Had a rather odd day today; the vestiges of my food poisoning are still lingering taking all my powers not to dive off at random points from my companion's company at awkward moments.
My companion today is a family friend of Ayla's who accompanied me to his favourite tailor to be fitted for my wedding suit. It's a chance to get a reasonably priced bespoke suit and with any luck, paunch permitting, I'll get to wear it at my next wedding too. I have chosen a navy chalk stripe, three button, double vent with flat fronted trousers (no turn-ups).
At the tailor they pulled out all the stops: An espresso when we arrived, two tailors and an assistant in attendance and, the piece de resistance, a bar serving booze. And the icing on the piece de resistance; you can smoke, in the shop. Disque Bleu!
My Anarcho-Dandyist credentials are restored. This is a place where a chap can thrive; drunk, calabash in hand, having young Mahmoud measure ones inside leg. A-hem.
"Are you free Mr. Lucas?"
"I'm free."
1 comment:
As if it would be unrealistic, ungracious, and simply bad business to expect people to spend any length of time in a premises which forbade attention to pleasure viz. tobacco, brandy, coffee.
Whereas here, pubs themselves are becoming fractured and hollow. For someone who has spent a lot of his life basking in the addled fug of compact and genial company, drowning ambition and sorrow alike in accumulations of booze, fags and unfounded speculation, to have it taken away is almost unbearable.
In the Heart, on a Saturday night, there were about 12 people. Although admittedly one of them was a preposterously drunk posh middle-aged lady who looked like Terry Nutkin in drag and tried to dance with Jack. "You young people are so delightful," she said, "you must just keep on. It's the only way."
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