Doing it Victorian style

I had a messy night on Saturday night. It was good, but messy.

For the past year and a half Crystal Palace has been embroiled in a battle to save our last remaining public entertainment venue from the hands of a wealthy evangelical 'mega church', which has a somewhat questionable history and holds some strong views. This is despite ongoing interest from an independent cinema chain, whose potential presence in Crystal Palace would do wonders for its regeneration and would offer an inclusive resource for the whole community. Consequently the Picture Palace Campaign was born and on Saturday night we attended a campaign dinner with a Victorian theme at, irony of ironies, the St John the Evangelist church down the road.

The Sphinx Dining Club certainly put on a good show and I am kind of embarrassed that I didn't dress up to embrace the theme, seeing that most of the 120 guests had. Those that know me know that this is highly out of character, but we had Beth's mother staying and I didn't really think she'd be too comfortable dressing up in a feather boa, bloomers and a basque. I guess I could have looked to Tipping the Velvet for some inspiration, but seeing as I am not exactly mammarily challenged, rent-boy drag would have required some serious suspension of disbelief. Plus I don't think a leather strap-on would have gone down well with the masses and certainly not in church!

Anyway, there was good food, good wine and some 'interesting' entertainment. Plus some ribald conversation on our table about long fingers and pork pies. I'll leave it to your imagination to guess what we were talking about. The venue looked a treat, like some decadent music hall. I half expected Marie Lloyd to pop up and start The Boy I Love in Up in the Gallery. But, the night got messier by the hour. I blame the Hendrick's gin cocktails pre-dinner, the copious amounts of red wine during dinner and the subsequent bourbon and cokes at the after show party at Los Toreros. Crystal Palace's only tapas bar must have resembled some gin-soaked Victorian boozer, with women in feathers, corsets and basques, men with handle-bar moustaches and top hats and plenty of carousing.

The locals came out in force, including our cats' vet. Do you think that with vets you need to maintain that line of professional distance as you do with doctors? I mean it's not like they're examining you. However, I bet the practitioners at our local vets have probably diagnosed me with 'mad cat woman syndrome', such is my irrational devotion to my pussies. I remember I saw my therapist once in Marks and Spencer's and instinctively knew that I shouldn't go up and start engaging her in conversation about some cardigan Twiggy wore on an M&S advert. But, I hadn't just consumed three Hendricks's gin martinis on that occasion and so if there was a professional line to be crossed on Saturday night, then I'm sure I crossed it!

Hopefully there will be more events with more themes. I beg them to hold a Studio 54 night. Now that's a theme I WILL embrace!

Mash it up

It's sausage and mash night tonight. Not that we have a special night for sausage and mash, it's just one of my 'can't be arsed' meals, i.e. a meal you cook when you really cannot be bothered will all the flange of proper cooking. Although, I do have Purple Majesty potatoes for purple mash. I got suckered in by the marketing at Sainsbury's you see.

I know to most people the concept of not being arsed to cook manifests itself in the procurement of a take away. A take away meal in our house is like Dolly Parton's husband - rarely seen. I think we've bought one in three years, which was pizza the other week. Actually it wasn't bad, if a tad strange on the topping choices. We had Chinese chicken, pineapple, jalapeños, BBQ sauce and pepperoni. We didn't make it up, it was an actual combination choice on the menu. Methinks the mad professor who works in my staff canteen moonlights at Napoli Pizza in Crystal Palace.

Given the choice of establishments in South London, it's hardly surprising we don't order many take aways. I really want to know what's the unique selling point of Tennessee Fried Chicken vs. Miami Fried Chicken vs. Mississippi Fried Chicken vs. Atlanta Fried Chicken? Apart from the change Southern state or city name that is. The market is literally saturated....in a huge vat of reconstituted deep frying fat!

So, sausage and mash it is with tomato gravy. I know it's not hugely healthy, but the sausages are quality and the mash (the ultimate comfort food, seeing as work has been manic this week) will be soft and buttery......and purple!

So what is your 'can't be arsed' choice?

You're barred

My local pubs have turned into creches. As Crystal Palace climbs the charts as a desirable location to live (check out the Lonely Planet Greatest Little Know Neighbourhoods....number 5 in the World!), so come the Jamies and Olivias with their brood of Arthurs and Tillys to put the mockers on an enjoyable weekend drinking session with bawdy conversation.

Now, so as not to alienate my friends with children, I want to go on the record to say that I have nothing against children, but I do take issue with their posh "we really wanted to live in Clapham, but yummy mummy and daddy got hit by the credit crunch" parents forcing them on me when I go down the pub for a sociable drink. There they sit shoving lamb shanks and Pinot Noir down their gullets whilst Hector and Tallulah run riot. And of course, to the parents, everything their kid does is seen as unbelievably cute in a progressively precocious way and if you don't share their opinion, well then you're just a barren old witch! I love this scene in Sex and the City (start from 8:20 minutes) when Samantha takes umbrage for a similar situation in a restaurant.

Let's be frank, a pub ain't a place for a kid. I never went in them as a child. Well, at least not until I was 15 and could pass for 18 ;) In fact, the only memory I have of going into a pub as a child was in a pub garden in the Summer for a BBQ or the occasional Berni Inn for a prawn cocktail and steak dinner (check out this previous post about 80s dinners). But it's like these parents don't want to let go of their pre-breeding days. They still want to go down the pub and get pissed.....en famille! Now if I had children, I would want to spend my weekend days with them, doing things that we could collectively enjoy. I would not wash my hands of them, letting them do a screaming relay round the pub, whilst wittering on to Jonty and Lucinda over a couple of pints of Hoegaarden and munching on halloumi salads with chorizo.

Is the gastro pub to blame or is it the smoking ban? Bring it back I say or at least force all the posh parents to go to the Harvester down Beulah Hill if they still want to spend all weekend in the pub and have their kids in tow. That will soon take the appeal out of the occasion!