Pop and Peas

Captain Birds Eye, the late John Hewer.

My sister briefly worked for Shirley Abicair, Zither Time. I found myself at lunch on Sunday boasting I’d been on holiday with Ringo Starr’s secretary in Croatia.

Aristocrats and pop stars were as entwined as the holly and the ivy in the 1950s and 60s. They were enchanted with each other. My Ormsby-Gore cousins used to hang out with the Stones. More recently my brother renewed this tenuous connection when he found Jerry Hall sitting on the, almost certainly, damp grass at Beaulieu in Co Louth, trying to get up, like a giraffe who cannot quite make it to the vertical. He proffered a helping hand introducing himself – “I’m Jerry Hall” she purred in pure Texan. Marianne Faithful  also had an even more intimate connection with the Irish Peerage. To be completely clear, not a Bellew peer. I feel a ditty coming on. Bertie and I will work on it, He will snuffle while I write the lyrics. It’ll come out terrifics.

Oh, Ringo Starr’s secretary; she is good looking; good bone structure. I said she should have been a model – she told me she had been. This arose at lunch on Sunday because of chat about frozen veg being good; often more nutritious than wilted, fresh veg. I tried putting frozen peas into Dry Martinis, to keep me healthy, until I found they went all soggy. She, Ringo’s secretary, had a contract with Birds Eye to grow peas for them and confirmed they are about as fresh as you can get. She also mentioned if it’s too wet for the harvesting machinery to get into the fields the crop has to be ploughed in. This is very good for the land (nitrogen?) and does not impact her contract; win/win for her. I suppose the old Cap’n’s Fish Fingers are pretty fresh too. A fish finger anointed with tomato ketchup is not to be sneered at.