La-Di-Da London

The in-crowd. The beautiful set. London at it’s preening, pouting best. This is what I was greeted with last night in a rather (s)wanky restaurant in Regent Street. There they were in all their ‘Look at me, look at me. I’m so gorgeous and better than those wretched poor people outside’ glory.

The terrace overlooking the London skyline was filled with ex public school boys, with their Eton hair and smarmy-pants expressions, and beautiful women resplendent in their compulsory over-sized, bug-eyed sunglasses. Mingling amongst them were a swarm of fifty plus men with sandy hair, mahogany tans, Rolex watches and cat that got the cream expressions, as they regaled hilarious stories to the young beautiful women. The young, beautiful women laughed uproariously, clearly only interested in the wealthy, walking tanned wallets for their personalities.

What a repulsive sight it was.

Eventually a waiter who seemed like the love child of Adrian Chiles and Larry Grayson wandered over to take our order. One by one he caught our eye as we deigned to request some liquid refreshment. Every order was greeted with a ‘well if that’s what you really want, fine.’ expression. The same waiter later impressed me in equal measures when my meal arrived. I had ordered a Beef dish, with vegetables and fat chips. When I finished counting my two beans I enquired where my fat chips might be.

“Fat chiiiiiips. You not get fat chiiiiips with this, only with the beef.”
“But I ordered the beef.” I said. “What’s this then?”
“It’s peeeek.”
“What?”
“Peeeek.”
“What?”
“Peeeek.”
“What’s peeeek?" I enquired, considering this to be a fair question.
“Peeek. Peek, you know peeeeek.”
“Do you mean pig? Pork? Are you saying this is pork?”
“Yes pork. Peeek. You want it changed?”

So changed it was, and as everyone else finished their meal my cooooooooooooow arrived. As tasteless a piece of meat as I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. Still, never mind I’ll enjoy my fat chiiiiips. But where were they? I looked under the two new beans. Not there. I looked either side of the leathery main course, and then it struck me. That solitary rectangular yellow mystery object residing on the left hand side of my plate was my fat chips. One. One fucking chip. One fat fucking chip. I went through all that for one feckless, fat fucking chip.

Anyway, it was a nice evening, with good company and plenty of wine. But it was a reminder of what a pretentious, shallow and pompous city London can be. It’s a good job that London has so much else going for it. For all the general buzz, great bars, parks, shops, museums etc I can forgive a few la-di-da, big-haired, loud-mouthed ponces and the equally vacuous clothes dummies.

But I can’t forgive being given only one fucking chip.