Ned and Bumps

Honest-to-goodness, why does advertising have to be as accurate as a laser-guided missile?

Okay, I’m not thinking of moving into a retirement home but I like the way they’re thinking; although I suspect it is a gross misrepresentation of the reality of living in “a luxury retirement village”. Village stretches credibility as Audley Nightingale Place is next to Clapham South tube station. The slogan “The Time is Now Yours” makes me imagine the inmates marching around singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”, slurping off-dry Riesling, their voices drowned out by the friendly rattle of the Northern Line; grüß Gott.

I never encountered a doggy bag until 1981 in a steak house in Manhattan. The client said she had a dog and asked for the leftovers – a substantial quantity of prime steak – to be parcelled up. This seemed a routine request and the waiter returned with a pretty large swan sculpted from tin foil. The body of the swan contained the steak. I have always wondered if she really had a dog or a hungry family.

Recently a friend suggested we took some rather good surplus cold meats and cheeses home from a restaurant – if I’d had a doggy bag with me it would have been easy. Interesting that “doggy bag” has two such different meanings. The very next morning I read a proposal in The Times to reduce food waste by making restaurants offer doggy bags. I hope they will be compostable.

Meanwhile I’m getting along with Jane Ridley’s biography of Edwin Lutyens: The Architect and His Wife. The jasmine and honeysuckle are out; the agapanthus almost. The canna is growing at a lick. In the first decade of the 20th century Ned Lutyens with his friend and mentor Gertrude “Bumps” Jekyll integrated house and garden into a holistic design. Some of their experiments were not wholly successful but their original concept is integral to architecture and garden design today. Hats off to Ned and Bumps. Take a look at Munstead Wood in Surrey – Ned did the house and Bumps the garden.