I kept saying to everyone 'You know what, I really should have more dinner parties, they're such a great way to keep in touch with people'...................especially those people who never have dinner parties themselves!I love to cook (and eat), and like Monica (yes, the pretty but manic, OCD one from Friends) I love to be 'the host'. So I finally got around to it and decided, as a contribution to social experimentation in the 21st century, to invite people whose only link was me. I kid myself that I'm a good 'chooser-of-friends' and a good 'people-gauger', so mine are usually educated with some kind of interesting quirk, although I admit that some of them are just plain freaks. But I naively thought that this would provide a strong enough link. Well, we all make mistakes, and mine was a fucking whopper, and not the flame-grilled kind either.
I was very proud of how my lunch turned out. It was delicious; roast chicken with ricotta and fresh herbs (each leaf lovingly hand-harvested from the Peruvian slopes at dawn), dauphinoise potatoes with parmesan, carrots, asparagus, green beans, sauteed courgettes. My friend Catherine made a huge tiramisu, and I bought some fabulous cheeses from the new deli shop around the corner (the smart one that sells individual chanterelle mushrooms and thrice-filtered glacier water).
And for the guests, I invited along three tried-and-tested friends, Rachel, Karen, and Stavros who I hadn't seen for a long time( one of who even kindly brought the dessert). Sorry Stavros.....................if you read this, I didn't want to use your real name and just couldn't think of another Greek name.
But I made a terrible error with the final invitation. I invited a guy I had met through a friend who visited from Spain. The original plan was that we would 'hit it off' and 'get together', but that didn't happen. He was a smoker (a heavy smoker) with not very nice teeth. He looked a little bit like the evil farmer from Fantastic Mister Fox with a generous blob of Middle-Earth. But I met him with a group of people and remembered him being rather fun.
Jesus, what a colossal fucking mistake! What was I thinking that night when I met him, I don't remember being on drugs.
He totally dominated the conversation to the point that nobody else could really get a word in edgeways, had really strong opinions about absolutely everything, and just shouted everyone down. Now I like people with something to say, and I know what you're thinking .................... Oooooh, that sounds like Andy! Well, multiply me by a hundred, add rotten teeth and glasses, and you've got..........well, I suppose I shouldn't really use his name, so let's call him 'Guest From Hell X'. Fucking tosser!On top of that, he was a real greedy glutton on an olympic scale. He shamelessly stuffed his Roald Dahlesque face with three platefuls of food, and I'm not talking delicate nibbling, I'm talking major oesophagus-busting scoffing. It was like something from a medieval feast, huge forkfuls of food combined with glugs of wine and shouting. I'm surprised he didn't throw the chicken bones into the fireplace and piss on the rushes in the corner of the room.
So, after the three large platefuls of my lovingly prepared food (eaten like the world was about to end). I brought out Rachel's tiramisu which looked fantastic. There was a large bowl of it. Well, he was a bit behind because he went to smoke and was in the middle of lecturing everyone on exactly how the pyramids were built, telling Karen (a very successful marketing executive) how to do her job, Stavros (a flight attendant with a zillion years experience) about air safety, and Catherine about dope-smoking........................talk about coals to fucking Newcastle! So, the rest of us had a bowl and then another spoonful, and as there was only a little bit left I said I was going to keep it for my dessert the next day. Talk about throwing your toys out of the cot. He moaned and grumbled, and complained about how everyone else had had a second helping and he hadn't. Fucking glutton! I wasn't going to give in, I wanted that tiramisu. It was, Tiramisu Wars, The Wars of The Tiramisu, the Bay of Tiramisu..............well, you get the point. So he took his revenge by stuffing himself with cheese and continuing to tell poor Stavros exactly what to do in case of an emergency sea-landing and the best way to get ice into a glass during onboard service. I'm surprised he didn't run through how I could have improved the meal, bloody cock-sucking know-it-all!
Karen and Stavros left around 7 o'clock, and after a small allergic reaction requiring a ten-minute nap, Catherine left around 8 o'clock (it seems she's allergic to mould) ...............which left me and Mister 'I Can Hardly Talk Because There's So Much Fucking Food In My Mouth'. I wanted him to go because I wanted to get my pyjamas on and put my feet up.......................but he decided that he needed a cigarette and then a short nap. I can't believe he thought we were going to sit around chewing the fat when all I wanted to do was club him to death with the nearest heavy object.
He finally got the message and left about 9.30pm once I had put on my pyjamas, hair-curlers, and face-cream. It was like trying to get Aung San Suu Kyi out of Burma! I thought I was going to have to call the police.
Please tell me I'm not like that!
Apart from that, it was lovely.
