Later, champagne. It’s sort of a cliché until you discover lots of people don’t actually like champagne. Somehow this adds to the pleasure. During the war Churchill swigged gallons of it and good luck to his memory. I’ve ordered his favourite, Pol Roger. Readers of Tone Deaf will know I’m not in the habit of sharing my enthusiasms with Tories. Jeffrey Archer used to serve up super-expensive Krug at his self-promotions, saying, “You know it’s Krug, don’t you?” The beast.
I don’t want VR slaving over a hot stove so we’ve ordered Curried Lobster Soup followed by Cornish Turbot and Dauphinoise Spuds, prepared and ready to shove in the oven. More gustatory elitism, but what the hell?
There will have to be music, of course. Amazingly I lack a DVD of the greatest opera ever written. (Mozart’s Figaro, in case you didn’t know). The nearest possible source is in Abergavenny, 25 miles away. That’s a fair slice of my presently full tank of hoarded fuel. Assuming the shop has it should I pay for it over the phone and have it picked up and delivered by taxi? Spending the equivalent of a single stalls seat at the Royal Opera House?*
I do have a DVD of Mozart’s Magic Flute, an opera that has become closer over the years since I now sing two of its arias. Would this seem selfish of me? Perhaps not. Six years ago I told VR I was toying with singing lessons. “Go ahead, then,” she said. She’s decisive my wife.
* Never work harder, only smarter. I streamed a 1994 performance of Figaro from YouTube. It cost us nothing.
There is a reverse snobbishness about champagne. We know people who claim that the local fizz is just as good and a quarter or less of the price. More fool them, I say!
ReplyDeleteJean: And let us draw a merciful veil over those who make extravagant claims about prosecco...
DeleteCongrats! You and your wife celebrate well. Hats off to your creativity and stay-at-home flair. Save that fuel for as long as you can.
ReplyDeleteColette: There I was, prepared to spend a shedload of money buying the opera DVD, and I suddenly bethought myself: YouTube! Where there was a free choice of nearly a dozen full-length (ie, 3 hr plus) performances. The fish order was such a bargain my daughter, who'd done the buying, phoned them a second time just to confirm it was enough for two. It was. And the Pol Roger went down like quicksilver, though not as poisonous.
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