I was up in Scotland this week and took some clients out on Wednesday evening. Us Scots are bred hard. Thursday night is for sissies. The last time I had been up north I was invited to dine in the New Club, rubbing shoulders with Edinburgh’s elite, and as I think I told you, ended up singing, fuelled by a couple of stiff G&T’s, excerpts from HMS Pinafore. These days, and I suspected this would be the case, reflecting ruefully on my behaviour that evening, I have to look to a different sort of venue for dinner in Edinburgh. The Indian Cavalry Club sounds grand enough I think you will agree, but truth be told, it’s not quite as exclusive as the name might suggest. Still, I thought it was a fitting enough venue for the motley crew I had managed to assemble with the promise of a fine wine tasting to precede the Officers Set Menu at £29.30 a head.
Fine wine tasting. Hmmmm. In the good old days I recall hosting an event ( in the New Club as it happens ) with my wine merchant ( go me ) Justerini & Brooks. That was a rare treat indeed. The highlight was probably the Chateau Palmer 1990, but in addition to that we enjoyed an extensive range of delicious clarets paired off against each other from a selection of vintages. The Chairman of J&B talked us through the wines which we enjoyed in a beautiful boardroom looking out over Princes Street Gardens onto the spectacular backdrop of Edinburgh Castle.
How times have changed. On Wednesday my colleague and I nipped into the booze shop at the top of Frederick Street and hastily selected four bottles. I say hastily. It wasn't that a certain amount of thought didn't go into the choice. The idea was to find interesting wines at affordable prices which would go well with curry. However we managed to knock one of the displays over and a bottle smashed onto the shop floor. Glass everywhere. It wasn't the most welcoming of shops from the outset and the frosty glare on the shop assistants face suggested a quick retreat was the best option. So we skedaddled with two bottles of Aussie rubbish, an interesting white Hermitage and what proved to be a perfectly passable red Rhone. Yes there was a bit of a competitive thing going on between the two of us as to who could choose the best drop. They were necked ( though not the Australian Savvy B/Semillion I noted gleefully ) before we’d got half way through the poppadums with the Hermitage universally acclaimed the winner. It really wasn't much of a contest.
I’ve just realised something simply awful however. I failed to deliver the prize I promised to the winner of my Christmas contest who was with us. Shame on me. In my defense there will probably be a more responsible opportunity to hand over a bottle of malt whisky to the sort of man who wrote the gem below, than in a second rate Indian curry house on a chilly Wednesday evening. Could have got very nasty and out of hand.
Oor Christmas bash at the Scran & Scallie left me feeling right peely-wally,
A full day oot on the Coonsil Juice meant a bus for me back tae ma hoose.
Wi glaikit look ah climbed upon it – the last one, ye ken, the vomit comet.
Fu’ o keelies wha’d been oot wi their boss – can this bus get me tae Kinross?
‘Haud yer wheesht son, just sit doon, I’ll wake ye when we reach the toon’
Ma heid went back, it never liftit as off to the land of nod I driftit.
Nae help frae the keelie tho’ – a total dearth, meant I didnae wake til Perth.
Panic stricken, gripped wi fear – whit tae say tae ma wife so dear?
‘Calm yersel son’ says the driver, ‘I’ll take ye back, just geez a fiver’
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