I was a dead loss on the Times crossword today. Since the Professor was taking me to Ascot, it seemed only right to explain to him what was going to win once we got there.
I might consult my solicitors to see if there is an offence whereby turf accountants can be charged with trying to dispose of successful gamblers by hospitality because Corals tried their level best, keeping not only food coming but also, every time we got back to the table from watching a race from the 'panoramic restaurant', there was another bottle of Argentinian Shiraz asking to be demolished. I'm not one for conspiracy theories but I've always understood there's no such thing as a free lunch, never mind a banquet, so it can't have been right.
The Saturday Nap was a confident one and it was very convenient the way it worked out so that the Prof's bookie provided the best view of it so that I could see it was going to win when it was still in another part of Berkshire.
I am not accustomed to such places but I doubt if even Princess Margaret could have found fault with the service, the understated politeness of everybody there, the attentiveness of the staff, who even provided the Professor with orange juice without showing undue signs of alarm. It is only now, back in workaday Portsmouth, that it dawns on me that I should have said,
Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not Beyonce, I'm just a layabout poet from Portsmouth, could you please treat me with less deference. You are making me feel guilty.
And the Prof said, it's a different planet.
Although dress code was suit and tie, as you can see it didn't seem to matter how battered and shabby it looked. They probably don't get many poets so don't have any rules to deal with them.
I missed no trick in waiting for Top Notch, as napped, to pay the train fare but now wish I'd asked Corals for odds against being sat next to a Fulham supporter which not only would have brought retirement forward to this minute but paid for anything else I could possibly think of.
Hello, Michael. Glad you tuned in.
And, Thanks, Prof. And, Thanks, Corals. Yes, I did have to be out of the house before Danny Baker came on but what can you do when, in two of his many favourite phrases that we never tire of, this one taken from Voltaire, it was a day on which we had our hats on the side of our heads and
Everything's for the best in this best of all possible worlds.