You can call David Cholmondeley, or Rocksavage as his school friends probably still call him*, many things – but never Earl Marshal; not a mistake that Richard Dimbleby would have made. Unfortunately Huw Edwards spent so much time telling BBC TV viewers how Welsh he, Huw, is at the State Opening of Parliament that he muddled up the Marquess of Cholmondeley, Lord Great Chamberlain, with the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal. I think it is time to abolish the TV Licence if the public pay to be grotesquely misled on matters of such importance. In case you didn’t watch; Boris looked cheerful, Corbyn cross, Garter portly; the Queen, the Prince of Wales and Lady Elton, perfectly composed.
*His really old friends will remember him as Malpas.
Let’s build a bridge. No, not a Garden Bridge across the Thames where it’s not wanted. Let’s build a useful bridge that Robert, Bertie and me can use. Thank you Zak for getting support from the Conservative government for a temporary bridge for traffic while historic Hammersmith Bridge is being patched up – that will take at least three years. Oh dear, Zak lost his Conservative seat to the Lib Dems so probably this election bribe to Richmond voters will not be honoured. Zak justified his bribe and bridge, saying it had been done before; in 2017 at the former Battersea power station.
I prefer to read John Julius Norwich who recalls in Four Princes, April 1526. Suleiman the Magnificent and his Grand Vizier “led another huge army out of Istanbul’s Adrianople Gate and headed west. Their route was familiar enough … ” A lovely JJN touch, but I digress, he continues; ” when they reached the town of Osijek, they were obliged to build a bridge over the Drava river; 332 metres long, it was completed in five days. The moment the last soldier had crossed it, it was destroyed: retreat was never an option.” What a cliff-hanger.
After a Dry Martini, a few glasses of champagne. a goodish red Burgundy, a decent Sauternes and too much brandy Ludo the Lawyer recited this Limerick without hesitation.
There’s a notable family named Stein,
There’s Gert and there’s Ep and there’s Ein.
Gert’s prose is all bunk,
Ep’s sculpture’s just junk
And nobody understands Ein.
The Steins have come in for a bit of stick recently so I hope this redresses the balance.
Club Gin
The Garrick is, I think, the only proper club to have (boast?) a tie. Members of Boodle’s signal their membership more subtly: a bottle of their gin on the drinks’ tray. The East India Club calls and raises. It makes two gins for thirsty members. One with a blue label is a respectable 43% but the red label is made of sterner stuff.
Inspired by the days of sail and trade over the high seas and blends Indian botanical’s including ginger, cardamom, coriander and curry leaves, together with citrus, angelica and juniper. With bold spicy notes, a gentle sweetness and a smooth finish it is designed to be enjoyed in both a gin & tonic or a dry martini.
100% Organic London Distilled Gin
57% ABV is a navy strength gin
Well, I didn’t write that – grammar and apostrophe problems. Navy strength, that’s the stuff that Bertie Angelo Cator lapped up when he was Bridge Master. It’s called “Home on Furlough”. I apologise for writing yet again about gin but this is an exclusive label and I was the lucky recipient of a bottle as a gift.
Cross Dressing
Well that got your attention. Two things I’m not interested in are cross dressing and cross selling. The latter refers to a financial services company trying to sell its products to clients who don’t need them. I was always pressurised to cross sell but I stuck to my guns – “they are your clients because they want an oil futures broker, they don’t want to buy any of the other stuff on the shelves”. But this scam still goes on. A new reader here has a substantial amount of cash having sold a property. His blue-chip bank recommends lending him 30% to give him some leverage and investing the whole shebang in the stock market. They have recommended a broker, so they make a turn there too. This is a massive upside bet and one only for a gambler.
Meanwhile equities have gone up but the outlook is, as ever, murky, so I recommend staying fully invested in conservative funds. You know them if you are a regular reader. By the way, remember d’Hondt? Sure you do, the father of proportional representation. Run General Election 12 Dec through his PR system and the Lib Dems win 70 seats, First Past The Post they got 11. I am in favour of the right sort of PR but that makes me think we are not ready for it yet.
Many of the headstones in Margravine Cemetery record the profession of the deceased: librarian, publican, member of Her Majesty’s Body Guard; HM being Queen Victoria. Thomas Austin was a Colour Serjeant in the Coldstream Guards.
The Queen’s Bodyguard is drawn from retired officers in the armed services and Thomas Austin it appears was in fact a Member of the Queen’s Body Guard of the Yeoman of the Guard.
This charming headstone commemorates a Bandmaster.
But, I crave your indulgence to start a sentence with “but”, so many of the graves are of infants and those who perished in two world wars. Here is an example of the former.
That isn’t very cheerful, so what’s Bertie getting for Christmas?
And merry Christmas from me.
A gravestone can make a fine sort of “memento mori” — but after a good dose of the inscriptions, especially those for children, one can imagine a drink made with navy strength gin might be in order.
Glad to see that Bertie will be having some seasonally appropriate delicacies.
Christopher,
May I take this opportunity to convey the very best greetings of the season.
I still very much lament the absence of your daily posts, they enriched many a vacant Irish morning. I do, however understand that such a prodigious output would be impossible to sustain ad infinitum, but I sincerely wish you would return to the same format (albeit only once a week). The current tit-bit style of ‘my week’ does not permit you to develop a particular topic to its full potential. I find myself just getting enraptured when you change horses mid stream & I am left wanting more. I recognise that keeping things brief is generally best as concision sharpens the wit, but I much preferred your previous style of writing with its diversions & digressions, but which always weaved a central thread throughout each post. I do not think I am alone in feeling a trifle dispirited as I am sure you have noticed the correlation with the lack of comments from regular readers (such elite company are much too mild mannered to protest).
I look forward to more (comprehensive) rollicking tales to come & trust 2020 will be an annus mirabilis.