VILLAGE PEOPLE

When Bunty and Algernon insisted there were no good restaurants in Kazimierz Dolny, it was like throwing down the gauntlet to the Wayne-Boughs – we set off in the jalopy to prove them wrong. I drove – Harold’s always stopping to buy things from those well-dressed young farm workers on the side of the road. I’m sure I wouldn’t bother wearing make-up and stiletto heels, let alone hotpants, to go blueberry picking. (The stinging nettles, for one thing). The overheads involved obviously impact on their profit margins – on one or two occasions I’ve heard Harold shout "HOW MUCH???” in a tone of some incredulity, before returning to the car.

Kazimierz is a small town. A very small town. In fact, I’ve seen bigger supermarkets. There’s the main square, the church, the castle ruins, the three crosses and the river. You can do it in an afternoon. On a day trip it’s quite an easy mistake to think the Rynek is all there is. But we suspected it might take a little detective work to find some good restaurants, so we booked a hotel for the night and decided to make a weekend of it.

There are some good hotels in Kazimierz, but I’m sorry to say we weren’t staying in any of them. The much-praised "Lażnia” has unfortunately closed down indefinitely, which is a shame, as it’s a lovely Renaissance building and smack in the centre of town. The long-awaited "Esterka” - purchased a few years ago by the ubiquitous Magda Gessler - still hasn’t opened. So we stuck a pin in the guide book and chose the Spichlerze (Krakowska 59/61), which is a converted granary situated by the river, but accessible only down a long cobbled road. The Spichlerze and its sister hotel the Murka are beautiful buildings, situated in their own carefully-tended gardens. Unfortunately the interior did not live up to what the exterior promised, nor did it justify the 250 zloty room rate.

We headed for the town centre in search of lunch. A word of advice if you’re planning on lunching in Kazimierz – don’t try to do it on the Rynek. Only one of the three cafes serves any food at all, and we know from previous experience that it’s fairly limited. And on top of that, you’ll be hassled by gypsies constantly. It was interesting to note that the visitors to Kazimierz, unlike the Varsovians, are generally friendly to the gypsies, offering them cigarettes, pieces of fruit or a few coins. This spirit of tolerance did not pervade Heartless Harold, who told them in no uncertain terms that a spell in the armed forces would do them good. As they didn’t understand a word of English, they just put a curse on him and slunk off. We managed to ignore them eventually and spent a pleasant hour or two admiring the Renaissance architecture of Kazimierz (or the "houses with twiddly bits on”, to quote Harold’s technical appraisal).

If you go out of the Rynek past the Przybyla Brothers’ house (the extremely twiddly one) and cross over the stream, you’ll see a large sign saying simply „GRILL”. This is an excellent place which has no name, apart from GRILL (address Nadrzeczna 24), but serves a sort of all-in BBQ ‘n’ salad bar lunch for around 27 zlotys. Veggies can really pig out – if you’ll pardon the expression - on the all-you-can-eat salad bar for 9 zlotys. The BBQ offers the usual fare – ribs, karkόwka, etc. Harold was amused by the size of the golonkas, which were of Jurassic proportions. After lunch I left Harold happily sitting with his beer while I whizzed off to the Rynek for the best thing about Kazimierz – shopping! My favourite shop is Jarmark Polska, on the western corner of the Rynek. It has a life-size wooden carving of a witch on a broomstick outside, which Harold says will help remind him where to find me. It seems to stock the entire contents of the

Sukiennice in Krakόw in one small shop – and at comparable prices. There’s also the Mały Rynek, which is a mixture of flea market and craft market. Then there are the art galleries. I can amuse myself for hours with Harold’s credit card and a stout pair of walking shoes.

I finally reached the limits of Harold’s load-bearing capacity and we returned to our hotel for a feet-up before dinner. Our room had an ancient valve radio which Harold had great fun playing with. It was so old, I swear as he was twiddling the dial I caught a snatch of the very first episode of the Archers. We relaxed to an hour or so of The Light Programme then hit the Rynek again for a pre-prandial. The gypsies had all gone to bed, and had been replaced by the town low-life who tried their luck pan-handling the few remaining tourists. They got a distinctly cooler reception. The Rynek was nearly empty at seven-thirty in the evening, and one sensed that if Kazimierz had any nightlife at all, it wasn’t going to be here.

At Krakowska 11 is a pleasant little restaurant called „Vincent”, where we decided to have dinner. It is a small (seats 24) and classy establishment, with a lovely leafy garden where it would be nice to have Sunday lunch on a hot day, but as it was Saturday evening and turning a fraction chilly, we took a table inside and were regaled by the encyclopaedic musical repertoire of the gardener, who was sat at the upright in his muddy wellies and smock, reeling off everything from Mozart to Scott Joplin with a virtuoso flourish.

Asparagus being in season, we started with that. It was delicious, served with a simple sauce and a small salad garnish. For main course I ordered the De Volaille – chicken Kiev to you – and for Harold a fillet steak à la Kazimierz the Great. The extensive menu ran to many variations on beef fillet but the one that arrived was quite unexpected. For one thing, it was made of pork. I know my Polish is a bit limited, but I’m sure it’s not that bad. However, it was a good pork fillet so Harold didn’t complain, just glared balefully at me for the rest of the evening for ordering in such appalling Polish. Our neighbours at the next table were French (always a good sign – they don’t eat just anywhere, you know) and were tucking into giant sized salads. The prices were probably expensive for Kazimierz, but extremely reasonable compared to Warsaw.

