Looking the Part

Another Friday night, but it’s to London this time – catching the early evening train to Waterloo sensibly dressed in dinner jacket and black tie. I’m off to spend the evening with my friend Mr Angry at the Forty Club Annual Dinner at the Savoy (a cricket occasion if you really want to know, curious reader).

There is a tendency to feel a bit of a prat when you travel wearing a dinner jacket on a commuter train, surrounded by normally dressed people going about their normal life at 5.00pm. You have to “carry off” your appearance and a number of options occur. Obviously there is the “007” solution, total self-confidence and a look of superiority that says “these are my normal clothes, I have a gun and am off to a smart casino”. Then there is the “man from the band” solution, but you need a trumpet or other weird musical instrument case for that. I opted instead for the “total eccentric” solution as, having taken my seat, I produced a Bible from my briefcase and, somewhat ostentatiously, browsed through the Gospel according to St. Mark. Sadly this was not a sign of my devotion to religious matters, but rather swatting up on the reading I am to make at my granddaughter’s Christening later today. No-one took the empty seat beside me.

For the return journey, I was suitably refreshed with alcohol and felt quite normal with my tie askew, slumbering noisily all the way back to Petersfield. There I found that taxi drivers continue to exist in darkest Hampshire, even after midnight, and so I felt quite the part being chauffeur-driven back to my village and the somnolent wife and cat.