Slightly Sloshed Val Only Ray of Hope in Waste Land’s Midst

Monday 2nd July 2012

It’s unbearable. Not the racking, throbbing frenzy of the banking crisis of 2008 but now a low ashy death.

This weather.

The inertia in the banking sector. The Euro Crisis. I’ve barely the strength to wear frockage.

My entry on my sales gains in frockage will have to wait until I’ve recovered. Don’t forget that miracle with the Topman suit jackette.Yet to come.

What’s more my private architect, BRUCE MacBain (at times falsely known as ‘Angus’), is trying to circulate a photograph of my grave.

Can you imagine anything more demoralising?

I assume he’s got a scheme worked out, but it’s not wanted YET.

Only Val, who notices little in the world beyond owing to enthusiasm for a drop, goes on. Last Friday he made a strawberry and orange curd from an Old-Fashioned Jam book. He was much preoccupied with its over-sweetness and added lemon juice several times. I was round Saturday night and tried it with ice cream.

Most unusual.

Over the curd, we prepared a list of useful phrases to be included in an imaginary beginners’ English lesson.

‘Would you like une mille feuille?’, for instance. To be followed by a full recital. ‘Would they like une mille feuille?’ ‘Would he/she or it like….?’

Of course, Val can still decline the subjunctive form of  the French verb, Cueillir, with exceptional menace. Cueillir means to gather, pick, pluck or tear off. I always thought it meant ‘to grow’ but it doesn’t.

Otherwise, Val produced a catalogue. It was for a Paris exhibition, given in the 1980s,  of photographs of society ladies from La Belle Epoque in Worth gowns. Some of them claimed to be Minerva, in other words equipped with a spear and shield, adding to the bulky effect. The captions, in French, were quite tart: ‘La Marquise  Marie-Soubise Horloge de Sabayon Ferdandez Appleyard (or whatever) was a legendary beauty but nothing rivaled the cult she made of herself. She was Proust’s model for la Duchesse de Germantes.’

They were all Proust’s model for someone or other.

Huge strivings, I imagine, to get into Proust in those days.

Posted Monday, July 2, 2012 under Adrian Edge day by day.

2 comments

  1. Sonny Hammond says:

    I imagine they mean to share une mille feuille and will need two cuilliéres.

  2. Sonny Hammond says:

    … or two snoops as an ex french provincial kitchen often offered.

Leave a Reply