The pianist had a lovely touch on the ivories, despite his dirty fingernails, and played continually throughout our meal, except for a ten-minute break to go out and water the marigolds. I could have listened to him all night. However, we were out in the sticks, and by 9.30 p.m. we were the last people in the restaurant. We paid the bill and left, and I tipped the gardener a couple of zlotys on the way out for his lovely playing, and whispered a few tips on potting out his pelargonia. "Thank you,” he growled in perfect English. "Please come again”. To my horror, as we went out the door I saw his photograph on the wall – he was the owner. The bill came to around 230 zlotys, including a nice bottle of Cotes-du-Rhone for 120 zlotys. If you eat at Vincent, do visit the loo, it’s quite spectacular. It had mirrors, antique furniture, art, bowls of sweets, books, everything in fact except loo paper.

It was still not 10.00 p.m. when we returned to the hotel. The hotel doesn’t have a bar to speak of, but the nightclub was open for business, so we ventured down for a last snifter, and found ourselves in the louchest den of iniquity I have seen since I was caught short once in Penge. The barmaid was – how can I put this nicely? – a mangy old dog, with badly bleached hair, streaked eye make-up and a moustache. Harold was transfixed, like a rabbit in the headlights, his face frozen in a rictus grin. She mistook it for an admiring glance, and winked at him. Harold winked back, a nervous reaction,

no doubt. There was a small group of insalubrious looking types sitting around drinking vodka. The music was sort of Eurovision song contest circa 1972, and the décor much the same. Leatherette was very much the thing. When a few local yokels arrived and parked their pitchforks in a corner, we realized this was the nightlife in Kazimierz. I couldn’t face being roped into a Polish version of the welly-boot dance, so I told Harold to drink up and chodź.

After a peaceful night – if nothing else, the Spichlerze is very quiet – on Sunday morning we went for breakfast at the Piekarnia Sarzyński on Nadrzeczna, where they make the famous chicken-shaped bread. The coffee is excellent, and we treated ourselves to some blueberry croissants. The Rynek was just coming alive at 10.00 a.m., and the gypsies were standing around in groups discussing assault tactics and swapping curses. The shops in Kazimierz were all open on Sunday morning, so I managed to do most of my Christmas shopping at the Jarmark while Harold gazed pensively at an executioner’s axe they had for sale. He said it put him in mind of Bodger (the balaclava, no doubt).

We climbed up to the castle ruins, from which there is a superb view over Kazimierz and down the river. From our vantage point we spotted two excellent looking hotels on the river front, considerably nearer to town than the Spichlerze. We went down to investigate. One is called the Dwa Księżyce (The Two Moons) (ul. Sądowa 15, Tel: 081-881 0761) which also has a nice looking restaurant. The other is called the Hotel Wenus (ul.Tyszkiewicza 25a, Tel: 081-882 0400), which has only been open a year, and is quite glamorous inside. No idea about prices, but if you’re not completely broke, either of them would be preferable to the Spichlerze. The Wenus is the imposing red-roofed dwór just after the petrol station as the road veers away from the river going into Kazimierz. Both hotels have limited but free parking (that’s another gripe – the Spichlerze charged us 10 zlotys for using their car park!). If you are a tad borassic, Kazimierz is full of Noclegi, or B&B’s, and there’s a fish & chip bar just off the Rynek where you can eat for a few zlotys.

The river front at Kazimierz is being renovated, and a few restaurants are springing up alongside the river path. Just behind the Hotel Wenus, alongside the steeply pointed wooden roof of the Amfibar, is a pleasant looking fish restaurant called Rybka, which we earmarked for our next visit. Having a few hours to kill before heading back to the Big Pierogi, we went for a bite of lunch at the Zielona Tawerna (ul. Nadwiśłańska 4, Tel: (081) 881 0308). This is another excellent find – the interior is elegantly old-fashioned, there is a covered verandah and a large garden. They offer a good choice of copious and fresh salads. Harold finally got his red meat intake in the guise of a Tournedos with Bearnaise sauce. It wasn’t a tournedos, and the sauce wasn’t Bearnaise, but it was very nice anyway, he said, served with a salad and a small mountain of light French fries. I had a Salade Nicoise which was fresh and delicious. The service was extremely pleasant, and the bill came to 63 zlotys with drinks.

We never made it up the steep hill to the three crosses, but it’s always a good thing to save something for your next visit. It’s only two and a half hours drive from Warsaw (if you don’t slow down to ogle the milkmaids – they lend a whole new meaning to the term Countryside Alliance), and is a relaxing place to get away from it all for just a night. If you want to know more, check on the town’s tourist website: www.kazimierz-dolny.pl. Yes, I’ve finally gone online! You can e-mail me at daphne_wb@hotmail.com – I look forward to hearing your admiring comments, and if the social whirl permits, I might even reply!

MUCHA DO ABOUT NOTHING

(Or a wet weekend in Prague)

After Harold’s startling display of his ability to transform himself at will (see “Harold: Prince of Darkness”, BEM March 2001), Prague seemed the perfect place for a long weekend, with its Kafkaesque connotations. I was somewhat apprehensive at the idea of waking up in bed with a giant beetle, but luckily the metamorphosis did not take place, and all I woke up with was a giant hangover after a late night out.

