Diary
New Year was marred for me by the news that Cirio tomato juice is no longer to be sold in cans. Anyone who is as addicted to Bloody Marys as I am knows that Cirio is far and away the best tomato Juice, and there has rarely been a time in the last five years when several dozen of their distinctive blue and red cans haven't festered in my larder. A lot has been written lately about the olive oil and vinegar bore, but nothing about the tomato Juice bore; perhaps I am the only one. Cirio is pressed in Naples and has a delicious full, fruity and unflinty taste. Add three fingers of Smirnoff, two generous sprinkles of Shwartz celery salt, six sloshes of Worcestershire sauce and McIlhenny's tabasco, the juice of half a lemon, salt, Pepper and horseradish and you have the perfect Bloody Mary. The important thing to remember about tomato juice is that it must be stored in a can; jars make the juice rather slimy, and cartons infuse it with a horrid cardboardy aftertaste. Not that they are called cartons in the trade; the proper name is a 'tetrapack'. I learnt this from the sales manager of Cirio when I rang him to protest. Cirio have a warehouse at David Bowie's birthplace, Beckenham in Kent, and the very helpful sales manager com- miserated with me about the cans, and said the decision had been taken 'at board level' in Naples. Supplies should hold out in London and the south-east until the spring, but after that it's tetrapacks or nothing, and he advised addicts to snap up remain- ing supplies 'as and when they hear of them'. Come May, however, and I do not know what I shall do. Some people find solace in Libby's tomato juice, which comes mostly from Spain and Eastern bloc• countries, but it is really too heavy for everyday drinking. Others find Campbell's V-8 or Mott's Clamato juice acceptable, though these don't mix well with vodka and are best drunk as the Virgin Mary or Bloody Shame. The American Mr and Mrs T's Bloody Mary Mix is not too bad, but expensive and difficult to buy over here. One group of people who will not miss Cirio is the British aristocracy. For some reason the only tomato juice ever available at very grand houses is Britvic. It is a mystery why this should be so, since bottles of Britvic are far too small for proper drinking (you need 13/4 to fill a tumbler) and a nuisance to open, necessitating bottle-openers. Perhaps Britvic have got some special deal going with the nation's butlers, and give them a free glass-cloth each time they order a crate. The only Other place you find Britvic tomato juice is In pubs, where it is generally warm and used as the base for the nastiest kind of Bloody Mary, when Vs gill of cheap vodka shimmers luminously on the surface. The best Bloody Marys in the world are to be found in Turkey, around Edirne, where the locals grate their own chilli sauce as a substitute for tabasco. Lemon segments are threaded on a kebab skewer and dunked into your glass; a delightful experi- ence when it doesn't lead to typhoid or hepatitis. The Turks do not, so far as I know, used canned Cirio but Edirne is still a long way to go for the next best thing.
T hope I am not giving the impression that _LI am greedy, but much of this week does seem to have been spent searching for food and drink. I stayed for New Year with friends in Northamptonshire, along with several other louche characters prised out of London restaurants, and it was amusing to be holed up in Pytchley Hunt country. Unfortunately our host had a fall from his horse at the New Year's Eve meet (not, I am glad to say, a victim of the Hunt Retribution Squad) and had to be rushed into hospital. X-rays showed that he had snapped the piece of wire in his shoulder which had held it in place since a previous hunting accident, and he was detained overnight for observation. Never mind, we thought, we can easily entertain ourselves, nothing simpler, in fact it will be great fun to cook. So a shopping list was drawn up by two of the girls (a fashion editor and a model, inevitably enough) and the men were duly dispatched into Daventry with their cheque books. 'It shouldn't take long,' we were assured, 'all we need is a large sea bass, or failing that, a brill. And some fennel hrid fresh basil, and perhaps some chevre and chaume, and a few new potatoes.' It is no exaggeration to say that requests for all these items were met by Daventry's shopkeepers not with hostility so much as stupefaction. Nobody had heard of sea bass or brill; the last fishmon- ger closed down several years ago and the only available seafood was boil-in-the-bag haddock in a cheese and parsley sauce. For fennel and basil, fresh or otherwise, we were referred to Banbury 16 miles along the A361. New potatoes were understu- died by carbuncular swedes, horribly swol- len. The only cheese in Daventry is Dutch edam, processed and sweating, or rock- hard brie with the consistency of a potter's wheel. After a couple of hours spent scouring every side-street for a de- licatessen, we were obliged to retreat long-faced to our house-party with a mar- row and a leg of lamb. It is perfectly true that Northamptonshire lamb is the best lamb in England, but I do not think I would like to eat it every day of the year.
T am very uninterested in football, but "since buying a house near the Chelsea football ground (`The Shed') I have be- come interested in their fans. This is because every Saturday thousands upon thousands of them file past my window, like the endless dole queue in the Tories' memorable 'Labour isn't Working' poster. On match days the police line the pave- ment on both sides of the street, keeping the fans moving down the centre of the road, so I am never able to get a proper look at them from my vantage point: a crack in the security shutters. Last week, however, I met a notorious Chelsea fan face to face, when he rolled up as a r6presentative of Dyno-rod to ease a blocked drain. Nobody could accuse him of being garrulous, but he did tell me one interesting thing about skinhead haircuts. The best way of keeping a shaven scalp in perfect, smooth condition is to cover it with masking tape, then yank it hard. This removes the top layer of skin and leaves an attractive raw texture.
T always resent having to work in the first 'fortnight of January and have only just realised why this is. Eight years after leaving school I still subconsciously adhere to the scholastic calendar. As far as I am concerned the Lent term doesn't begin until 16 January, and I can't see any good reason to pick up my pen before then. No sooner is Christmas over than a prefect at the Standard is ringing me at home, 'just checking', as he puts it, 'that you are producing for next Monday.' What, in the middle of the holidays? Doesn't he realise that you're not allowed to set holiday pro- jects and that January is reserved for treats to the pantomime and getting your hair cut? It is exactly the same in the summer. Between 7 July and 16 September I am spiritually on holiday,- even when I am 'producing' every day through a heatwave. But there are compensations. Always, at this time of year, I am seized with a deep sense of foreboding. The Lent term is the rugger or field game term, my worst. But of course no new term is starting this week, I am not going anywhere, and there are still four cans of Cirio hidden underneath the bed. Was there ever greater cause for celebration?
Nicholas Coleridge
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