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Families, eh?

Well that was a great deal of fun. Nan's ninetieth passed off ery well, I'm pleased to say, and the lady in question was somewhat overwhelmed emotionally. I, of course, merely had a speck of dust in my eye.

It's odd, as I rarely think of myself as being a family oriented person. I'm fairly isolated from them all here in Lancashire, and weeks will go past where I have no contact with parents or siblings, let alone aunties and cousins (I do try to make an effort to write semi-regularly to Nan, as the matriarch of the family it seems the only respectful thing to do; plus it assuages my conscience somewhat when my behaviour has perhaps not been of the highest), yet seeing everyone again was, well, kinda good. Not just that my uncle John looks so like me it's a bit spooky, not just that, at ninety my Nan looks in better nick than she did when she was seventy-five (sporting a natty pair of pinstripe trousers that some of the twentysomething ladies present looked at with envy), and not just seeing that several relations who I know have been through a rough time recently were looking well having appeared to have turned corners. There was a sense of strength there, of survivalism. A toughness which appeals to me behind the genteel and mannered exterioirs (the last few years number divorces, deaths and multiple nervous breakdowns amongst their tribulations). Here we all were, and a bloody good time we had to.

On an slightly related note I spent the weekend of the do holed up in a hotel (I'm just not much of a one for other people's houses, I infinitely prefer the impersonality of a hotel). The room was nice, the shower powerful, the towels fluffy. So far so good.

The restaurant was EXECRABLE. Rarely have I had a more mediocre meal in all my born days. The waitress asked me for my order within thirty seconds of my sitting down. My starter arrived within TWO MINUTES, not even attempting to disguise the dread influence of the microwave. My aperitif and wine arrived simultaneously, the wine opened out of my sight so it coud have been anything. The main was accompanied by a potato mash of such surpassing smoothness that I thought it could have been created only by Careme, straining the pommes through muslin. Until I tasted it. And realised it was Smash. Not good.

Still, I didn't let that deter me from trying it out for breakfast in the morning. Give it a go, I thought, it's impossible to fuck up a full english if you cook it fresh. And surely, with so few people in the dining room, everything was being cooked from fresh, wasn't it? Ho ho. What arrived on my plate was a like a full english imagined by Hieronymous Bosch. A limp streak of pale white rind attached to a thin strip of bacon tried to hide under a congealed lump of beans. The smallest sausage in the history of the world attempted a flaccid penetration of an allegedly fried egg which is best described as a hard-boiled frisbee. Three or four tiny dice of potato sheltered unsuccessfully from the cold. This hellish vista was dominated by a giant mutant tomato which was possibly conversant with a grill, but only a fleeting affair, and not enough to add any life or taste to the standard Agri-Tomato TM, and flavour carefully screened out during the genetic engineering. "Fried mushrooms" translated into a solitary flat-cap, which, it appeared, had acted as a sponge for all the spare fifth-grade vegetable oil that the chef had lying around. It was not good. It was not food. A full english breakfast is one of the finest and noblest of meals known to man. This was a desecration, a blasphemous repudiation of all that all right thinking people should hold dear. The worst part of it was everyone else was enjoying it. The cavernous breakfast room (neatly and tidily set, testament to hotel chain's attention to detail in everything else OTHER THAN WHAT'S ON MY FUCKING PLATE) was filled with the sounds of hearty mastication and appreciative grunts. How the hell anyone managed to feel in the remotest full after that sorry plateful is beyond me, possibly they filled up on the free, cold toast. So long as the people of Britain are actively pleased to consume this, their lot will not change. Me? I complained long and hard. Well, they did ask me if everything was all right....

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