Prague is stuffed with bars, restaurants, cafes and lovely shops. It makes Kraków look quite poor by comparison. After checking into our rather smart hotel near the Embassy (the “Zlate Studne”) we headed off in the direction of Charles Bridge, stopping en route to sample the local beverage. Czech beer is infinitely suppable – hardly fizzy at all, a lovely amber colour and with a definite beery, hoppy taste, unlike most of today’s bland lagers. It’s fairly low in alcohol too, compared to Polish beer, so you can drink away throughout the afternoon without spoiling your appetite, as Harold intended to prove. As it turned out, the weather was appalling – freezing cold and either snowing or raining most of the time, so we ended up doing rather more sampling than planned, in the shelter of cozy dry ale-houses. Prague Spring certainly left something to be desired this year.

Charles Bridge was packed with tourists, mostly German and British, but quite a few Spanish, for some reason (“Juan or two,” quipped Harold). We shuffled up Karlova in the crowd, window-shopping for garnet jewellery and chandeliers en route, but got carried away with naughty T-shirts, painted Easter eggs and puppets. You don’t need to ask, of course Harold did his Thunderbirds impression, followed by a rendition of “The Lonely Goatherd”. He was so entertaining that people started throwing coins and one lady asked if she could book him for a children’s party the following week. I dragged him away hurriedly, and as a result we lost our way completely in the winding backstreets, and ended up on Wenceslas Square. From there we shuffled down past Marks & Spencer and found ourselves in front of the most gorgeous building. Obecni Dum is a riot of art deco, with a divine looking restaurant where I pictured myself in a cloche hat, sitting smoking black Sobranies through a long cigarette holder, like something out of The House of Elliott.

From there we wandered aimlessly through the old town until a familiar name loomed before us: “Tesco”. We couldn’t resist poking our noses in, but found it bore no resemblance to anything back home – it was a rather sad old Eastern European department store. To while away an hour we took a ride on the Prague metro. It has 3 intersecting lines, which makes it a bit complicated after Warsaw. The trains are identical to Warsaw metro trains, and a 3-day ticket costs about £3, and can be used on buses, trams and the metro.

For dinner we went to Malostranska Beseda on the Malostranske Namesti Where I had the Jewish duck (“Quack, shmack!” quoth Harold. Oy veh!) and the Major had the “gulaś”. Both came with variations on dumplings – mind had fried slices of potato dumpling which looked like sauteed potatoes but tasted like bread, and Harold’s gulaś came with slices of big white fluffy dumplings which you dunk in the sauce. The fairly local style restaurant had no French wines, so with some trepidation we sampled a local Moravian red, called inexplicably Portugal Modry. To our great surprise, it was quite pleasant – light and fruity, in the style of a chianti. It wouldn’t win any prizes, but was quite good enough to accompany a meal. The service was a little erratic, but the bill came to about £20, which was most reasonable. While waiting for our bill we were entertained by some young American gels who were complaining loudly about the size of their bill and the quality of the dishes they had been served. We smiled indulgently with the forbearance only those who live in Poland can summon up. Anyone over 15 who drinks Coca-Cola with their food deserves to be treated badly, in my opinion.

The Museum of Contemporary Art at the Veletrzni Palac starts off with some very nice 19th century neo-classical and romantic pictures, as well as exhibits of furniture and decorative items. The style gets progressively more modern, culminating in the permanent exhibition of French impressionists. There is an excellent collection of Picassos, one Van Gogh, one Toulouse-Lautrec, a smattering of Pissarros and Courbets and a very famous Douanier Rousseau. Then you get to the floor of very contemporary stuff, which is where things all go a bit Tate Modern – piles of bricks, a broken chair, that sort of thing. I’m sure I heard Harold mutter “get a flippin’ job” several times.

In the evening we headed a little off the beaten track to the oldest beer hall in Prague, U Fleku. It was, predictably, full of elderly and loudly singing Germans so we repaired to a small anonymous bar on the same street for a few pleasant glasses of Pilsner Urquell before ducking into the old town. We found a lovely restaurant called the “Mucha” which also houses a gift shop selling cards and calendars of Mucha prints. The food was good, if a tad heavy on the dumplings – I tried the gulas this time, and Harold went for duck with apples (God, he’s so predictable) - we felt really brave so sampled a bottle of Frankuvka, a Moravian red, at £5 a bottle. It was perfectly drinkable. The service was rushed, however, and we were in and out in no time, so to get out of the rain ducked into the U Stare Pani (the old lady) jazz club, where a local jazz-rock fusion band kept us happily warm and dry for a couple of hours.

By Sunday evening, the thought of more dumplings was no longer appealing, so we toiled up the very steep Nerudova Street to the Bazaar Mediterranee. This is a complex establishment, made up of various “spaces” – café, terrace, bar, restaurant, shop, etc. The restaurant is very romantic – in a cellar, with flickering candles on the tables. The menu was written on brown paper, and was impossible to read until our waiter had brought more candles. You also get a serviette nicely tied up with string, and a pencil! I asked our waiter (a genial Bolivian sumo-wrestler called Jorge) what the pencil was for, and he replied in a matter-of-fact way, “In case you want to draw on the tablecloth, or write something”. I peered around, wondering if the place was frequented by budding Muchas or Kafkas, and finally gave in to temptation, and signed the (paper) tablecloth. Well, I was a visiting writer, after all. It happened to be our waiter’s birthday, and service was interrupted briefly while his colleagues burst out of the kitchens waving sparklers, whooping and blowing whistles, to the loud accompaniment of Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday”. When people weren’t having birthday celebrations (fortunately there was only one other that evening), we were serenaded by a young woman who sang pre-war cabaret songs in several languages – some Piaf and Dietrich favourites beautifully performed – and wandered around the tables unobtrusively with a radio microphone. This was a little disconcerting, as her voice was coming out of the speakers at the front, when I turned around and found her leaning on the back of my chair crooning “Follink in loff again”. The food was delicious and – a word of warning – very copious. The menu is on a Mediterranean theme, so lots of olive oil and even couscous! I went for the spinach and bacon salad with croutons, which was enormous. Harold’s carpaccio was delicious, followed by a huge main course (can’t remember what he ordered – read on and you’ll understand why). I followed the salad with a lamb kofta served with a ragout of vegetables. The sauce was a little more Slavic than Mediterranean, but it was still delicious. This was our most expensive meal in Prague – it came to £55 for two, with all the wine and Harold’s cognac. We were so carried away with the chanteuse that we threw caution to the winds and imbibed two bottles of Frankuvka (£10 a bottle here, but it was a 1994). When it was time for dessert, Jorge marched up with a huge rubber stamp and theatrically stamped the dessert menu onto a piece of blank paper. However, we were stuffed to the gills by this time, so we declared for two courses. As we departed, I saw Jorge reading my inscription on the tablecloth and looking suitably impressed. My fame has obviously spread beyond Poland’s borders! I hope he had the presence of mind to save it – it might be worth money in years to come!

