It is going to be a short weekend for me. The client of the crap job I thought I had finished has spotted a defect in my work (something I had not even taken into consideration) and will not pay me until she is satisfied. It will be raining on Monday, so I am going to do it tomorrow.
At the complex of workshops - one of which is mine - we used to have a little ritual whereby the 6 of us would sit around at lunchtime and form a loose Lottery syndicate by counting down from five and simultaneously shouting out a number between one and fifty. Someone would take down the numbers then go off and buy a ticket using them.
I don't ever recall a winning combination, but it provided a few seconds amusement and the expectation for the rest of the week gave us all the frisson of hope for a comfortable retirement. We live in hope if we die in despair.
Sometimes the combination of numbers seemed so authentically correct that I had to be restrained from calling up my best client and telling him to stick the job up his arse. Ah, but we were only 60 then and had our whole lives ahead of us. These were heady times indeed.
My erstwhile best client is now so wealthy that he cannot go anywhere without two bodyguards. Neither can his children and neither can his grandchildren. His cars are fitted with trackers and his chauffeur is trained in evasive driving techniques. If our lottery syndicate had ever won I don't think we would have needed bodyguards.
On a food program today, a female chef compared the strange attraction to the scent of black truffles to 'smelling her own farts'. I was quite taken aback and had to think quickly to see if I had imagined it. I mean, this was not just the BBC, it was a food program on the BBC. What would Lord Reith have said?
It seems that a lot of people do not like Perigord truffles. Presumably for them it is like smelling someone else's farts. Personally, I love black truffles. Shaved into a fatty cheese - such as Brie - they are wonderful. The fat brings out the flavour and saturates the cheese with it. Same with truffle oil. You can make one truffle go a long way with oil.
Lord Reith was 6' 6" and gay. His daughter attests to it.
I like the sounds of how you went about picking lottery numbers! I'll have to remember to suggest we try it to a couple of my work friends next week. Things have been stressful lately and a bit of fun might be just the thing.
ReplyDeleteI've never tasted a truffle, nor eaten in a restaurant where they were on the menu. I must say that the female chef's comment you mention doesn't make them sound like something I'm sorry to be missing out on!
I developed a different way of timing the shout-out for numbers. I held a banana skin at arms length and let it drop. When it hit the ground we would all shout our number. I am sure this would work just as well with other fruit skins, but have not done it enough to gather any meaningful data.
DeleteI don't think she meant to say that truffles tasted of farts, just that some people react differently under the same circumstances, or just showing how things can be appreciated despite the most conflicting sensory experiences. For instance, how can something as stinky as Roquefort cheese taste so delicious? Truffles have a sensual, alluring aroma because they have evolved to spread their spores by attracting pigs, who dig them up, eat them and then excrete them in a different place above ground. Hang on, I am not making them any more attractive to you, am I?
Ha! No, that's not the most appealing imagery when considering a meal!
DeleteI do get what you're saying, of course, and as a relatively adventurous eater I'd be happy to try truffles should the opportunity ever present itself. So far, it has not.
Sad that having money does that to people who have it...and to others who want to take it away.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't sound like happiness
Nobody buys themselves out of problems.
DeleteShe sounds like a bundle of fun.
ReplyDeleteWhich one?
DeleteFirst para.
DeleteShe is like a child. I am not used to dealing with idiosyncratic customers these days. I don't miss them.
DeleteFor three years I lived in Hamburg (only in a rented flat, so I was not one of THEM!) in a very posh quarter where some very rich people lived - body-guarded as you describe above - and I thought it awful for them: till then I always believed that money will buy you a bit more freedom - but they lived as in a cage.
ReplyDeleteAt night there was more light because they wanted to protect against intruders.
Having enough money is very fine - but being so rich that you are always in defence and mistrust persons (thinking maybe they only love you because of your money) must be awful.
Englischer Garten?
DeleteI wondered why a local chef was “ interested” when I passed
ReplyDeletePassed what?
DeleteThere must be more than one variety, because I've always enjoyed to sort I buy and eat.
ReplyDeleteWe have inferior British Summer Truffles but no true black ones.
DeleteThe French love their truffles. I could take it or leave it. Wealth comes with issues also. Like it or not, there is no free ride...
ReplyDeleteTell me about it.
DeleteHaving lived for nearly 50 years in the land of the Périgord Truffle, I have to admit to loving them. To appreciate them properly, when making paté add some to one jar, and not to another. Then taste the difference.
ReplyDeleteH.I. must have picked up on the zeitgeist because she came home with some truffled cheese today. I have put a photo up of a sliver which shows just how little you need to put into cheese to infuse it richly.
DeleteNever eaten a Perigold truffle but I think some cheeses smell of the farmyard, not that it stops me from eating it because I love cheese.
ReplyDeleteUp until recently, the Chinese would eat absolutely anything but cheese.
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