Modelling Gig

An early lunch on Sunday at The Crooked Billet. We were the first to take our seats inside the claret-coloured interior, but at a nearby table there was a photographer busy snapping a series of well conceived dishes that arrived in short sequence from the kitchen.

Having exhausted the possibilities of the menu and the blossoming marigold tree outside, he coyly approached us and asked if we'd mind appearing "not very prominently" in Waitrose Food and Wine magazine. Clearly not a very discriminating photographer.

I had the hake, a fish that is practically unavoidable in Spain and appropriately enough was served here with a gunky chorizo salad. D had roast beef, comme d'habitude. During the meal the photographer stalked us from the corners. I registered bursts of shutter clicks every time I picked up my glass of Wild Pig, which made me more than a little self-conscious.

Behind us a long table had been decked out for a big family celebration. When they arrived (noisily) it was obvious that they were far more 'Waitrose' than we were. Three generations of good looking, jovial, affluent yet unostentatious Thames Valley folk. "Handsome" was D's way of describing them.

The early lunch was in aid of my speeding back to London to meet up with Surfer and Catherine for an early evening showing of Downfall. But the pleasant afternoon sunshine pushed the movie plan back to 8pm and by the time we reached the Curzon in Mayfair three hours of gruesome Nazi Gotterdamerüng no longer seemed like the best way of spending this particular Sunday evening. The expressions on the faces of the crowd exiting the auditorium only served to confirm this. I recall that Trevor Beevor's account of the last days of the Nazi regime in Berlin had left me feeling surprised that I was actually alive and that the world had not wound itself up at the conclusion of that apocalyptic battle.

Trouble was that we had dragged Catherine all the way down from Highbury, so we attempted to make it up to her by inviting her for a cocktail at Windows, the bar at the top of the London Hilton. In the bright and shiny lift we were joined by V's favourite spiky-haired, lackadaisically laid-back Australian TV chef and his partner for the evening, a Sheila that my mother would not have hesitated to describe as "an out and out scrubber".

After one drink we descended the 28 floors, traversed the subway beneath Constitution Hill and arrived at The Grenadier, where we entertained Catherine with tales of our misspent youth, many of which had coincided with an outing to this semi-hidden, semi-haunted pub.