How quickly the summer passes. No sooner were you slipping on the shorts and Birkenstocks than you were forced to put your shirt back on.
All right, those amongst you who support Newcastle United from the Gallowgate end never wear a shirt to matches as a badge of pride preferring to daub yourselves in black and white stripes of body paint, the name of your favourite player mis-spelt across your shoulders. My friend Alan with his black and white cashmere scarf will be labelled a sissy. What japes!
But, I may never go onto a beach again. Note the use of the word may, because, as you know I worship the sun. But though I laugh in the face of skin cancer there are some things that scare even me.
A recent survey had Princess Beatrice tied with Jennifer Aniston for the fourth best beach body in the world. The bit about being tied to Jennifer I can understand, but how on earth can Bea, out of Her Fergieness and stablemate of Huge Knees, have ranked so highly or indeed anywhere unless it was bringing up the rear in the 2.30pm at Chepstow?
Who makes this stuff up? And for once it’s not the wife.
Once again sciatica has raised its ugly head in the tattooing brotherhood. This time it is not Neil, who appears to be making a recovery (update below) but his now less able assistant Pink, not that big, shouty girl but a compact bloke and the least Italian Italian I’ve ever met.
The injury struck following a night of drinking Ricard and hierbas involving Neil, Scratch, Gillian and me.
I feel the tipping point was when Pink’s landlady Charlene, who doubles as the waitress serving said alcohol, popped up in the small hours to extract the payment of rent in kind. Pink is now wearing Neil’s corset, Charlene still being busy with hers.
It’s a flattering garment if you have the personality to carry it off and I will be stocking a few for autumn.
September has brought relief to Neil. An operation in Paris seems to have done the trick and restored some colour to his pallid complexion. He really was the palest man in Ibiza. “I don’t do beaches, man,” he has often told me.
Neil and I will continue our discussions about Adidas, and that fact that I wear the wrong type. It is a style statement for him and I wear it for exercise and never the twain shall meet. So I will not be out “sniping”, sorry – cheating – him out of that vintage Ivan Lendl jacket on eBay.
I think it is time to introduce a new celebrity. My D-list friend is still stuck with his vuvuzelas but has a panto gig for Christmas. I wish him well, it’ll give me a chance to torture him with Macbeth, while he rehearses as an Ugly Sister. He is already complaining that the make up artist, J’son, feels he may only need a little touching up and is unsure exactly how to take that remark.
This new celebrity considers himself A list. What sauce! He currently crosses the street to avoid me and shuns me in my favourite breakfast haunt, The Wolseley.
The shunning is made easier by the fact that I always get a better table. This is not the only location we cross swords over table rights and he always loses. Big up, all at The Wolseley, Jayne, Claudia, Jason and welcome back Shirley, keep up the good work, I know it really gets under his skin. No, it’s not Michael Winner, who was charming if a little sqwarky the only time I sat next to him – like being next to a tanned parakeet.
Recently Gillian and I went back to an old favourite restaurant. T’was an interesting evening. It prides itself on service and the quality of its food. Note, I say quality, not quantity. The service was slow and haphazard as if to mimic the lazy french driving style of a post lunch 2CV, desperately clinging to the road when a strong gust of wind would puff you into a ditch, if not the heady mixture of bordeaux and calvados. My rack of lamb was a lonely lamb chop, a single rib, artfully arranged to look bigger than it was. OK, those of you know me well will know this is a technique I have often used myself. Perhaps someone swiped the rest from my plate on the way from the kitchen; some hungry soul who may have still been waiting for his main course since lunch.
And finally a plug; we now have a stock of new winter merchandise. Well you didn’t think I was doing this for my health, or just promoting other peoples businesses.
Copyright © 2010 Adrian Holdsworth. All Rights Reserved.