An End to Exile

Back to Drumsleet after a long summer in the Palazzo Foscarini in Dorsoduro. How one quickly tires of Veuve Clicquot! Manys the time I dreamed instead of eating mutton pie at one of Drumsleet's premier Bar Bistros where the salad is deep fried and your meal comes to the table fifteen seconds after you order it (or ten seconds before, if Deaf Betty's on).

I always take my culinary advice from my confidante Theosiphylis Neil, body builder and thistlemilk entrepreneur, who was Chief Chef to the Dowager Empress Alice, mother of Tsar Nicolas 11. It is a fact known to few that this venerable lady died of food poisoning at her Dacha in Sandside in 1982 at thre age of 160. Unhappily for Theosiphylis, the Dowager Empress had already squandered most of the treasure she'd smuggled out of Russia in her corset on scratch cards and four horse yankees, leaving him only a first day cover from the opening of the Post Office Tower, and a rare collection of Siberian dried plants. It will surprise no-one that the scoundrel sold the former and attempted to smoke all of the latter.

For those of you with a morbid interest in the life and times of Theosiphylis Neil I would add that his latest career- that of a performance poet- got off to a rip roaring start at the Open Mike session held in the Station Hotel on the last Friday in July. He is due to make a repeat performance on Friday August 31st at the same venue. I may also read an ode or two. Anyone wishing diversion from Drumsleet's other premier Friday night occupations should come along.