YOU’LL NEVER COOK LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN

I’ve been a journo all my life but when you hit the slippery slope in my profession, there’s no way back.  In my pomp I had it all, interviews with emperors, dinners with senators and an open ticket to any Bacchanal that was going.  But my fondness for the grape was eventually my downfall and I became unemployable in Rome and its neighbouring provinces.  A change was needed and I used up my balance of ‘Chariot Miles’ to make a clean getaway.  I landed a job as a restaurant reviewer with the ‘Jerusalem Journal’.  No Pulitzer for me there, but the pay was OK and the cost of living a fraction of what it was in Rome.

It was Passover.  Things were quiet and my editor invited me to run my palate over a new home-delivery restaurant that had recently opened.  It was called ‘Judas’s Carry-out’ and while their focus would be on home deliveries, they were holding a special ‘eat-in’ launch that night and I had a ticket.   To provide some visual interest I was took along our artist, Lennie Davinci.

We got there at about 7 and were confronted by a very strange scene indeed.   It was an odd assembly, a group of 13, all men. Lennie thought they were a football team as he heard someone mention the word ‘Corinthians’, which reminded him of a Brazilian team with that name.

The seating plan was weird, everyone sitting side-by-side as if posing for a team photograph.  We thought they may have been a pub team because of their varying ages, from the skipper in his early 30s to some much older men.    One of them, Judas, was the restaurant’s owner.  A sneaky looking guy he kept moving amongst them pouring drinks, I assume to juice up his bar takings.

The evening kicked off with a guy who seemed to be the skipper, they called him ‘JC’ and, wait for it, he washed everyone’s feet.  Maybe this was some kind of club ritual.  (I remember the club I played for had fines for various errant behaviours, so perhaps it was something like that. But it was a strange thing to do inside a restaurant.)

The room was incredibly noisy.  The table was about 30 feet wide and guys had to shout to talk to their mates at the other end of the table.  Judas would have been far better advised to have had three tables of four, but he had clearly never run a ‘sit-down’ restaurant.  Lennie wasn’t complaining either as he was able to paint the entire team without having to move his materials around the room at all.

My brief from the editor was to concentrate on the food.  There hadn’t been a new restaurant launched in Jerusalem for quite a while and Tiberius (Levinson) fancied himself as a bit of a foodie.  He was expecting great things from ‘Judas’s Carry-out’.

As I said earlier, this Judas was pretty clueless when it came to seating arrangements.  But the cuisine – the main reason for our being there – was even worse, a disaster.   I was expecting some excellent Phoenician wines but the Corinthians seemed to concentrate on ‘House Red’, and not a particularly good one at that.  But nobody seemed to mind.  And the food was hardly a triumph either with the only fare we saw being served up being dry white bread. Sports teams can be pretty voracious when it comes to food, so maybe all the good stuff had gone before we got there. Given that we were on the threshold of Passover some matzos with chopped liver would not have gone amiss. Maybe a nice chicken soup with matzo balls?  But nothing doing.  I suppose the terms ‘gourmet’ and ‘footballer’ don’t go too well together and perhaps their end of season do was a budget affair.  You would have thought they might at least have had a starter.

Given the limited menu, Lennie and I finished early and repaired to our local pub before filing copy.  My review was none too complimentary but Levinson was happy to receive it well before the press deadline.

Talking to fellow reporters next day at the office, it seemed that things didn’t turn out too well after the dinner.  Judas sneaked out early having delivered up this travesty of a meal and reported JC to the Roman authorities for something or other. Money had obviously changed hands.  I’m not sure how things ended up.

My review appeared in the paper under the heading ‘The Last Supper’.   It summed up my opinion of Judas’s cooking. He would never cook lunch in Jerusalem again.  But I gathered later that Lennie’s picture went down well. Very well indeed.

WOMAN TO PLAY CRICKET WITH MEN. PERISH THE THOUGHT.

Back in January I attended a Guardian Masterclass on cricket writing hosted by Mike Selvey and Andy Bull.  Our first task, against a 40 minute deadline, was to write a piece arguing against women playing cricket with men.  This had been the subject of a front page article on England wicket-keeper Sarah Taylor in the Guardian on January 14^th.  Seemed like an interesting challenge.

 

 

 

Out they came, the England openers skipper Joe Root and his partner, in life and batting, Beatrice ‘Beet’ Root, the first woman to open the batting in an Ashes test.  As they descend the pavilion steps and look skyward at the uncertain cloud cover, nearby spectators can detect a frisson of tension between them. They cross onto the outfield.  The Australian bowlers pace out their run-ups and scrape the turf threateningly like eager hunting dogs marking out their territory.

 

As they approach the wicket the Roots turn to one another and start arguing : “I’ll take the first dig” says Joe, “I fancy a bit of Siddle this morning”.  Beet’s hackles rise visibly and she barks back at him within the umpire’s earshot.  “You most certainly will not.  You’ve done nothing in the house all week and here you are in front of 30,000 people expecting me to play second fiddle. Or do I mean fecund Siddle? (There had been rumours.)”  She turns to the Australian captain and calls over, ignoring her husband.  “Michael (Clarke)” she bleats cheerfully, “At which end are you starting?”

 

On receipt of the information, she strides purposefully towards the Pavilion end and asks the umpire for middle and leg.

 

Well, you know what I’m getting at.  Women playing a man’s game?  Ridiculous. We had Smokers v Non-Smokers in the 1890s. There was even Married v Single at that time.  No more. We got rid of Gents v Players back in the early 60s and now it’s starting all over again.  We’ve had brothers playing first class cricket, sometimes cousins, even fathers and sons.  But imagine a situation where you get a demon fast bowling woman turning out against her ex-husband.  Or worse still, against her ex-husband’s new girl friend.

 

Imagine skipper Joe Root returning to the dressing room after winning the toss before the start of the Lord’s test.  His wife has to be consulted in a separate dressing room.  She lambasts him for his decision.  “I told you we should field first” when he returned from winning the toss.  “Look at the cloud cover.  It’s going to swing all over the place. And you’ve got egg on your jumper.  You can’t go out to bat looking like that.  You’re captain of England.  Try to look the part.”

 

The first ball of the Ashes series. Siddle starts with a gentle loosener which Mrs Root plays comfortably off her pads to Mitchell Johnson at long leg.  Her non-striking husband and captain calls for a leisurely single and ambles up towards her end.  Beet doesn’t move a muscle blanking her husband as he reaches the crease.  Johnson’s throw arcs into Siddle’s hands and he nonchalantly removes a single bail. The Australian fielders euphorically exchange ‘high-fives’ and Clarke hugs Evelyn Waugh, Steve’s younger sister. Some in the crowd thought the hug went beyond Platonic. England 0-1.

 

When asked about the event after the close of play, the England skipper was rather sheepish. “We’d had an argument about the car that morning and she hadn’t simmered down.  So she took it out on me. We might have been better off fielding first.  But her innings of 73 made up for it, I suppose.  The big challenge tomorrow will be to stop her opening the bowling.  But that will be really difficult, as we have her mother staying at the same hotel. ”

 

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