THE GOOD LIFE Pamela Vandyke Price

Dear Host and Hostess of yestereve,

You've kindly invited me often, you've expended time and money on your parties, and you flatter me by saying you're constant readers of everything I write, Why, then, do you read one thing — and do the opposite? All right, this is a spit between the eyes on the inexcusable part of the guest who will never be asked again. But other people who will may benefit by you observing even four little precepts with regard to alcoholic refreshment, I'm not asking you to spend huge sums of money; indeed, you'll economise if you do as I say. What I do beg is for you to accept that what I'm going to advise is practically easy, oenologically correct — and invariably enjoyable, whereas what you do is wrong, expensive and uncomfortable. So, for the very last time, I beg you — Don't use small glasses. My dying words will doubtless be "Glass too small," as someone attempts to force an elixir of life between my lips. But either give those mini-triangles of cut glass away to an enemy, or reserve them for salt, toothpicks, short-stemmed violets or a pick-meup (though when I need the latter, I want a larger measure even so). Glasses smaller than 6 oz. (brim-filled) are mean, easily upset and, in a moral way, people drink more when they toss back the contents in a single swig than if they can swirl around the wine two-thirds filling a reasonable beaker. An 8 oz. goblet, on a stem, of clear glass, incurving at the rim, is right, for

sherry, port, sparkling and table wines, whether it costs 62-£3 in Baccarat crystal, or 19p, which is Peter Dominic's range. So no whining about "can't afford." Though you may not be able to tell how much difference a decent glass makes to the enjoyment of good wine, those who really know can and do — why not join them?

Don't serve bathwater before dinner. Every single aperitif, whatever it is, should be refreshingly coo/. Those who presumably know, say that a cold bath is sexually stimulating, a hot one relaxing. Now I should not care to make love in a bath. Ponder the complexities and hazards of taps, soap dishes, plug and — chez moi — the geyser looming aloft, as well as all that slithering. So I do not know. But I am definite that my tastebuds want brushing up, not soothing down before going into action. Chill the bottle or decanter of sherry — in fridge, ice bucket on windowsill or doorstep, but get the contents cold. Ice-cubes are for cocktails. Any form of wine — and this includes vermouth — doesn't need diluting. Just once I wish you'd try room temperature schnapps and chambre Champagne; you'd never serve a tepid preprandial drink again. (You might never even be able to drink again.) Don't begin by running out of wine. If you serve it at all, have enough — a halfbottle a head minimum, ideally a bit more. You can always drink it the next day. You tend to be as surprised at people taking more than a sip as British Railways are when we get a touch of frost and everything stops. Which is the nastiest (I don't know), to endure a dinner for six with a sole single bottle eked out, or to suffer successive half-bottles produced by a host increasingly unwilling to open any more — and pouring all, regardless of suitability, age and colour, into the same single tinted cut glass eyebath? If you are going to give a dinner party, then plan your wine (as I expect you plan your food) when you send out the invitations. And remember, a good bottle can save a culinary disaster, but the reverse isn't so — therefore "can't afford good wine" is as silly and, frankly, as rude, as saying "Only pussy pieces and plate scrapings — can't afford decent food." Have bread and cheese, with gallon jars, jumbos or litres of the "everyday drinking" plonks of somewhere reputable, instead of a fancilylabelled pseudo-cru from an unknown source of supply. If I've convinced you that it might be an idea to consult a wine merchant, then be unashamed about stating your budget and giving him the menu. It's also pertinent to remind you that decanting, even into a jug, makes many a cheap wine taste twice its price, at least for those you try to compliment by saying that they "know so much."

Finally — don't ash my views on the wine. This risks my being either bovinely sullen, or truthful — and I'm very sound in wind and vocabulary and a stayer in the vituperation stakes. You see, you could have noted one of the wines I recently recommended and served it as I suggested. But of course you would actually have had to read what I wrote.

I love you — but don't (in case you are

still in any doubt) invite me again. It depresses me so. And even more when I reflect that, should you hear someone mention how nasty I've been about you, you'll just think that I'm just being ever so funny.

If you happen, or are constrained, to look at children's telly, you may be aware that the most emetic programme of the week is a cartoon film called The Harlem Globetrotters. Before I saw this, I'd thought of that strange American institution in the same way as most people, I suppose. Surrealistically long blacks capering about in exhibition basketball games, juggling the ball and performing various contortions that make their contests into admitted circus acts (there are several strong resemblances to performing seals) but nonetheless acceptable at a stage-show level, though scarcely as a sport.

But the image of them conveyed by this cartoon is of near-morons who speak to each other very slowly indeed. Against this background you would think it impossible that one of them could be portrayed as even more stupid than the rest, but there is one player, with some monosyllabic name who, as the others put it with delicacy, forgets. Off the field they have childish appetites, play with a funny dog and are stickily concerned with the welfare of " pore little kids."

This last attribute is the mainstay of the plotting of the series. In a typical episode, a charity match is arranged with the object of providing a summer camp — flash of swimming pool, trampoline, trees and chalets — for the wee ones. But evil men break in and steal the takings and they are chased and caught with various comic mishaps so ponderously shaped that about ten seconds of Tom and Jerry contains more funny situations than a year of The Harlem Globetrotters.

The glories of Tom and Jerry I would like to return to another week. Tom, the eternal sportsman, is one of the greatest creations of our time. But if I were a Harlem Globetrotter I would now be very concerned at what the telly was doing to me, in spite of the massive fee for the franchise on the series.

And if anyone thinks that the real-life Globetrotters are as simple-minded as the ones in the cartoon series, let him ponder the fact that last week they (the real ones) went on strike, causing a game at Port Huron, Michigan, to be cancelled. They were concerned over money, their uni' forms, and the meal allowance that they got on tour. A veteran player, Frank Stephens, complained that every night when he returned to the hotel he had to wash his uniform by hand and all of their)

were worried at the lack of a pension plan.

Indignantly, their manager declared that they had turned down pensions in favour of stock options: the team had been given $500,000-worth. What is more, he promised them seven new uniforms each. One, he predictably said, for each day of the week. Maybe they'd better organise a charity game for themselves.

The whole phenomenon of basketball as a sport is intriguing. Clearly there are many other sports in which a special physique is essential. There aren't any 2 stone jockeys or rugby scrum-halves nor, I suppose, 10 stone champion weightlifters. But in basketball (at the highest level, of course) you have not just to be tall but freakishly tall. Last season, in college basketball in the States, Providence College, Rhode Island, astonished many by its victorious record with a team whose height averaged only 6ft 3ins. Even tiny 6ft Ernie Di Gregorio scored 522 points (though his real strength, we are told, is his ' wide-screen passing vision' which enables his team-mates to scatter all over the court — he can still pick out the unmarked man from what I suppose we used to call the corner of his eye.) Nevertheless, it is pigmies like Di Gregorio who are the real freaks in basketball. This season Providence will have more credible figures on the team, such Larry Ketvirtis, 6ft llins, who, the college correspondent declares without commit, is now recovering from anaemia, as well he might be.

At the top of the tree, if you will forgive the expression, of up-and-coming gasketball stars is North Carolina State's Tom Burleson. He is 7ft 4ins and is not alone in topping 7ft. It will clearly be a long time before the Welsh and the Japanese start to make an impact on international basketball.