Low life
Waiter-
Jeffrey Bernard
Did you know that carrots originated in Afghanistan around 500 BC and that an actor playing Hamlet has 1,569 lines to learn? Neither did I until I was sent a copy of The Guinness Book of Answers. The puz- zle now is what on earth one can do armed with such information. Get a better job or what? I shall never be able to look a carrot in the face again without thinking of Afghanistan and that could spoil a stew.
And on the subject of food I had a meal in Kettner's the other day and a very amused head waiter came over to my table to tell me that a customer had just com- plained to him that I was getting too much attention. Of course I was getting the attention I have always had, but what a churlish tourist the man was. I challenged him as I left. He was the only other man in the place at the time — but he chickened out of admitting that it was he who had complained. There have never been any such complaints in the Coach and Horses simply because nobody gets any attention paid to them unless Charlie happens to be behind the jump.
Now that I haven't been at home for lunch for ten years I have become a waiter- watcher. The best ones in Soho are without doubt the Italian ones in the Amalfi. Not only are they speedy, they don't phone for the police if you happen to fall asleep with your face in the pasta. Italians seem to be cut out for the job because they don't resent the customer. Most Chinese waiters on the other hand regard you as though you are trespassing on private property. How odd then that the staff in the Ming are so charming. I don't think there can be a lot of charm in China. They eat sea slugs. The Queen once had to do just that at a banquet in Peking. That and having Lord Carnarvon as a friend indicate that she must have nerves of steel.
There was a restaurant beneath the Colony Room Club once — it has thankful- ly changed hands — and one day I saw a cockroach dancing on the club's piano while Barney Bates was playing boogie- woogie. It is amazing to think that the revolting creature had climbed three flights of stairs to get away from the food. Alastair Cook once saw a mouse in his New York apartment and that I believe is something like 20 floors up.
But to revert to restaurants, the annual waiters' race on the day of the Soho Fair surely must be a pointer to the service in the place they represent. I had thought of making a book on it this year but I am sure that the Customs and Excise people still keep an eye on me ever since they nicked me. If Norman was daft enough to believe in the hare and the tortoise fable, and he isn't, he could have entered one of his bar- men who is always in a trance. Hares always beat tortoises and that is the reality of it. Close inspection of this rat race will verify that. Anyway, I am off to Soho riow. The first cockroach race is off at 1 p.m.
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