Sweet treats What to drink with dessert
TUESDAY I get to bed at 10 pm. I dream that my daughter, who recently brought a cat called Xerxes, is going to leave and take the cat away to live with her and we’ll have a “catody” battle.
Wednesday
Leaving home to catch a flight to Jamaica, I trip and almost fall down the stairs. I ask Siri, “How many people die falling downstairs?”
“Twelve thousandAmericans die every year falling down stairs.” Want a long life? Hold on to the banisters.
At the airport I’m the last one to squeeze into a lift meant for a maximum of 12. I’m jammed in with at least 30 people.
“You’re probably wondering why I’ve called this meeting”, I say. Nobody laughs. Tough crowd.
On the plane I sit next to Mark, who’s been a BA cabin director for 25 years. “You must have had some very funny experiences. You should write a book. What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you?” I say. “I lent Alec Baldwin the actor my pen once.”
“That’s amazing! What happened next?”
“He walked off the plane with it.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran after him. I caught up with him just before he got to passport control.”
“What did you say to him?”
“Can I have my pen back please?” “What did he do?” “He gave me my pen back.”
Maybe he should forget the book idea.
At lunch I ask Emily the flight attendant for a pepper grinder. “We don’t keep them on board,” she said.
“In case of a hijacker? ‘All right everybody, I’ve got a pepper grinder. Don’t make me use it!’” She smiles. “You’re not from Vanuatu by any chance? Did you know the Vanuatuans are the world’s smiliest people?”
“Guildford,” she says.
I fall asleep and dream about the legendary pepper grinder that went missing one night in 1999 from my favourite Greek restaurant, the Hellenic in Marylebone.
I put an advertisement in The Times: Missing in Action — much loved pepper grinder. £100 reward for safe return — no questions asked.’ I never got a single reply.
Wednesday night, Jamaica
I wake up every hour. The pillows in the hotel are too soft — like melted marshmallows.
Thursday at breakfast
“How did you sleep?” the waiter asks.
“Thank you for asking. Actually I think had the worst night’s sleep I’ve ever had. Your pillows are too soft! I used four— and still it was as if I was sleeping on a dozen tissues.”
Thursday night
They’ve put 4 hard pillows on my bed. I now know why the convicts in Dartmoor used to break rocks in quarries — to make the rocks for my hotel to put into their “hard” pillows. I tossed and turned so much I fell out of bed. Siri said, “Four hundred and fifty Americans die falling out of bed every year.”
In the one hour’s sleep I finally manage to get, I dream about a new London restaurant I’d been to recently. I’d asked for the pepper grinder and asked the waiter to put some pepper on my steak. “We don’t do that,” he said. “You don’t do what?”
“We don’t grind it for you. You can grind it yourself.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No,”
“Look — if I wanted to be the grinder, I’d be standing where you are and you’d be sitting where I am,” I said. He walked off.
Friday night
Siri reports on thefts from luxury five star hotels. Mattresses top the list. That old favourite, the pepper grinder, didn’t even make the Top 20. Pillows came nowhere. Someone even stole a grand piano from a hotel lobby. “I knew something was missing,” the manager said. “I just couldn’t put my finger on it.” I try sleeping on the sofa on the balcony. I dream about Xerxes the Persian warrior Emperor, circa 460 BC. I just hope my Xerxes doesn’t blame me for Soleimani’s assassination. Right now between sleeping 20 hours a day on my bed he might be laying booby traps and trip wires in my flat, just waiting for me to open the front door.
On my next holiday I’m bringing my own pillow, pepper grinder and Xerxes.