Plastic glasses in Henley shock

July 24, 2010

tags: Cote D Azur, Currencies Direct, Hooray Henley, John Otway, Living In France, Moving To France, The Angel On The Bridge

Dodging the omnipresent showers, we decided to call in at Henley for a pint at the Angel On The Bridge and try to sit outside. We succeeded, but plastic glasses? They served my Breakspears in a plastic glass. I am sorry, I don’t get, or accept the need for plastic glasses. Then there are the insects. Wasps, fruit flies, daddy-long-legs, horse flies.

Then the are the sirens, the lorries, the buses, even the general public destroying the atmosphere of this riparian establishment.
Call me old-fashioned (I am of course nearly as old as Wing commander Spensley), but all I wanted was a quiet pint in nice surroundings on the banks of the Thames, listening to the birds, looking at the boats meandering past on the almost imperceptible current, but all I got was bitter spilled on the plus fours due to those stupid glasses, a nasty little rash from insect bites, a nagging headache (a phrase I shall remember which as a future description of that nice lady decorator when she is being difficult) and a vague sense of dissatisfaction.

I think it was plastic glasses that set me off. Are people now so debauched in England that we cannot be trusted with glasses?, are we really expected to jettison them into the Thames, or lob them at passing leisure craft? Up north maybe, but not in Henley, surely?

I gave it a second chance last evening when dear old pal and wonderful rock n roll eccentric John Otway is popping in for a pint, early doors.

I have just read that back and I can hear a Yorkshire accent cutting in. Early doors? Where did I get that from? I should be, and I am, ashamed.

Talking of Yorkshire, I hear from Toby Savin who reminds me that he and Emma, the missionary doctor, acted as interpreters to secure the bottle of wine won at quiz night in Otley. He is rightly chagrined at this omission. Without a local interpreter we would have been unable to decipher the questions, so incomprehensible was the bingo callers accent, so to have with us someone who actually understood the local vernacular was vital..

Anyway, we popped back to The Angel to see if it was any better inside, and the answer is, not much, although no plastic glasses was a move forward. I partook of a pint of Hooray Henley, mainly because of its name, and wished I had not.

great name, crap beer

Mr Otway is in his usual fine form despite a very obviously dodgy hair colour job. I accept however that the hairdresser had very little raw material from which to work. He shows off an Ipad that he has bought, mainly it seems, for him to be able to read and re-read his own books.

Those that read the comments section of this column will have read the comments of Colin Dodd after the Little Horwood Cricket match recently. Obviously I apologise for suggesting that his career best is 7 or that he would ever take as little time as 22 overs to score these. I was also amused as his explanation as to how he stained his moustache! but I am aware that I have a number of young readers so will draw a polite veil over his explanation.

And so today we shall dash to the The Dashwood at Kirklington near Oxford to prepare for the wedding of Linda Warmbottom at The Oratory this afternoon. I wonder if she will be tempted to retain her own surname? There is no truth in the rumour that her new French husbands name is Jean Paul Chaudbiere.

Chris France

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