Duck, duck, haggis
Which involves a little bit of Harry Potter and a little bit of Jane Austen.
Which involves a little bit of Harry Potter and a little bit of Jane Austen.
At Henley, as at Ascot, the spectrum of different British classes are laid out like a rainbow. If I was on the very royal Violet end of that rainbow Ascot, I’m towards the cheap and cheerful Red end for Henley
‘Oh my god!’ I say, ever so wittily.
‘Oh my god,’ she returns, also demonstrating an enviable mastery of the English language.
We’re here for Chandler’s thirtieth birthday. He’s been given a big gaudy birthday badge and he isn’t shy about tapping it and issuing birthday commands. His first? Everyone must order a full litre of the local beer, Dreher at lunch. This, plus a Weiner schnitzel the size of birthday boy’s face apiece, costs each of us about 3000 Hungarian forent, the equivalent of less than ten quid. It’s a revelation. After being persistent paupers in London, we feel like emporers in Hungary.
At 4.45am the alarm went off and I was out the door by 5.15am, to make the very first Circle Line tube of the day from Kings Cross at 5.31am to make the 6am National Express bus from Liverpool St to make the 8.30am flight from London Stansted to Budapest. All going well.
Angel Islington is one of the pretty pale blue properties on the Monopoly Board. It’s nestled in near Euston Rd, Pentonville Rd, Kings Cross Station, Chance and Jail. For years I idly wondered, whenever I landed on this cheap little property, what angels had to do with it. These were the days before Google, obviously.