auld lang syne

Dear Marianne,

With the arrival of his O level certificates my friend Dave and his family are now only days away from making their journey to Kuala Lumpar (I still cannot bring myself to call it KL and, by the way, I think we should keep the Pound). It is good to know that understanding algebra, reading Coming through the Rye and learning the complete table of elephants was worth it. He was only studying enough to take him in to the Post Office as counter staff, how could he know at sixteen, that in twenty years time his project on the Cliffs of Orkney would help to propel him to a new life in far far away land, KL that is(there...I did it...bleugh).

We had our last supper together and got stupidly drunk and cried and laughed and smoked cigars, which is very bizarre because we are all non-smokers. We planned a spectacular banquet for them, well five courses, which is quite spectacular I think. One of the courses was to be a Korean style cook it at your table job, but we don't have anything that would allow us to cook it at the table, although we did consider lighting forty tapers we had sitting being useless in our kitchen useful drawer next to our one chopstick. I rang round the usual suspects to find someone with a camping gaz thingy or Fondue Set - you have to say Fondue Set for the same reason that you have to say hostess trolley.You would not believe the number of people who used to have a fondue set, but now can only find four different coloured fondue forks in their kitchen useful drawer. "...I think my friend borrowed it, or is it in the loft? Rob did you give the fondue set to Cancer Research?!" Obviously my sister (for it was she)didn't think my brother in law had given it to their research lab, she meant the charity shop, the last resting place for stuff.

A couple we know who still live in the big city were so well organised that at four monthly intervals, they would have a clearout of unwanted stuff from their house which they would then take to their local Charity Shop. Ordinarily Dirk would deliver the stuff on his own, but one time Vi helped, arrived at the shop first, delivered her bags and was just about to go back out to help her husband, when she heard one of the old dear volunteers say to the other: "Oh no. Look, here comes that Dirk. He always brings a load of old shit." Catching her breath, Vi, left the shop, walked straight past Dirk without acknowledging him and headed home to be appalled and to laugh for a long time. When they told this story I remember our group outrage, how dare they cast aspersions on our stuff, we donated it didn't we, we didn't dump it at the tip, or worse give it to The Cat Protection Society.

Anyway fondue sets, used to be ten a penny, now you can't get them for love nor money (yes, I did spend the weekend with the Pearly King and Queen of Lambeth). At one time, in the early eighties, they were everywhere and if you went round to a friend's house for dinner you were pretty certain you would be eating four gallons of snot textured cheese with four loaves of bread. Later, when you threw it all up, it looked exactly the same as when it went down.

We never did get hold of a fondue set, nor, even a camping gaz thingy, so instead we set fire to the cooked steak in the kitchen and ran it into the dining room, where it flamed impressively for five seconds and then went cold. However, although I say it myself the food was very good, the strange Malaysian starter, the sweet and salty broth, the flaming meat, the fish from Scotland and the fool from Kent, the drink was lovely, the cigars were...well unpleasant actually.

Why did we have the cigars? I think because we were trying so hard to make it special, the memory of that night has to last us three years for goodness sake. Actually, the memory of six foot four inches of Dave careering up the road in the early hours of the morning accompanied by five foot 2 inches of Denise attempting to support him will stay with me for ever. Which makes the point, I think, we could have had five buckets of cheese fondue for our last supper, and still it would have been a wonderful night, because it is the friends we will remember and the friends we will miss.

I know his Mum was proud, but I wish Dave had never passed his bloody O levels.

Rx