stretches on the planet. You know the dream where you find yourself naked in a public place and you wake up in a sweat and wonder what it would feel like if it happened for real? Well, all you have to do is walk down a nudist beach wearing clothes and feel the glares of scorn and the ugly muttering anger of naked intolerance. Nudist beaches are the only places Iâm tempted to moon people.
Iâm also often asked for insidersâ tips on being able to tell a good restaurant from the other sort. My advice is to enter, ask for a menu, order some food, and when it arrives, eat it. Generally the inquirers are not satisfied with this. We could have thought of that, they say, implying that if that was all there is to being a restaurant critic, then Iâm taking my pay cheque at best under false pretences and at worst under pretend pretences. What they want is a tip, a secret inside sign. Okay. Well, donât eat in a restaurant that has ankle-deep pools of vomit outside or a chef whoâs picking his nose or is being picketed by slaughterhouse workers.
Granted these are unlikely-to-rare sightings, but here are two things that never, ever happen in good restaurants. Never eat anywhere that sets fire to things on purpose in front of you. Not pancakes, not Italian digestive. And never return to an establishment where the waiters sing âHappy Birthdayâ. Nothing is so indicative of desperate sycophancy than the barbershop quartet of service staff warbling over a terminally horrified woman just coming to terms with being 50, who now knows sheâs got to eat a vile ice-cream cake with blue candle wax on it and then walk through a room full of people all thinking, thank God Iâm a Sagittarius, remind me not to come here in December.
I heard somewhere that âHappy Birthday to Youâ is the most pirated artist work in history. Weâve all stolen it. It belongs to the estate of some American woman. We should be paying royalties. What I want to know, though, is what on earth made her write it in the first place? What possesses someone to sit down at a piano and go, I know: what we really, really need is a song to sing at people on their birthdays. Had she always felt there was a song-shaped hole in the anniversaries of her birth every year? Whoever said: this would have been just a perfect day â if only there was a song you could all sing at me, preferably all starting at different times and in different keys and then halting at the personalised bit, like horses preparing to refuse a fence, while some of you call me by my given name, some of you use a pet name, a couple of you call me mummy, and those three at the back just mumble uh-uh because youâve come as someone elseâs date and donât know who I am at all. Why isnât there a song for that?
So, Mrs Whoever-it-was sat down and said, what sort of song should this anniversary song be? Perhaps lyrical and romantic. Or maybe a dance, samba or waltz. It could be histrionic and hopeful. The words could be full of poetry and fondness. It might be amusing. Perhaps the whole thing would be best as a sort of Tyrolean drinking song? No, she thought. No, letâs make it a blessed nursery rhyme, with words so crapulously bland and functional that even five-year-olds whoâve only heard it three times before make up pithier versions. Yes, thatâs what birthdays need â a nursery rhyme that will follow you around during your hopeless, gauche teens, your mate-hungry 20s, your sophisticated middle-age, your wise old-age and sage-like dotage, every year treating you like a stupid toddler.
After the invention of a birthday song, the most inexplicable thing is that anyone sang it twice. Not anyone, but everyone. How did we all know? Were there hymn sheets? Did they have a practice run-through? Were they all humming the tune in the kitchen before coming out with the cake? Now I think about it, I canât ever remember a time
Iâm also often asked for insidersâ tips on being able to tell a good restaurant from the other sort. My advice is to enter, ask for a menu, order some food, and when it arrives, eat it. Generally the inquirers are not satisfied with this. We could have thought of that, they say, implying that if that was all there is to being a restaurant critic, then Iâm taking my pay cheque at best under false pretences and at worst under pretend pretences. What they want is a tip, a secret inside sign. Okay. Well, donât eat in a restaurant that has ankle-deep pools of vomit outside or a chef whoâs picking his nose or is being picketed by slaughterhouse workers.
Granted these are unlikely-to-rare sightings, but here are two things that never, ever happen in good restaurants. Never eat anywhere that sets fire to things on purpose in front of you. Not pancakes, not Italian digestive. And never return to an establishment where the waiters sing âHappy Birthdayâ. Nothing is so indicative of desperate sycophancy than the barbershop quartet of service staff warbling over a terminally horrified woman just coming to terms with being 50, who now knows sheâs got to eat a vile ice-cream cake with blue candle wax on it and then walk through a room full of people all thinking, thank God Iâm a Sagittarius, remind me not to come here in December.
I heard somewhere that âHappy Birthday to Youâ is the most pirated artist work in history. Weâve all stolen it. It belongs to the estate of some American woman. We should be paying royalties. What I want to know, though, is what on earth made her write it in the first place? What possesses someone to sit down at a piano and go, I know: what we really, really need is a song to sing at people on their birthdays. Had she always felt there was a song-shaped hole in the anniversaries of her birth every year? Whoever said: this would have been just a perfect day â if only there was a song you could all sing at me, preferably all starting at different times and in different keys and then halting at the personalised bit, like horses preparing to refuse a fence, while some of you call me by my given name, some of you use a pet name, a couple of you call me mummy, and those three at the back just mumble uh-uh because youâve come as someone elseâs date and donât know who I am at all. Why isnât there a song for that?
So, Mrs Whoever-it-was sat down and said, what sort of song should this anniversary song be? Perhaps lyrical and romantic. Or maybe a dance, samba or waltz. It could be histrionic and hopeful. The words could be full of poetry and fondness. It might be amusing. Perhaps the whole thing would be best as a sort of Tyrolean drinking song? No, she thought. No, letâs make it a blessed nursery rhyme, with words so crapulously bland and functional that even five-year-olds whoâve only heard it three times before make up pithier versions. Yes, thatâs what birthdays need â a nursery rhyme that will follow you around during your hopeless, gauche teens, your mate-hungry 20s, your sophisticated middle-age, your wise old-age and sage-like dotage, every year treating you like a stupid toddler.
After the invention of a birthday song, the most inexplicable thing is that anyone sang it twice. Not anyone, but everyone. How did we all know? Were there hymn sheets? Did they have a practice run-through? Were they all humming the tune in the kitchen before coming out with the cake? Now I think about it, I canât ever remember a time
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