The great thing about Bazaar Mediterranee is, you don’t have to go looking for after-dinner enterainment. We simply moved through to the bar, where a bartop-dancing family (mum, dad and at a rough guess six-year-old son!) were taking it in turns to entertain the punters by doing some rather unimaginative dance steps. Mum had at least made an effort to dress the part, in vintage 1970 hot pants and platform boots, whereas dad seemed to have come straight from football training. We drank quite a lot more before staggering off downhill around midnight, leaving the little lad sitting looking tired and unhappy as dad gyrated on the bar in his tracksuit and mum chatted up the customers. Harold made some unflattering comparisons with a place called Arena, where the costumes are apparently more impressive. I must ask him to take me one day.

Needless to say, on Easter Monday morning I felt a bit like a giant beetle myself, and the church bells were ringing much too loudly. We wanted to visit the Castle but couldn’t face dragging ourselves up Nerudova in that state, so went on the 22 tram which takes you right to the castle gates. Inside the Castle, we shuffled round with the half a million other tourists, attaching ourselves to various groups following orange flags, Easter palms, umbrellas and other totem poles. I must say, I thought the tour guide holding a pole with a little red devil on top was taking his life in his hands to wave it around inside the church. St Vitus’ cathedral has all the usual bits of baroque one has come to expect in this part of the world, including a smaller version of the gold altar in Kraków and the remains of Good King Wenceslas (no prizes for guessing what Harold was whistling), but it also has the most sumptuous art deco stained glass windows, including one by Alfons Mucha which is exquisite. Behind the cathedral, “Golden Alley” was so crowded that we couldn’t get in and it looked as though no-one else could get out, so we decided to call it a day, and tagged on behind a Polish flag to find the exit.

The afternoon was still cold and wet, so we boarded one of the tour boats by Charles Bridge and went for a ride up the river. It was a fairly short and uneventful ride and before we knew it we were decanted out onto the quayside and searching once again for a warm corner to hide in. Restaurace “U Bila Kamieni” (the White Stove) is tucked away in a sidestreet under the Mala Strana end of the Charles Bridge. It’s not much to look at, but the food is excellent, and most attractively presented. I had roast chicken with almond stuffing, and Harold had a slice of venison in a red wine sauce. As we were still recovering from the night before, we didn’t indulge in any wine, but Harold had a couple of Pilsners and we got away for a most reasonable £13.

With the exception of the hotel and the Sunday night out, Prague is good value for money. You can eat extremely well in most places for £10 a head or under. The cheapest beer we found was about 30p a pint, but some places (especially around Wenceslas Square) were charging about £1.20. Service is generally friendly, although sometimes slow. But there is no shortage of places to eat, drink and be merry in Prague, and three days was far too short a time to visit more than a few of them. Most importantly, Harold managed to get through the weekend without turning into a beetle. So we will certainly go back again (I made sure of that by touching the gold bit on that statue on Charles Bridge – it works like the Trevi Fountain, only it’s free). But we’ll make sure it’s in high summer next time.

THE LADY IS A TRAMP

Harold’s story about Sven almost had me going …. Until I looked at the date of issue and saw that last month’s BEM came out on 1st April! Nice try, dear. Not so much Deliverance as Riverdance. Fatty has now taken up sumo-wrestling in an attempt to impress Mrs Akiko. So if you ever happen across a large man in a nappy whilst wandering in the Pieniny, you’ll know who it is.

The lovely weather has finally arrived, and I shall be investigating some new venues for outdoor eating and drinking in the weeks to come. Sadly, we have been unable to get out much recently as Harold’s been rather incapacitated by an ingrowing toenail. He stomps around the house with his walking stick, barking orders and squealing in pain every time he kicks the cat. All he needs is a long leather coat and he’d be a dead ringer for Herr Flick. I have had a little trouble being suitably sympathetic, like all men he’s quite unbearable when he’s cooped up indoors. And to be honest, I don’t recall promising in our wedding vows to run up and down the stairs several times a day with fresh cans of chilled Zywiec and switch the telly over from the cricket to the snooker at His Lordship’s command. And I absolutely draw the line at wheeling him down to the pub in his bath chair for his six o’clock pre-prandial. In a nurse’s uniform. (Me, not him).

