Thursday 15 October 2009
Frances is one of those people with whom you can go to a pub and not feel compelled to do outrageous drinking. She quite shamelessly drinks halves, but then she does ride a bike. If I were required to control metal be-wheeled contraptions at the end of a night out, I too might be tempted to drink halves.
As it is, I regard halves as an affront to my rights as a woman. Oh, sorry, I can’t actually manage to wrap my delicate lady-like fingers around a pint glass – and if I drink a whole pint I might start giggling and talking about floristry. Bah. I can still remember when The Uncle took me to a pretty pub in rural Oxfordshire for lunch for my 21st and the barman refused to serve me a pint of shandy. Oh the rage. Is it any wonder rural pubs keep closing down? I remember gasping, “But it’s only shandy! I’m 21 – I’m not staying here to be patronised!” until the barman hastily swallowed his scruples and got to it with the Schweppes and a BIG glass. Thank heavens I didn’t order a Spicy Pepperami on the side. They might have tied me to a chair and ducked me in the village pond.
That aside, really, there’s nothing wrong with a half. If you can manage not to drain one in 30 seconds flat (which is where I fail) you can go four rounds, and go home tipsy rather than trashed. And if, as is the case for Frances, an evening out does not mean getting trashed, you can fit many other things into your life, such as evening classes and photography and having an allotment. Hmmm. There are lessons to be learned from everyone.
Tonight, we were not doing the pub, we were going to Pizza Express as a matter of some urgency. Frances desperately needed a pizza. She is a slender slip under the most everyday of circumstances, but she’s recently moved into an office where, in the interests of science (a very long story), you’re not allowed to bring food into the building. Frances is a thwarted grazer and, really, her work ought to give her £50 worth of Pizza Express vouchers per week just so she won’t waste away.
I love Pizza Express. Yes, it’s a chain, but you know what you’re getting and you know that what you’re going to get is going to be good. Oh – unless you go to the world’s worst Pizza Express in Dulwich, which is where over indulgent parents take their children to teach them that the world really does revolve around them. I remain agog at the time a little blonde girl waltzed impishly over to my table, trailed her greasy fingers over the back of my coat, whipped a doughball off my plate and nibbled it smilingly in front of me as if waiting for applause. While I hyperventilated and hissed “Is it illegal to slap other people’s children’s legs?” (I Googled it later and sadly if they're not yours you can't. And, get this – you're not allowed to slap the parents either) the parents of said Goldilocks beamed proudly and said: “Oh Amelia! Has the lady given you a dough ball? Mmmmm! Yummy!” Jesus. Moral: avoid Dulwich Pizza Express like the plague.
But, in general, I do love a Pizza Express and so does Frances: especially now you can have any pizza you like on a Romana base the size of a table top. Frances had an Etna (very volcanic and at 1153 calories, presumably enough to keep her going for most of the next long, hungry day) and I had a Soho pizza (topped with rocket: men always look askance and say: “A salad pizza?” as if I am an unusual pervert) with a bit of fizzy water to swill it down with. I had my usual issue of catching peripheral glances of the barbaric-looking 6ft pepper grinders and ducking fearfully every time a waiter rushed past brandishing one, but generally the service was a predictable delight – if a touch over enthusiastic (we were asked if we were enjoying ourselves on approximately every second mouthful). Needless to say that by the time we were ready to order coffee no one would touch us with a barge pole. They are clearly all dynamic problem-solvers and had written us off as utter bores by the seventh and eighth times we squeaked “Fine!” and “Lovely!” through our stuffed cheeks. This was a shame. I hate to wait for my coffee at Pizza Express. In fact, I cannot wait for my coffee at Pizza express. It arrived all bitter and rich and foamy and if you’d tried to make me swap it for my usual big bottle of Nastro Peroni, I would have responded by giving you a Chinese burn.
Afterwards Frances rode soberly home on her bike (with me fervently hoping that wouldn’t burn off too many of her endangered calories) and I walked sensibly to the train station where a 45 minute delay and no beer jacket meant my joints froze solid.
Units dodged: Maybe four but, again, I do not know how much you get in one of those massive bottles of Peroni that Pizza Express sell. But they definitely have the look of a binge drink in a bottle…
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