"Taking the Pith?" (or "Two Back Passages to India")

The flag of Imperial India (pre 1945)

The Chairman & First Lady in Club safari kit in Thailand, November 2005

Two titles, in much the same way as a “Carry On” film – I hope you appreciate the caption writing, which I consider for some time before writing, in spite of all appearances. ANYWAY, this missive is to announce that the recent spate in blog entries to be curtailed for the next fortnight as the Chairman & First Lady are embarking on a trip to Goa, following in the footsteps of the Vice Chairman who spent a sizeable period of his gap year searching (and often finding) examples of “eastern promise”

The Chairman & First Lady are making plans to buck statistical probability on their sojourn, and are aiming to be two of the three in ten who manage to survive a passage to India without suffering the indignity of an impaired digestive track. Should we get “caught short” on our travels from the hotel room to the poolside, however, the First Lady came up with the idea for a cunning use for the Pith the other evening…..

Buy George, what a dastardly Captain ?

Yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh......

The Captain in the Princess Louise

Time for some new cufflinks?

"Mutley" Campion, the medal-hungry member of the club who is so keen for reward that he not only has applied to the House of Lords for ennoblement, but also put in for medal for Gulf War 2 (in whose "theatre" he was not engaged, actively or otherwise) on the grounds that Cyprus was “almost within scudding distance of Iraq” has been up to no good again.

I discovered this when I had the pleasure of dining with the Captain at the Cittie of Yorke, High Holbourn on Monday evening following my birthday. We had a short but sweet repast, and as the chef announced that the grouse was off that evening, the Captain had Chicken Kiev and your corrospondent the Cornish Pastie. However, the purpose of this missive, fascinating though our dining habits are, is to share with readers the fact that the Captain was sporting a rather natty pair of cufflinks, which I am delighted to reproduce for your amusement above.

I enquired of the Captain whether such adornments were as a result of the generous benefaction of his offspring, at which point the Captain looked rather sheepish, and confided that he had bought the cufflinks himself from the outfitters of choice for the discerning, Asda, the previous weekend, much to my ammusement.

I bid my leave at this point, having a previous appointment with Messrs Kwik Save, my tailors, but reflected on the way to being fitted with an acylic suit that the Captain’s pricelessness (or should that be Asda pricelessness) goes from strength to strength.....

50/50 - 1

The VC relaxing after a day in the sun

The First Lady, Chairman, VC & Antipodean Ambassadress at the Melbourne Cup

The Chairman after a very long day

The Melbourne Cup. The race which stops a nation, makes grown men disgrace themselves and a race won for the last 3 years by Makybe Diva, making her the most successful racehorse in the race ever, and a horse the WRC saw win her first triumphal year in 2003. Suffice as to say that although the five members present had approximately 10 bets on the race, none of us had the pleasure of a visit to the Tote window brandishing a winning ticket with glee. We did, however, have a splendid day, and the fact that our visit fell on the Chairman’s 35th birthday proved to be the icing on the cake. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, the Chairman & VC invented a drink consisting of half Seppelt Great Western Brut and half Toohey’s Extra Dry, which we duly named 50/50 and which subsequently proved to be the foundation of our undoing. However, there will be a new name on the cup this year (although my guess is that behaviour of those who attend will be similarly time honoured), and everyone is looking for clues in the colours, names and good old-fashioned. Chairman’s tip? Art Success, in the year that we found a Chair for our Fine Arts Committee, a success for the club in addition to the art world if there ever was one, and a sure-fire each-way success and which currently stands at 50/1 according to my source at bluesquare.com. If only there was also a horse called Ruby Tuesday running as well……