Eventually I felt the only solution was to call in a German doctor, who took one look at Harold’s toe and announced it would have to be amputated. It was amazing how quickly he recovered – he was off to the bowling alley like greased lightning. Doctor Klampwangler (she’s a Doctor of Engineering, acually, hence her threat to re-calibrate Harold’s foot!) and I had a good laugh afterwards over a nice bottle of Niersteiner Spätlese and some Battenberg cake. Dr K is a somewhat eccentric woman, with her lederhosen and monocle, but a damn good neighbour. One night we thought we were being burgled (in fact it was just the local cats attacking the bin bags which Harold had been too idle to put away) she was round like a shot in her Panzer, with a starting pistol in one hand and an assault rifle in the other. She looked quite terrifying, with her hair in rollers and a quilted housecoat on over her uniform. Harold, for once, was speechless.

Talking of hair-trigger reactions, we spotted Bodger last week going down Jerozolimskie much too fast on his Kawasaki 750, with Myfanwy on the back – we knew it was them, as no-one else wears his ‘n hers balaclavas. Not on top of their crash helmets, anyway. He was on his way to run in the Sir Harry Secombe memorial half-marathon, running with a rucksack full of bricks and wearing army boots. He was in training for ages, cycling up and down Pulawska with a 20 kilo sack of potatoes on his back. Good job he didn’t get knocked down by a car, he would have looked like a shepherd’s pie.

Bodger’s matter-of-fact approach to things is legendary. One Sunday afternoon last summer we didn’t flinch when he abseiled through the French windows. We waited patiently while he darted from room to room shouting “Bandits at 3 o’clock !” and “Look out, they’re on the roof!”. Finally, satisfied that the house was safe, he consented to have a cup of tea and a vol-au-vent. Conversation proved to be a bit difficult in morse code, so he resorted to a stage whisper. “Really, Bodger, don’t you think this is a little over the top?” I protested, “After all, you’ve only come round to borrow the strimmer.”

I’m afraid I’ve waffled on about nothing in particular this week, largely through lack of restaurants in Warsaw to review. However, before I go, I must thank my old friend the Dowager Duchess of Southend for unearthing a real treasure in London recently – the Vincent Room restaurant, just across the street from Simply Nico (Vincent Square, on the corner of Rochester Row, SW1). The food is simply heavenly, the service is impeccable, and the price is …. £12.50 a head! I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. It’s actually the training restaurant for Westminster College of Catering, and hence is only open during termtime, and weekdays (Monday to Friday lunch, Tuesday dinner).

The Duchess is an old friend who I take out for an airing when I am in town. Although quite old and frail now, she is still elegant, and looked quite the part at lunch in her ballgown and tiara, although in her hurry to be on time she’d forgotten her wig, bless her. Peering through her lorgnette at the menu, she mentioned that Jamie Harriott, her favourite TV chef, had studied at this very college. I smiled indulgently – I knew she meant Ainsley Oliver, but I didn’t want to nitpick. She can get a bit forgetful after four double scotches. After a delightful lunch, I steered her back to her ancestral council flat, where she reminisced over her colourful life. She came from very humble beginnings, starting out as a lavatory cleaner in the House of Lords where she met the 14th Duke of Southend. The old duke has passed on now, but Imelda (as she likes to be known, although her real name is Maureen) is still a well known character in the locality, dressed in her trademark odd slippers and ermine-trimmed Brentford nylons dressing gown.

Anyway, must fly – Harold’s signed me up at the Academy of Rural and Ethnic Nature Appreciation (ARENA) for Pole-dancing classes - sounds like Polish Morris dancing! Toodle-oo!

THE SVEN FILES: FATTY'S NARROW ESCAPE

By Major Harold Wayne-Bough (Ret'd)

After the Memsahib implied last issue that I’m second cousin to Old Nick, I’ve heard some pretty rum comment about my (alleged) tendency towards nocturnal metamorphosis, comparisons to Michael Howard, etc. I’ve laughed them all off, of course. But the truth is, that isn’t the first time I’ve encountered mysterious forces at work …

Last September Fatty Fortescue, Bodger and yours truly left the Memsahibs at home (in fact Fatty did that in 1983) and went off on a male-bonding survival weekend in the Pieniny, including a white-water rafting trip down the Dunec. We started off from a guesthouse in the mountains which can only be reached by a rather perilous ride in a Land Rover up the mountainside. We had arrived in the evening, so this took place in pitch darkness, much to the glee of Bodger, who had been wearing his regimental balaclava since Kraków, and was by now sporting his night vision goggles from the Russian market as well. He kept his Action Man outfit on through dinner, fortunately Mrs Akiko has seen stranger sights than Bodger trying to eat noodle soup through a hole in his mask (knitted by Mrs Bodger).

After dinner we settled down in the lounge to relax on the eve of our battle with the Great Outdoors. Fatty found a video left behind by some Swedish hikers who’d just left. Much to his chagrin, it wasn’t a Swedish movie (and I’m not talking Ingmar Bergman, I think you chaps will know what I mean), but an action film called “Deliverance”. We rather liked the beginning, three chaps canoeing down a river, come to mention it I did bear a striking resemblance to Burt Reynolds in my younger days. However, by the end of the film everyone had gone a bit quiet. Especially Fatty. We all turned in, but I don’’t think Fatty had a peaceful night, I heard his bed creaking everytime he turned over, which was about every minute. I think he was dreaming he was a doner kebab being gently basted with soy sauce by the charming Mrs Akiko.

