Double dip diet diatribe

As expected, northern git Steve “Trouble Up T’ Mill” Jackson arrived to take us out to lunch yesterday at my expense. He did drive us to the George at Burpham, where we were ably looked after by Nearly Hairless Nick, but the problem was the transport. Even the gits’ god children call it Papa Smurf, and that is being kind. Obviously, being from up north it is unlikely he could afford such a vehicle, but who oh why would he steal a Range Rover Evoque? particularly as it is bright blue. He seemed to be under the impression that the Spice Girl inspired abomination is somehow cool. Anyway, after I had stopped laughing, I realised I had to get in it, and that I would be recognised at the pub, so I had him park it way around the back, and hope not to be seen.

It was a lovely lunch, with the home-made scotch eggs, still runny, being sensational, and I know our northern friend must have secretly enjoyed his beer because quality like that afforded by Arundel Sussex Gold is hard to find in his neck of the woods.

Returning to Arundel, we popped into the Kings Arms for a late afternoon refresher, to find Charley Pistorius Malcolmson, the landlord, in deep discussions with Fearless Feckless Fricker, the landlord of the Stonemasons at Petworth, about the Christmas “No Parsley” lunch. This will take place sometime next week, and That Nice Lady Decorator and I have been honoured to be invited to attend. I think my fulsome embracement of the ideal that Parsley should never again adorn my plate was the clincher to have been invited into the inner sanctum of such a worthwhile organisation. I mean parsley; what is the point? I had thought that the lunch would take place in Petworth, but I was wrong, Butlers in Arundel is the intended target for the misuse of parsley.

Obviously I have had too much fun over the last 4 days, eating and drinking, so there has (apparently) to be a reckoning. Today is the start of a new intensive and extremely concerning phase of the 5:2 diet that has so laid waist (!) to my waste line over the previous weeks. Two days of consecutive restriction to 600 calories. It has reminded me that I must sign my will.

Cricket fans will quickly recognise this cricketing legend, whom I spotted at the London Palladium last week.

Something weird is happening in the comments subsection of this column. From being the platform for a number of talented limericists, encouraged not at all by me, over the weekend it has suddenly become some kind of theological playground. This is curious because I have long held the view that religion is responsible for most of the ills in society, the majority of wars, and that the intolerance that often seems to emanate as a result, particularly in some sections of the more overtly religious world, and that it should have no part in the lives of balanced reasonable people, amongst whose numbers I count myself. So why pick on my column to have this discussion? I am deeply wounded and thinking of praying for guidance. That should help redress the balance back towards the far less destructive pastime of Limerick writing.

With the Christmas festivity schedule beginning to hot up from Thursday onwards, I should be happy to spend the next two days in quiet contemplation, including the deepest contemplation of the benefits of having ones very own foreign exchange services in the form of  Currencies Direct, but instead I shall be yearning for the Christmas madness to begin, without the religious element of course.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News