Lunch at home/University Challenge

In the week I gave lunch to our art teacher J and her husband R.

At various points in the morning as I was preparing lunch I asked myself the question “Would it not be easier to take them to the local and cheapo Italian?”

One such moment was after I left M & S, which has excellent food but has declined in customer service, to hit cold biting sleet allied to a high wind.

I struggled with my shopping.

On arrival back at base camp I though I would get everything prepared in a hour allowing time for a coffee or something stronger and a read of the papers.

Yet every time I sat down there was another task to accomplish.

The great advantage of entertaining at home is you can serve alcohol at a reasonable price.

Remembering R likes his  red wine I found a fine New Zealand Cabernet.

This went down well with champagne as a aperitif and later Chablis.

I had still had some honey cured ham and smoked salmon from my acquired Xmas  hamper.

Conversation is never a problem when we meet.

I particularly like to hear of their Liverpool background.

It was a tight post war community that suffered from a harsh bombing.

J knew the McCartneys well.

Their mother, a nurse, died young and J’s mother would feed Paul and his brother.

Jon Lennon was the first Beatle to leave Liverpool, aged 26, by acquiring a pile in Weybridge.

He was the angriest – raised by his aunt who was later knocked over on a zebra crossing by a police car.

That might explain his anger.

We are all University Challenge fans.

There was a special Xmas edition of former alumni.

The contestants had to satisfy the BBC definition of success which seemed to be based on diversity and activism.

Monty Panesar was part of the Loughborough team.

He is vocal on racism in cricket but did not answer one question correctly.

Another contestant led a successful campaign to eliminate VAT on tampons. She made a joke about offering a tampon to Quizmaster Jeremy Paxman which fell totally flat.

We did not hear any more of her.

J could answer 100% of the art questions, me I’d guess 80%.

Other questions were not that difficult with plenty of clues as they followed a theme.

J and I thought that, given the contestants’ success, they were in most cases under-informed.

I thought of the young Stephen Fry who answered correctly question after question when he appeared for Queens College Cambridge.