Keeping up appearances
Petronella Wyatt
The pig lurched towards me, its peonypink snout a-quivering. Its eyes had a film of yellow but they still managed to look out with a hostility that was unnerving. 'Go on,' urged my female companion, 'pinch it.' I know what you are thinking. Thief! Blackguardess! I was not, however, being urged to filch the wretched porker; to stash it under the copious folds of my coat. When the woman said pinch it, she meant pinch it. On its derriere.
Pinching pigs is the New Year tradition in Hungary. In Bradford they pinch cars and in Budapest they pinch swine. No one is quite sure how this piece of mediaeval jollity came about but it is meant to bring luck. Thus on New Year's Eve there is a rush to find piglets and carry them through the streets of the city, where pedestrians are charged up to one pound sterling for a pinch.
This raises the question of what to do about the pigs' droppings. Given that Budapest accommodates around a thousand pigs on New Year's Eve, this adds up to a lot of pig shit. My friend had the idea of giving the pig a sleeping pill. This seemed unsporting. What if the beast was sick? But this is what some of the restaurants do when they bring the piglet out, wrapped in a blanket, for the benefit of the punters. Slip it a Valium or something to calm the juices.
Another great Hungarian tradition is eating lentils. Eating lentils on the cusp of January is supposed to accrue to the eater great wealth. The more lentils you eat the more moolah you rake in. Only in my experience, acquired over a decade of lentil eating on New Year's Eve, I find the more lentils you eat the more you, to use a euphemism, need a Valium.
Luckily, I spent the evening with my friends the Karolyis, whose name has appeared previously in this column. Their house, which is now a foundation, is the ne plus ultra of party locations. A bright cold evening in which the stars made you tremble like wondering children while lighting the façade's clean Doric columns, which in their time had witnessed the sounds of revelry at night; cobalt-eyed women and bewhiskered hussars, throwbacks to some earlier age when vigour and abandon had asserted their rights.
At midnight we listened to the old national anthem, the one before the communists marched in, played by the orchestra of St Mathias church. This is always followed by the 'Blue Danube' waltz. I learnt to waltz years ago but apparently have trouble distinguishing between the English one and the Viennese. Actually, I don't think I have, my host does. The difference between the two is that the English is square and the Viennese round. This is an excellent analogy for the difference in temperament between the British and the Central European. The square has straight logical tangents, is predictable and a little unimaginative. The early Enlightenment mind, Hume rather than Diderot. The steps of the Viennese waltz arc made iridescent with speed, winged with fancy and contradiction. More hopeful perhaps but more susceptible to disaster.
Why do the English dance in squares? Why doesn't William Hague learn how to do the csardas, the Hungarian dance where the participants stand side by side. In the English waltz you are always facing someone else, staring into your partner's face, searching neurotically for the contempt which attempts at concealment only make the more visible. I bet Hague would have less trouble with his colleagues if he learnt the 'Blue Danube'. It could become the theme tune of the Tory party. Reverse turn? We weren't for turning then, but we are now. The whole of Tory party policy would benefit from a reverse turn, neatly executed to some diverting music. As Blair knows, pinching policies is a lot better than pinching pigs.
Previous page
