Don’t be nasty to fat people

“Don’t be nasty to fat people”, screamed the headline in the Daily Express, being read by the very fat person sitting opposite me in the executive lounge at Gatwick airport. I decided not to take the advice and nicked the last cake from under her nose, just as her dribbling became too much. Perhaps I was actually being kind, keeping her from getting even fatter.

I think that is the reason I have accumulated some extra weight during the summer. It is being nice to fat people. Like eating something to stop a portly person from indulging themselves, or accompanying That Nice Lady Decorator to restaurant after restaurant and party after party, when really I would prefer to be out jogging, in the gym or just dieting. The selflessness of it all is astounding but I guess you all know that about me now.

The River Arun in Arundel on Wenesday evening after the downpour had relented

Take today for instance. I shall be dragged to the Auberge St Donat after tennis, not because I want to go you understand. It is just the tradition, and anyway, my fellow tennis players would miss my constant self promotion, those self-satisfied references to my being a writer and gratuitous mentions of the benefits of Currencies Direct and this column, especially for the Wingco, who as regular readers will know, considers it “ghastly”.

It has been a long two days, flying thousands of miles to prop up the international music industry, but the job is done and music is safe for the time being. With meetings over, there was just time for lunch before the return trip to the airport. I decided to go and have a look at the newly refurbished George And Dragon at Burpham, with a view to having lunch if something took my fancy in the menu. It didn’t, so after a really good pint of Sussex Gold, served by Nearly Hairless Nick, a self-confessed regular reader of this column, I headed to Paperdelle above Osteria in Arundel High Street, and very good it was too. I managed to secure the best seat in the window overlooking the Market Square but, astonishingly, the restaurant remained empty except for me. I cannot understand why, as the moules were excellent and the Italian duck confit just as good, and, of course the service was excellent. I think the waitress was just glad of something to do.

Flying in to Nice from Gatwick last evening courtesy of Easyjet, the flight arrived some 25 minutes early, exactly as it has done a few nights earlier when That Nice Lady Decorator had arrived on the same flight. At thattime was I was suitably admonished for being late for picking her up, even although I arrived 5 minutes after the scheduled landing time, and despite the Easyjet live arrivals website saying it was on time, it was obviously and clearly my fault that she had to wait 15 minutes. Similarly last night, it was my fault that the flight early and I had to wait 25 minutes to be collected. I never did understand the apportionment of blame in our family. Just like Dinsdale Pirahana in that Monty Python sketch; I had transgressed that unwritten rule, about which I had never been told.

So, back nestling in the tender embrace of Valbonne, after tennis today, it will be one last weekend of fun and frivolity, before reality crowds in and we set of on Monday morning with the skip (the Decorator’s wheels) groaning under the weight of the winter clothing stuffed into it, and head for a winter of discontent in England.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News