The seasons and the weather change; there’re always new things to see and the river has many moods. Now I talk, sometimes, to other dog owners. Recently I met a Dutch Shepherd puppy with his Swedish/Japanese owners. Overhearing other towpath walkers, I seldom hear English. London, at its best, is a cosmopolitan, civilised place to live.
Hitherto, occasionally, receipts and restaurants have been recommended here. Now it is time to share what Bertie likes to see on the menu. He enjoys Street Food and has a catholic taste. He is open to experimentation; food wrappers are a predictable favourite but he has tried cigarette packets (does he have a smoking gene inherited from a lab beagle), drinking straws, items of clothing and a wheel from a suitcase. These hors d’oeuvres sharpen his appetite for the main course. I tried to make him choose but he likes Goat Complete and Kangaroo Chunks equally. Of the two, goat has a stronger bouquet but kangaroo is not without its own distinctive whiff.
They are produced in the kitchens of Paleo Ridge in Hampshire. Another favourite is neck of lamb, served raw, from the Barons Court butcher; à chacun son goût.
Another Cracker
Most of the start-ups I funded lost me money: a warehouse on the North Circular that sold unspeakably awful sofas, a boutique hotel in Glasgow, a garden centre, a small chain of wine bars … but the one that gave most entertainment was a fledgling fund manager. AGMs were even more fun than the wine bar ones and likewise not always conducted with sobriety. Our chairman was Nigel Johnson-Hill whose trademark sartorial riff was bright socks. I much enjoyed being given a copy of his letter to David Miliband. John Julius Norwich read it too and included it in a Christmas Cracker.
“Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR
16 July 2009
Dear Secretary of State,
My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs.. I would now like to join the “not rearing pigs” business.
In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.
I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?
As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven’t reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?
My friend is very satisfied with this business.. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is – until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.
If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?
Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don’t rear?
I am also considering the “not milking cows” business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?
In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits. I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Johnson-Hill”
Triple Jumper
Before you ask, the triple jump is like the long jump but with a hop and a skip. Philip Kingsford was good at both. He was born in Lewisham in 1891 but around 1900 his parents moved to Addison Gardens in Shepherds Bush. He was educated with his younger brother at Latymer Upper School where it became apparent that he was an outstanding athlete. It’s interesting to compare his prowess with modern records. Philip’s best long jump was 7.07 m in 1912. American, Mike Powell, bounded 8.95 m in 1991; a record that apparently has not been surpassed. Philip set a British triple jump record in 1912 when he managed 13.57 m. Today the record is still held by Brit, Jonathan Edwards, who cleared 18.29 m in 1995.
But we digress. We are interested in Philip Kingsford’s father and his younger brother. His father, Philip William Kingsford, was a merchant seaman who became Captain of of the SS Britannia. His brother, Rex, was killed “while leading his men in the great advance of July 1st 1918, aged 23 years”. He was a 2nd Lt in the 10th York and Lancaster Regiment. Both father and son are buried in Margravine Cemetery. Philip the Jumper was a master at Addison Gardens School but at the outbreak of war joined the Middlesex regiment and served in India. He survived but died in 1919, either of wounds or in the Spanish ‘flu epidemic.
Captain Kingsford’s epitaph is enigmatic. It’s fine but quite a few Victorian epitaphs in the cemetery don’t pass muster these days. Now that the cemetery has re-opened for burials, consideration is being given to guidelines for headstones and inscriptions. My advice is not to be proscriptive but to consider each case individually.
Meet My Great-Grandfather
This was an invitation I couldn’t resist. It was on the Tower Bridge website and it exhorted visitors to “meet” Bertie (pronounced Barty) Cator, the bridge’s first Bridge Master. I went to meet him with two of my first cousins, also great grandchildren, but it took some time to find a date that worked for us. Disappointingly, the curator got Woke and our ancestor has been replaced by his housekeeper, the first woman to be employed on Tower Bridge.
But they couldn’t expunge him completely. We saw the Bridge Master’s uniform; there is a plaque to him on the bridge and his signature appears on a film.
Winter Fuel
Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath’ring winter fuel.
As a poor, pensioner I am bunged £200 for winter fuel. How to spend this windfall? I went to gather winter fuel at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.
The Society buys casks of malt from distilleries; allows them to mature and puts the hooch into bottles at cask strength. Then it sticks on a label. What it does not do is dilute or filter the whisky. So when it’s not doing that it writes imaginative tasting notes and gives the bottles bonkers names. If I may digress, I was at a loss what to give John Julius Norwich as an 80th birthday present. The SMWS sold me a bottle labelled “Banana Split in a Sauna”.
Nothing has changed. I will be giving a few bottles as Christmas presents. “Shed Soup” for Jeremy Corbyn; “Cute and Delightful” for Bertie: “A Double Buttered Old Crumpet” for (name redacted); “Boundless Intemperance” for me.