break the chef’s heart. No chef wants to serve boot leather. If you don’t like bloody meat, don’t order steak.)

3) Chef is never willing to make you an omelette. If he were, it’d be on the sodding menu.

4) While still on the subject of special requests, recall that you are not dining at a hospice. This is not Care in the Community. So don’t ask for utterly retarded things: I cannot make a low-protein spaghetti carbonara.

5) Tip. Not tipping does make you a bad person. Seriously. The Dalai Lama tips, while Hitler made a point of never doing so. Who would you rather emulate? Obviously (and thank any god you care to mention), I don’t work in America, where tips are essential to the staff’s livelihood. Nevertheless, even here in the UK, tipping is important. Not only is it just polite, it’s also where my drinks at the end of the shift come from. Don’t come between me and my booze.

Don’t think that you can get away with not tipping if the service or food was shitty. The only justifiable reason for not tipping (short of your waiter being egregiously rude to you, of course. If he hits on your girlfriend, spills beer into your crotch or calls you a “cheapo shitebag without the manners or finesse of a rutting donkey” (that was a damn good shift), then you’re perfectly justified in not leaving a tip. Complain to his manager as well: waiters like to think that they’re fireproof, and should be disproved at every turn.) is if both the food and the service were aweful. Think about it. If you had excellent service but bad food, why penalise your fantastic waitress in order to punish the kitchen? Similarly, why punish the kitchen when you’ve dined like a king but your waiter didn’t know his arse from his elbow?

And yes, anything less than 10% is insulting. Don’t leave your small change as a tip: any waiter worth his salt will follow you out of the restaurant and remind you that you’ve forgotten your change. Really loudly, in front of other people. The elderly should also take note here: we are not your grandchildren and as such fifty pence is not a reasonable tip on a forty pound bill.

If you can’t afford to tip, you shouldn’t be eating out. And remember, a verbal tip won’t buy my beer.

6) Make a note of when the kitchen closes. If the kitchen closes at half nine, don’t order food at twenty-five past. I’m saying this for your benefit as much as mine. By this time, the chef will be ready to close, having cleaned the kitchen down and pretty much put everything away. Some cockend coming in and expecting starters and two well-done steaks five minutes before close is going to be the least popular man in town (never cut into a chef’s drinking time). The chef will rush through your check and the food won’t be great quality: he doesn’t care about your dining experience, he wants the goddamn food off his pass so he can turn everything off and get a couple of pints inside him.

7) I don’t work in a soup kitchen. You want something extra, you pay for it. In none of the languages I speak does the word “discount” occur.

8) Should you have the good fortune to encounter the man (or woman. It’s rare, but becoming more and more common) who cooked your food, recall that “chef” is not just a job description. It’s also a title. “Oi mush” or “Yurr, mate” are both unacceptable. It’s “chef”. The whole sociolinguistics of “chef”, and who gets to be called that in a professional context and when is the subject for a completely different post, but as a general rule, if you don’t know me personally, I’d rather you as a customer address me as “chef” when I’m at work. And do try not to ask stupid questions. Last weekend, in the middle of my shift, I was wandering around in the Bear’s courtyard for a reason which will remain undisclosed, and someone asked me “are you a chef?” Not the chef, mark you, but a chef. Lacking as I do any kind of customer service skills, my response was along the lines of “what gives it away? The jacket, the apron or the bad attitude?” The young lad in question responded that he’d just dropped a glass on the floor and broken it. I clapped him on the shoulder, congratulated him and told him that I hoped that he’d made his night now. If you happen to see me, don’t tell me that you need condiments or cutlery, or that your pint is flat or any other such triviality. I am a chef. The minutiae are handled by the waiting staff.

In summary, we all know that this has been coming for a long while, and hopefully this has gotten it all off my chest. That said, however, the urge to throw something at the wall and shout “CUNTS!” really loudly remains overwhelming. Should you ever visit a certain pub in south-east Dorset and hear a strange mix of French and Welsh expletives coming from a kitchen, you’ll know that you’ve found me.

Bon appetit!

1) For non-classicists, or those who didn’t do Latin at school, both of these terms refer to public eateries. Roman cafés, if you will. Etymologically, both are interesting. Caupō, the root of caupona, is ultimately the source of the English word “cheap”, via a proto-Germanic borrowing of the Latin as *kaupaz “trader”, hence also German kaufen “to buy”. Popīna, like caupō, is actually a loanword into Latin, in this case from Oscan or Umbrian, branches of the Italic family which exhibited a soundchange of *kʷ to *p, much as Brittonic and Gaulish changed proto-Celtic *kʷ to *p: the corresponding Latin reflex was coquīna “kitchen”. If Oscan-Umbrian were P-Italic, then Latin was Q-Italic. Which is pretty cool.

I know this isn't really a post. It's a review. Well, not even that. (Rest assured, I've got a couple of things up my sleeve: one needs me to actually tug my finger out and write it (it's about the hospitality industry, my mistress and nemesis), and the other needs me to fucking locate one of my syntax textbooks.)

When I say “review”, I do of course use the term loosely. I honestly don't intend on any kind of analysis, rather let me offer this to you as something that I've been listening to myself.

I've spoken in passing here before that my taste in music is generally uninteresting: I really like what could be called “indie” music: from the 80's onwards. My iPod is a happy festival of the Killers, the Jam, Madness and everything (chronologocially, at least) in between. However, I still have a dirty little pop-music secret. These are the songs I sing at work. My all-time favourite band, when I was a teenager, was The Beautiful South. And, if I'm honest, still is. (I should probably confess to an enduring weakness for Italian pop music here. But, in honesty, if I can with a straight face refer to Alex Britti as an “Italian composer”, I believe I should be able to get away with it.)

I've mentioned here before (or perhaps on this blog's predecessor) that I am not the most “musical” of people. What I like about a song isn't its tune, but rather its lyrics. The Beautiful South is, to me, the exemplar of horrendously dark lyrics with upbeat pop tunes. (Domestic violence, rape, alcoholism etc. with a really catchy beat.)

The thing about Beautiful South tracks is that they speak to me at different times of my life. (Oh ye gods, I just noticed that I wrote “speak to me” with reference to music. Honestly, I need to be shot/corrected) Years ago, when my parents were divoricing and I was caught in the middle, I really related to Your Father and I, while far too much of my early relationship with He Whom I Call Beloved (actually, he's given permission for me to use his name now. It's Kris. He's pretty damn awesome.) can be summed up by Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud).

Which brings me back to the “review” part. Alternately, to what I'm feeling at the moment. I do apologise that it's not some classical composer: it's not Carl Orff setting some mediaeval lyric to modern music. In spite of the loquaciousness, I do like to remind people that I'm a remarkably simple man: in honesty I'm something of a pikey. Cock'n'bullkid is, in my opinion, a worhty sucessor to the Beautiful South: wry and depressing lyrics with a really chirpy tune. Depression has never sounded so good:

Sorry guys, I've been rather busy recently. Well, by busy I really mean being depressed enough that I have no motivation to do much of anything. Work's kept me chugging along, and I'm happily out the other side of it now. On the other hand, I've done nothing noteworthy of late. What then to blog about?

In conclusion, I'm a shit blogger. I promise I'll write something soon.