I AM in everybody's black books this week. I am
in my son's black books because, deciding to press ahead with this selective school thing, he now has a Saturday tutor. Still, he is coming round to it. I hate you, I hate you. I hate you, I hate you,' he said last week. which is at least one 'I hate you' — and two kicks — fewer than the week before. I recently looked over one of his English practice papers and the section where you had to complete proverbs: `Two's company, three is... ?—Thc Musketeers,' he wrote. He is progressing nicely, I think.
Plus, I am in my own black books because, in order to set a good highbrow example. I vowed to cut down on trashy telly but quickly found I just could not do it. [just could not give up Watercolour Challenge (an early-afternoon delight. starring Hannah Gordon in sturdy shoes), Pet Rescue, Gmund Force, Changing Rooms, Would Like to Meet, What Not to Wear, What Not to Meet, Would Like to Wear, Ground Eyes. Changing Force, Vets in Practice, Vets So Unpractised It's Effectively Butchery, and so on. Actually, my particular favourite is What Not to Wear because I absolutely adore Trimly and Susannah who, after effecting one of their miraculous makeovers, will stand back and say, 'She looks fab. For someone so common.' No. OK, they don't say that last bit, but you can tell they want to. Which is just so splendidly enjoyable somehow.
And now I'm in Gabrielle and Sarah's black books. Gabrielle and Sarah are wonderful Australian girls, now in London working as nannies. I know Gabrielle and Sarah because at various times they have (brilliantly) helped to look after two nieces of mine, doing Play-Doh and potato printing and bottom-wiping, and all the other things that are very boring to do with your own children, let alone someone else's. Anyway, I'd been promising them a night out for some time but of course never got round to it, what with the new series of Location, Location, Location and everything. But then I was invited to see Steve Cohen, an 'amazing' New York magician/conjurer playing a limited season at the Langham Hilton, that big posh hotel opposite the BBC in Portland Place, and I thought, 'I know, I'll take Gabrielle and Sarah and then we'll go to the hotel restaurant. Memories, afterwards.' Memories? Can you ever take a restaurant called Memories seriously? But, hey, it's a five-star hotel, so it should be OK, surely.
Now, the evening started well. Steve Cohen is not, I would say, especially physically commanding. He is very tiny and looks as though he is wearing his father's suit. But he is 'amazing' and can make the nine of hearts disappear and then reappear in a pickled cucumber that has to be sliced open with a knife. It is, indeed, incredible stuff, although completely beyond my comprehension.
Then it's into Memories which, a couple of days later, is in the news as it's where Mrs Edwina Currie has lunch on her return to London after all the John Major hoo-ha first comes out. Actually. I once spent a day with Mrs Currie while she was on the road flogging one of her terrible novels — She's Leaving Home, I think it was — with its terrible sex scenes. Anyway, we arrived at a branch of Waterstone's where she was due to sign copies. Trouble was, while the shop was busy enough, no one approached her. I was embarrassed. The Waterstone's manager was embarrassed. But Mrs Currie? Mrs Currie was not embarrassed. Mrs Currie had come here to sell her book, so she was going to bloody well sell it, come what may. Mrs Currie started accosting customers, chasing them almost. 'Hello. Edwina Currie. Let me tell you why I'm here today. I've just written another novel. . . . It's very good. You'll laugh with my characters. You'll cry with them. Shall I sign one for you? Tills to the left on your way out.' Magnificently shameless. She told me, later, that she had never rated John Major as PM, mostly because he never went to Oxford or Cambridge. 'He ran Lambeth, but I don't think that's quite the same thing, do you'?'
Now, back to the subject in hand, which is a novelty. I admit, and Memories. Tell me, what is it about hotel dining-rooms that is just so hotel dining-room? Is it the quiet air of despair? The lack of bustle? I don't know. But you can always tell when you're in a hotel dining-room rather than a restaurant, can't you? Anyway, Memories is wildly and heavily over-decorated, with lots of dark wood and palm trees and oil paintings of old earls and generals, and I just kind of want to sandblast the whole thing and paint it white. It's a Monday evening and quiet. Only two or three tables are occupied but still we're led to a very dark and depressing corner.
'Well.' I say to these lovely Australian girls, so used to sunshine and light, 'this is nice, isn't it?' They just look sort of queasy. To the menu. As an appetiser, I order the watercress and red radish salad with white peaches, plums and balsamic red onions. It sounds rather over the top, and is. While not inedible, it's certainly not a combination I'd ever choose to have again. My next dish, though, is rather inedible. I order the panfried red mullet fillets served on a sauce of sunripe tomatoes, anchovy fillets, garlic and parsley. The fish turns up as a hellishly soggy, breadcrumbed goujon. while the sauce tastes only of tinned tomato. I give up a third of the way through. Gabrielle has `cioppino', a dish of scallops, tiger prawns, red snapper and clams in a tomato and oregano sauce. She only gets a third of the way through: `So bitter.' Sarah has the vegetarian option, the bean sprout, mushroom, tofu and pickled cucumber stir-fry. This sounds rather horrible, and I'm assured it is.
On to dessert and, yes. the sweet trolley, which would be OK, if it was a sort of ironic sweet trolley, but it isn't. It's a sweet trolley that takes itself quite seriously, and still thinks it's 1972. There's a terrible-looking whisky and chocolate gateaux. a fruit salad that's gone mushy, as well as a wholly resistible marble cake. (Marble cake, in a five-star hotel, in 2002'?) We all order the cheesecake. I have a weakness for cheesecake, particularly my mother's. My mother makes the best baked cheesecake in the world. (I'm now in her good books, at least.) But this cheesecake? It's as if it's made of rubber. In fact, rubber is never as rubbery as this. We even invent a game whereby we take our dessert spoons and drop them on the aforementioned rubbery cheesecake to see how high we can get them to bounce. We can get them to bounce very high indeed. We complain about the cheesecake, saying that, apart from its astonishing texture. it tastes dry and stale and must be at least several weeks old. There is no apology or offer of an alternative. although I later note that they've been knocked off the bill. Memories is expensive. The final bill, minus the cheesecake, came to £130 or thereabouts, with only one bottle of wine.
So, there you have it. A five-star hotel with an incredibly disappointing, gloomy, depressing restaurant. I'm embarrassed. actually, to have bought Gabrielle and Sarah here. I don't know what Mrs Currie thought of it. Probably, she has other things on her mind, like her selfless quest to put the record straight after all these years. Her diary sales are going very well, by all accounts, which proves what'?
A little of what you fancy does you. . . ? Great trade?
Steve Cohen will be performing at the Langham Hilton until 19 October.. Highly recommended. Tel: 020 7636 1000. Memories can be reached on the same number Not so recommended, if at all.
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