Tuesday 14 September 2010

The Lost Martini


Last night I mislaid a Martini. It could not have been the first. The first one to have been mislaid, I mean. That is to say, mislaid in the history of the Martini. Even though its history, as a cocktail (wherever cocktails come from), is conflicted and, therefore, uncertain. However, I am sure that they must have been mislaid before. Well, as sure as I am of anything. Anyway, this morning I found it on a windowsill outside and there were several large (and once-formidable) ants floating in the glass. They were dead but they were smiling and I could just tell that they had died very,very happy, after their little festa.

6 comments:

  1. Pissed again then Storey

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  2. No! You miss the point entirely: the ants had my drink. Well, the abandoned one. As for the second, third and fourth, I really don't know where they went, except that they went AWOL. I'll tell you one thing, though...they were damned fine Martinis and they have fine futures...

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  3. I am new to this Blog and have read it quite a bit all in one evening. I am impressed I suppose by the life in you; the fervour almost for so many things I am quite cut off from; I read a zest for things, things and more things; Bespoke clothes, suits, shoes; the well dressed man; the man about town; the world even. But you see for the past 16 years I have been a single parent and it has been quite a struggle. While you talk of the best in fashion I ponder all the economies; my clothes are second-hand. I buy my son's clothes from the school shop for uniform, and from Matalan which you would not approve of at all would you.

    I saw the picture of St Paul's posted on your site; tell me, did you ever go there?

    I am a public service worker too for my sins. Your benevolent Coalition Govt is it seems intent on making us all pay (with our jobs and our wages) for the greed of the people you seem to revere; rich, well-dressed, champagne or martini drinking people in the great grand world of commerce. The greed of the adventurers will cost us dearly and perhaps has already done so. The public sector was ever frowned upon as being second-rate, uninspired, unproductive and worth the sacrafice. They may seem lowly and dull but they clear up the mess in so many ways; they are rubbish men, ambulance drivers, paramedics, police officers and public lawyers. I am a lawyer who has had a fair share in clearing the streets of drug rings, murderers and serious sex offenders but still a public sector nobody in the eyes of people like you. Your kind surround themselves with things and then die leaving things behind; that is all.

    I know people in the public sector who save lives, risk their own and do quiet good. Perhaps a blog about those sorts of people would be better for so many of us to read than indolent men who care nothing but trumpeting their own voices and pictures. I agree with my son who says that a man like Atlee was more significant than a blunder bus like Churchill. Atlee was quiet and always took a long view. He never needed to be the centre of his own little world for he loved the concept of social justice so much more than individual self aggrandisement

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  4. If you come here often it won't be for the Martinis, will it? But you are welcome anyway.

    The adventurers in my book will be men and women such as Colenso and Skarbek-Granville (mentioned in the blog), whose lives could not attract the same broadside blasting that mine does.

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  5. On Attlee and Churchill: the British National Health Service is a wonderful thing (well, it certainly could be again, if it were run with an emphasis on treatment, rather than administration) and, at least until a few years ago, it was one of the biggest employers in the whole world. That was one of Attlee's government's greatest achievements (thanks largely to Aneurin Bevan). But it is thanks to the inspiration and drive of Churchill that there was a Britain left in which to create it at all.

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  6. Why don't some of these 'Anonymous' commenters just go elsewhere lest they wind themselves up? Just bizarre.

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