The next morning, after a copious breakfast of dried seaweed and sushi we set off bright and early for the river, armed with a picnic donated by the kind Mrs Akiko, who waved us off laughing merrily. I think she was amused by Bodger’s frogman get-up. We boarded our raft and pushed off to pit our wits against the mighty Dunec. Fatty sat up front, which meant that Bodger and I had to sit well back to counterbalance him. Bodger wasn’t much help, frankly, his oxygen tanks were hindering his paddling and I was doing most of the work. The river wasn’t too difficult to negotiate at first, and we spent a pleasant few hours meandering downstream waving cheerily to the locals, who appeared periodically on the river bank to wish us well. We planned to do half the run, heave to somewhere and sleep under the stars, then continue down to the pick-up point the next day. We’d got a fierce rhythm going, and Bodger was coxing with a Fijian dragon-racing chant he’d learnt on manoeuvres in the South Pacific. The river started to get quite fast, and in the end we went into a spin and had to just go with the flow, literally. Fatty lost it completely, and lay flat on the floor of the raft screaming as Bodger and I skilfully steered through the most perilous stretch of the river. This is where training shows through, and my experience on the spinning teacups at Alton Towers last summer gave me quite an advantage.

By the end of the first day we were exhausted, but mighty pleased with ourselves. We built a fire and were sitting around it re-living the day’s highlights, when a couple of local yokels appeared out of the bushes, carrying our sleeping bags and looking a bit cross. They’d been following us all the way along the river in a pick-up truck with our bags, and had been trying to signal to us from the bank the safest places to stop but we’d just waved back happily like foreign idiots and kept going. It turned out we had done the whole run in one day and were about 500 yards from the pick-up point. We felt a bit silly, I can tell you, and tried to placate them with some tofu sandwiches and a couple of Daphne’s dainty iced fancies which they spat out again. The Memsahib would not have been impressed with their table manners. They were real hillbillies, the elder one was boss-eyed and the younger one, who was toothless as well as gormless, kept looking at Fatty in a queer sort of way. Eventually we thanked them profusely, gave them a few bob and shooed them on their way.

Come bedtime, Fatty looked distinctly uneasy, and spent a long time checking the Chubb locks on his sleeping bag. I started singing “Duelling Banjos” - “Dinga-ding-dang-dong” - to wind him up, to which his muffled voice replied from inside his sleeping bag “Sounds like Match of the Day”. Eventually I drifted off to sleep as the fire died, and didn’t know another blessed thing until the morning, when I awoke to find Bodger and Fatty polishing off the last of the raw squid, and looking a bit shifty. “The queerest thing happened in the night, Harold,” said Bodger.

He had been startled awake by a noise, and had awoken to find our two friends from the Countryside Alliance rummaging in his Bergen. First of all he’d reached for his 12-bore, but then remembered he’d sold it back in 1982, so reverted to old regimental survival tactics and pretended to be asleep. He heard the mountain men getting closer and closer to Fatty’s sleeping bag, and was wincing as he remembered scenes from the film. Male bonding was starting to take on a whole new meaning. Bodger was wishing to blazes that video had been Swedish Night Nurse on the Job. All of a sudden there was a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, and the bumpkins ran off in fright. Bodger had peeped through a hole in his sleeping bag to see, in the dawn’s early light, a large, blond, Scandinavian-looking chap in hiking gear sitting on a rock listening to a Walkman. Cripes, thought Bodger? He sat up and said hello. The hiker gave a big smile and said “It’s OK, you’re safe now”, and went back to softly humming “Dancing Queen”, which lulled Bodger back to sleep in no time. When he awoke it was daylight, the hiker had gone, and Fatty and I were snoring peacefully.

He asked me what I made of it. I had a vague feeling like when you’re desperately trying to remember a name, and it’s on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite think of it. Damnedest thing. I suggested to Bodger that perhaps he’d had a dream. But he showed me footprints of great big hiking boots close to where we’d been sleeping – they couldn’t have been our prints, as Bodger was wearing his flippers, Fatty had his Pathfinders on (with animal tracks) and I was in my trusty green wellies. And – incontrovertible proof – Bodger pulled out of his wetsuit the cassette cover of “Abba Gold”.

I told Daphne the story some weeks later. She looked quite unfazed, and said simply “Sven”. “About four o’clock in the morning,” I replied. She gave me one of her withering looks that have been known to make a compass needle turn south, and said “Not when, Harold. Sven.” and carried on polishing the silver. I remain baffled to this day. The truth is out there, somewhere.

HAROLD - PRINCE OF DARKNESS?

Someone once said that Adrian Mole at 60 would be a lot like Harold. What a cheek! Harold has no pretentions to be an intellectual, and certainly doesn’t go around scattering his seed with gay abandon like that Mole chap. Although I must say the delectable Pandora does remind me a tad of myself in my younger days.

So much for my current bedside reading. We have passed up our winter jaunt to the mountains this year in favour of something closer to home. “Sven” was so disappointed he went off skiing on his own (!) leaving Harold intending to stay glued to his armchair in front of the Six Nations, but I was determined to catch up on the cultural delights of Warsaw. The Impressionist exhibition at the National Museum is a must-see, the courtyard has been turned into a replica of Montmartre, so you can get yourself into a Gallic frame of mind while you’re waiting to go in. Harold did just that, entertaining the waiting queues of schoolgirls with his Maurice Chevalier impression and singing “Zank ‘eaven for leedle gurls”. Inside the exhibition, Harold said the Renoir ladies looked like me cutting my toenails in the bathroom. That’s the most romantic thing he’s said in ages.

I also dragged Harold off for a night at the Opera. He wasn’t very keen to start with, but once we got there he loved it. He sat open-mouthed in rapture, with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, soaking up the performance. My enjoyment was slightly spoiled by an intermittent rumbling noise, must have been the metro passing underneath. In the bar afterwards, I asked Harold how he’d enjoyed his first opera. He replied that he’d been transported to another world, which just goes to show - he’s quite a culture vulture really!

