Kingsley Amis rated this the most depressing question. This is of course complete nonsense. “Shall I press the button now, Mr Putin?” depresses me a lot more. Even, “can you have a family of seven refugees to live with you?” is far from uplifting.
But I understand Sir Kingsley’s sentiment. Luncheon is the king of meals and to spoil it by omitting the overture of an aperitif is indeed depressing. Tom Maschler in his memoir (I think I’ve got it right this time) Publisher describes taking Kingsley out to lunch:
“Along with jazz and classical music, one of Kingsley’s great passions was alcohol. He might indulge himself at the local pub or in what he called a “decent” restaurant. I remember taking him to the Mirabelle on the publication day of Girl, 20. Before the meal Kingsley consumed three double whiskies. These were followed by a bottle of Beaune, a bottle of Vosne Romanée and a bottle of Volnay. I helped a bit with the wines and he rounded off his meal with a Grand Marnier and a Courvoisier. Finally, he had a double glass of vintage port. I rang for a taxi. Kingsley did not just need help to the car. He needed to be carried into it. (Even when sober, Kingsley was incapable of hailing a taxi for himself. Strange as it may seem, he found the very act terrifying.)”
It is a huge regret to me that Kingsley never had Lunch With The FT. What a mother of all lunches that would have been. His son, Martin, did (Odette’s in Primrose Hill, in case you’re interested) and only managed one glass of Chardonnay; definitely not atavism, more like regression to the mean.
If you’d like to know more about Kingsley’s sometimes rather eccentric attitude towards and opinions on alcohol I recommend his short book, On Drink.
Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic alcohol is agreeably well priced; about 75p secures a beer or a glass of local wine to wash down the hearty Czech cooking.
K Amis’s eating and drinking sound v like Francis Bacon’s, as detailed by Michael Peppiatt’s memoir of his becoming the painter’s Boswell. I have known a few drunks, proper alcoholics, and a very few of that rarer and different species, the person for whom a good time consists in an orgy of food and booze, sometimes day after day, and often accompanied by huge amounts of work. Bacon certainly seems to have been capable of serial oblivion and industry.
I used to love drink, and especially at lunchtime, and often in the midst of busy workdays. It had a truancy about it. Luckily, I had v small capacity for beer and no taste for spirits (except a marc or two) and very seldom drank as much as two bottles of wine before heading back to the Independent to see if my copy had gone down alright with the subs. But my lunching was too timid and intermittent to be more than a shadow of FB’s or KA’s, even though it seemed out of place in the modern, cool atmosphere of the newspaper where I was so happy.
In vino veritas. Were the two bottles of wine shared with another? Impressive capacity if they weren’t.
I cannot answer for RDN but I can say that I must have had the best part of two bottles at lunchtime, preceded by a big G&T, last month, resulting in falling down stairs and broken ribs. My host suggeste that we should do it again – yes, but not all of it.
Excuse my slack syntax. My booziest lunches in the 70s were with DAN (David) Jones of the old Listener: beer, and too much of it for my taste, but he and his friends were great company. I once or twice overdid it with Richard Boston when we worked on The Vole. But he was as keen on spirits as on milder stuff and that wasn’t my taste. I worked as a vendangeur on a small “peasant” farm for several seasons in the 70s, and sank a good deal of wine at the lunch table, not least to make the afternoon shift less painful. At the Indy in the 80s the lunches I remember (if that is quite the word) were with a senior colleague whose blushes I will spare. Yes, I guess it was only a bottle apiece, so not all that remarkable except, perhaps, in that rather straight-laced environment. It is curious to have been fairly happily lightly infused with alcohol for about 25 years, but never to have been a consistently heavy toper and to have given up smoking and drinking entirely at 50 and never to have missed either. Now of course I live with the underlying expectation that I am an increasingly good candidate for lung cancer, as I have known all along I would be.