THE GOOD LIFE Pamela VANDYKE PRICE
Why do so many of my fellow countrymen not merely think that everybody ought to be like them but resent it if they are not? In most other countries the sight of someone enjoying some of the good things of life without making a nuisance of themselves is agreeable — jolly good luck to them, people feel; with a bit of effort, the right lottery ticket or Great-Aunt Matilda's legacy I too might. . . .
Not the British. Their attitude is that what the dreariest of them haven't got, nobody else should be allowed to have. I except Spectator readers, who are (should I be surprised?) invariably charming to me. But I come back from holiday, plump and at peace with the world, to find all sorts of the " Who do you think you are, PVP, to suggest that people can afford to drink wine?" types of carping. Goodness knows, people who sound so uncharming positively need the civilizing influence of the occasional beaker, And what business is it of theirs how I spend my money anyway? We are not, thank heaven, still at school and compelled to regiment our looks, words and very thoughts.
For people are quite extraordinary in regarding wine as a sinful luxury. Now I am not that well off, but I allocate my funds as I wish. And I don't spend anything on many items which my captious critics probably regard as essentials, but which I can do without. I mean cigarettes, sweets, tea, cakes, pastries, biscuits and buns, keeping animals, having babies or being ill on the state, television, sport and betting. If I were as nasty as all these "wine's too expensive for me" characters, I expect I'd campaign to have these items banned or heavily taxed, for none of them bear the burden of taxation like my bottles. But I let people indulge in these — to me — silly, nasty, unhealthy expenditures if they must and only wish that they'd leave my wine alone. However, if I were a gastronomic dictator there are a few little
measures I would certainly bring into effect : sliced bread would be banned, except for people with one arm, and that arthritic, and with a doctor's certificate to say their guts were beyond hope. Restaurants serving extruded chips would be closed and a fine of £500 would be instantly exacted from anyone, caterer or food manufacturer, calling a mess of fruit or meat pies plus a separate bit of cardboard by the good name of ' pie ' or ' tart.' The precise proportion — even a mini-fraction — of fruit juice should be stated on the container of anything purporting to be associated with a fruit, and it would be forbidden to add sugar to any juice whatsoever.
Smoking would be prohibited in all restaurants and eating would be banned in all places of entertainment.
Patrols would round up everyone found in a park, garden or portion of the countryside disfigured by litter and made to clear it up or take it away, regardless of whether they had anything to do with it or not. It would be an offence to give anyone under eighteen sweets, chocolates, crisps or bottled 'pop.'
There would be no breaks for coffee or tea during any working period and tea as a meal would be restricted to being a weekend 'treat.' (I don't eat or drink between meals, so why should anybody else?) And as such repressions would certainly drive people to the bottle, good would come out of ill!
Meanwhile as a counter-irritant (although it will indubitably irritate the carpers), I've been enjoying Cyril Ray's Bollinger (Peter Davies, £3.25), which, like the same author's Lafite, traces the history of a wine and the dynasty associated with it. Mr Ray is always a pleasure to read (though I wish that he — or it may be his publishers — didn't follow what is to me an affected trend of not giving initial capital letters to wines such as Champagne, which are named after places), and he describes both the history and technical details admirably. Would that all wine writers were equally meticulous in their acknowledgements and cross-references, too; the appendices, which include comparisons of temperature and sunshine between the Champagne region and Kent, notes on vintages, lists of agents for Bollinger and where the beautiful ' RD ' wine can be found in restaurants in Belgium, Italy, and the US, as well as the UK and France, are of unusual value. The book is in every way worthy of the superb wine that is its subject and, obviously, its inspiration.
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