Or do I mean vampire? We went for a Valentine’s dinner at the Marriott’s Chicago Grill. It might not seem like the most romantic spot in town, but at least Harold can see what he’s eating. Despite the panic over BSE, they are still serving prime beef. Harold’s always said it wouldn’t make any difference in my case, amyway. Neither of us has ever been to Chicago, but I can’t imagine it is anything like the Chicago Grill - nobody was wearing a stetson hat for one thing. In fact, nobody was eating in there at all. When we saw the menu we realized why - the Marriott is suffering from mad price disease. However, we were already seated and I was far too overdressed to go slumming it downstairs at Champions, so we decided to see it through. When the waitress asked how Harold would like his steak, he slapped his knee and answered in what was supposed to be a mid-Atlantic twang: “Just wipe its ass and throw it on the plate, honey!” She took him at his word. The cow (vegetarians look away now) was only just dead, and the meat was bright red and glistening ... Harold’s fangs flashed once, and then his face was in his plate, and all that could be heard were chomping and slurping sounds. When he had finished, the waitress was nowhere to be seen! I started to feel a bit queasy when he got very insistent that we be home before midnight… there really is something of the night about Harold occasionally. Lucky I eat a lot of garlic. Happily, it transpired that he just wanted to catch the football results! What a relief. Sometimes I let my imagination run wild.

For the record, Harold’s 16 oz. Porterhouse steak was succulent, and my 8 oz. peppered fillet melted in the mouth. Everything is prepared tableside - but for the price (I daren’t say how much, the Inland Revenue might be reading) I think there should have been a rodeo show thrown in and Dolly Parton singing some country and western classics. Harold agrees (at least about Dolly Parton). I may turn out to be the most expensive mad cow in Warsaw.

BEWARE THE BROWN VODKA

Harold has a few annoying habits.

One of them is his inability to reproduce a tune accurately. Whatever he sings or whistles, from the James Bond theme to the National Anthem, ends up as the theme from Match of the Day. He claims in self-defence that all tunes ARE actually Match of the Day, either slowed down, speeded up or played in a different key. He might be right, of course.

After a few glasses of port on an evening, he falls asleep dreaming of buying a villa in Portugal and finding his next door neighbour is Tiger Woods, or perhaps he’s being Benny Hill in those final credits, and the next day his pillow looks like someone’s been murdered in the bed. I call him the Vicar of Dribbly.

However, as it was his birthday recently (he won’t let me say which one in case Lesley Joseph is among my readership), I tried to look at him in a kindly light and took him for dinner at the Hotel Bristol’s posh restaurant, the Malinowa. In the Column Bar, where the prices have gone sky-high (£6 for a gin and tonic!) we bumped into Harold’s old pal from the Buffaloes, Fatty Fortescue, with his granddaughter. At least, I assumed she was his granddaughter, although it was a bit odd that she didn’t seem to speak English. And I really think Fatty should have made her wear something warmer on a cold January night than just a vest and thigh boots. Harold seemed quite concerned, and I had to drag him away eventually to the Malinowa dining room before they gave our table away.

I have to say the room is quite unprepossessing, after the grandeur of the Column Bar. It looks like a rather ordinary hotel dining room. However, the food and the service are top-notch. They bring you a complimentary “amuse-gueule” before your starter arrives, which is like a small starter itself. It was a piece of poached chicken with a bit of rocket salad on the side, drizzled with a raspberry coulis. Delicious. For starter I had two kinds of foie gras - one piece cooked in a filo pastry parcel, the other piece au naturel. Harold had eschewed the oysters and caviar (unpriced - asking for trouble) for langoustines, (which were translated as Dublin Bay prawns, although as everyone knows, n’est-ce-pas, “langoustines” are crayfish, and Dublin Bay prawns are translated in French menus by the Spanish “gambas”) in a “sauce of flowers”. Not sure what flowers were used, but the sauce tasted faintly of parma violets. Both dishes were beautifully presented, but after long admiration, taking of photographs, showing them to the people at the next table etc., they were duly demolished with the help of a bottle of 1994 Chateauneuf du Pape – at 300 zlotys, perhaps a little extravagant, but it was a special occasion after all.

A comfortable gap between courses was allowed before our mains were served in a flourish of silver chafing dishes: I had warm lobster salad on a bed of braised fennel and lasagne slices – heavenly! Harold went for a manly dish, the venison, which came plentiful and pink, just the way he likes it, in a rich gravy with not too many vegetables to distract him. It was all rather nouveau, so if you’re a fan of gołonka you might find the portions a tad light. However, our belts were groaning by the end of the main course, which was a shame, as the Malinowa has the best cheese trolley I’ve seen this side of the French border. Luckily I didn’t order a dessert, since coffee comes with a selection of home made chocolate truffles, of which I forced myself to sample quite a few. Well, all of them, actually.

