14 NOVEMBER 1987, Page 55

Kingsley Amis

ONLY a thoroughly miserable fellow would throw away the chance of a party and elect to eat alone in a public place. But only a lazy or a phenomenally robust one goes to half a dozen lunch-parties a week. Being none of these I regularly lunch at home by myself. The meal, always cold stuff apart from a thermos of soup in the winter, is laid out for me and I spend a contented hour chewing my way through my incredibly healthy salads, drinking one glass of vin rosé, reading the papers and doing the crossword.