MEETING up with old friends you haven't seen much of in recent years ought to be a delight and a pleasure.
The trouble is things don't always go to plan...
Last weekend I met up with two rather different sets of pals. The first occasion was on Saturday - a birthday barbeque party at the London home of my chum, Lord Johnny Vino.
Everything went spiffingly there - for the guests, if not for Lord Johnny himself, who threw a huge tantrum when someone questioned his skills at the griddle.
Still, it was a very good party, and I guess Johhny enjoyed it in the end, because when I stepped over his body sprawled out on the living room carpet at 5am, when I was en route to the kitchen to get a glass of water, he was snoring contentedly.
On Sunday I went to central London for another big get-together, this time with a group of friends I used to go drinking with some eight years ago.
Now, my relationship with some of these people has long been stormy. I remember having lots of rows with them in West End restaurants. I was told off in one restaurant by the actor Simon Callow. In another I was physically ejected by the manager.
Usually these terrible arguments would be about politics, religion, the BBC, or abortion - all subjects I will rant about when drunk.
But on Saturday night I was determined there should be no big kick-off with these dear old chums, no bitterness or tears or handbags-at-thirty yard punch-ups such as happened in the past.
You see, I am a much more cheerful person now than I was eight years ago, much lighter in spirit.
I haven't enjoyed the best of mental health in the past, if you want to know the truth.
Nowadays... well, I thought we'd all of us grown up a bit. So I was confident and determined we would have a nice, civilised evening at Kettners restaurant in Soho. No arguments, no name-calling etc.
And for most of the evening, things were indeed pleasant.
But suddenly, I saw fit to treat the entire table to my views about the BBC. Bit of a tactical error that, as some of this group work for the BBC and have the civil service-style personalities that are expected of those employed by that corporation.
I made the perfectly reasonable argument that the BBC's national news operation is controlled by dangerous left-wing lunatics who love nothing better than to belittle our country.
That's not only a reasonable line to take, in my opinion...it is also a self-evident truth.
But my, ahem, 'friend', Fat Lad, was having none of it.
He got very aggressive indeed and demanded that I give him detailed examples to back up my claims that the Beeb is a nest of left-wing vipers.
I chose not to do that because, after all, I was simply expressing an opinion. It is not something that needs to be verified or otherwise by empirical evidence.
Now Fat Lad is a grumpy so and so at the best of times, the sort of bloke who has been drinking from the reservoir of bad-tempered b******s for many years.
His chubby face was contorted with venomous hatred for me, his eyes all mean and piggy. Well, meaner and piggier, I should say.
Rather than retaliate or give him a mouthful back, as I would have done in similar circumstances eight years ago, I simply absented myself from the table and went outside to cool my temper for ten minutes or so.
If I hadn't had that cooling off period I daresay I would have gone ballistic at the dinner table and thrown all of Fat Lad's bitterness and bile back at him. I can do verbal cruelty, believe me.
But I'm pleased to report that I remained restrained and dignified, though the evening was quite spoiled by Fat Lad's outburst.
He's definitely off my Christmas card list, though I might still send one to his charming, long-suffering wife.
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Pink elephant wrote...
Goodness, Steve, you must have become reformed since I saw you. Glad to see there's at least one man out there who can resist banging on tables and getting rowdy. Your resistance is particularly remarkable given the subject matter. It's a contentious issue the BBC and, like the civil service, they don't like to hear the truth, i.e. that they're rubbish.
REGAN REPLIES (in insufferably middle class voice):"The BBC has learned today,er, that we are rubbish. Speaking on the Today programme, former ORACLE TV critic, Sir Samuel Brady, said..." (cont.on P198...)
Posted by: Pink elephant | July 24, 2006 3:59 PM