The prices at the Malinowa – with a few exceptions – are no worse than any other first class restaurant in Warsaw, and if you stick to one main course and a reasonable bottle of wine, a Beaujolais say at about 130 zlotys, with your complimentary hors-d’oeuvre and chockies you can have a superb meal without mortgaging the Range Rover. One last blipette didn’t spoil the evening, but I mention it as a warning in case you’re thinking of dining at the Malinowa. Harold let himself be talked into trying a so-called 50-year-old vodka from the liqueurs trolley. Frankly, this has to be scam of the century (although the century was less than a week old at the time). Although nicely coloured with burnt sugar to give it an old look, the fumes nearly succeeded where nose clippers had failed. Harold pulled a face as he drank it, and muttered something about drain fluid. I pulled an even worse face when I saw the bill. For 109 zlotys, he could have had a really nice cognac. But we live and learn. Vodka, unlike claret, and my Christmas cake, does not improve with age, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE OF CHAPS

by Major Harold Wayne-Bough (retired)

While the Memsahib’s been plugging away at learning Polish, and getting pretty grumpy in the process I might add, I’ve been quietly pottering about and getting everything I want without having to utter a sound, let alone attempt the teeth-juddering oral contortions required to speak the local lingo. I’ve managed to travel around the world in my time without having to resort to all that foreign gobbledegook. We chaps, y’see, can manage without words. It’s quite simple: life (for men, anyway) is simply made up of needs. Bodily needs. Food, drink, … er … and one or two other things. Now, it’s simply a question of working out a simple visual signal which conveys this need without (and this is crucial) making a fool of oneself. What is remarkable is that, without the aid of teachers or dictionaries, this sign language has evolved independently throughout the world, in places as diverse as Tibet and Tonbridge, Kingston Jamaica and Kingston-upon-Thames, and is identical wherever you go!!

Let’s take ordering a drink – pretty high in most chaps’ list of priorities, I would say. Chap goes into bar. Chap walks around bar for a bit (purpose of this will become apparent later). Chap sits at bar and marks his territory by placing his property strategically on the bar: smoking accoutrements, mobile phone (a present from Daphne so she can keep tabs on me – I keep it switched off, of course). Chap makes eye contact with barman. (Eye contact is a vital element of international chap talk – without it you wouldn’t know who you’re not talking to). Chap raises finger, to indicate he requires a libation. Barman lifts his head and eyebrows slightly, to indicate he is listening. Chap also lifts eyebrows. If Chap is known to Barman, this means “The usual, John”. (Very important point in non-verbal bar talk – once you’ve established your tipple, NEVER SWITCH TO A NEW DRINK). (And barmen are always called John). If Chap is new to Barman, this means “Mine’s a pint of your best ale, please, goodly innkeeper”.

After the initial contact, Chap can sit all night at a bar, obtaining a steady stream of libations without uttering a word. When glass is empty, establish eye contact again and nod. If you need an ashtray, mime tapping ash off a cigarette. Barman will understand perfectly. With luck, small talk with fellow drinkers will be limited to lending them your matches (Fellow Drinker waves cigarette at Chap, Chap hands over matchbox, Fellow Drinker returns matchbox with a nod and a smile, Chap returns nod without a smile) or the occasional exchange of admiring glances if a particularly handsome filly trots past. To be on the safe side, Chap could always take an English newspaper and pretend to be doing the crossword. If Chap is a non-smoker, of course, life is even easier.

At some point Chap will need to answer the call of nature. The location of the facilities will have been established on the initial recce, to avoid the need to ask (and thereby risk looking silly). In order not to lose seat, and with it face, Chap leaves half-drunk pint and smoking accoutrements on bar. If the facilities are communal, Chap observes unwritten rule of lavatorial etiquette, which involves whistling, humming, clearing throat and other vocal (but not verbal) indications of territoriality. The tune whistled (I favour the Dambusters myself) and the depth of throat-clearing are designed to signal to other occupants that, in the event Chap has inadvertantly interrupted a private conversation, he will be on his way as soon as his business is finished.

When Chap feels he’s had enough and it’s time to wobble off home, establish eye contact once more with Barman (although it could be a bit difficult, as Chap might be seeing two, or even three, of him by now) and mime writing something down, using left hand as a writing pad and holding an imaginary pen in the right. Of course, if Chap is left-handed he can do it the other way round. This means: “I shay, ole shap, how mush do I owe?” Barman will nod and, after about 20 minutes and a few more reminders with the writing pad, will bring a piece of paper which Chap does not need to look at as he will not be able to focus on all the zeros anyway. Chap produces large denomination banknote and, if Barman does not look angry or impatient, makes a magnanimous sweeping-away gesture with his hand, indicating “Keep the change, my good fellow”. This will avoid Chap having to remonstrate with Barman about being over-charged and risking making a fool of himself. If Barman does look angry or impatient, Chap should check that the banknote is in fact legal tender in the country, and throw any empty change from his pockets onto the bar nonchalantly before nodding in a decisive manner (meaning “Thank you show mush for your good shervishes, my man, shee you again neksht week”) and striding off into the wall, and eventually through the door, leaving his smoking accoutrements and mobile phone on the bar.

At this point Chap will require locomotion in a homeward direction. Hopefully there will be a taxi rank not far from the inn. This can be recognized by a group of blurry white lights with cars underneath them, although do check they are marked “taxi” and not “policja”. This is where a little of the local parley-voo is unavoidable. All you have to remember is the name of your street. Don’t worry about numbers – in Polish, 44 sounds just like 36 or 29 and will only confuse matters. If you live near the corner of another street, you can add the name of the adjoining street preceded by “od”. If you don’t, or if you can’t remember where you live, let the cabbie work it out while you fall asleep in the back of the taxi. Remarkably, when you wake up you will be at your front door. Throw another large denomination note at the driver before falling onto the pavement.

It is interesting how non-verbal communication only works between men. When you get in the house and attempt to convey to Her Indoors with a jaunty step and a bright smile that you are perfectly sober, She always accuses you of being drunk and of kicking the cat. If only women had the intuitive powers of us men.