I had always thought that Sarah Montague was a sensible good-humoured woman. But yesterday’s Sunday Times included a 2,000-word rant on behalf of first herself and then the sisterhood for being paid less than her contemporaries at the Today programme. A line or two later, however, it transpires that she operates as her front a personal services company. Sarah just does not understand that a company is not a person.
I’m afraid this sort of ignorant drivel at the BBC is par for the course.
*****
Anyway, since watching The Masters seems to reduce grown men to whimpering idiots I tuned in last night. Why anyone would ever watch a golf tournament on foot I cannot imagine. But they do.
*****
My wife was not prepared to endure The Masters, so I had to engage with The Durrells. Here the subject of Bombay Duck came up. One never sees this salty delicacy anywhere nowadays.
In my parents’ ‘fifties pantry a round tin of the stuff sat there year after year. I suppose they were equally unenthusiastic. Bit by bit I snitched the lot. No one minded.
*****
However, things are looking up in that three weeks ago a chum slipped by with a bottle of Grands Echezeaux 2001 as bottled by Domaine Romanee Conti (only £1,700 a bottle at Chelsea Vintners). It was an hour’s work over lunch. I then hit on the brainwave of selling the empty bottle on EBay. Here, since I have not got the faintest idea how to do this, I recruited my elder daughter to do the business. Yesterday afternoon it was listed at 5.00 p.m. at £50 and sold two minutes later with the cash in my daughter’s PayPal account. Cor Blimey!
And that’s not all: the buyer wants more empty bottles. When teetotallers get going they indeed take unexpected turns.
*****
Finally, I’m afraid things are unravelling at Pantheon (LON:PANR). I really do not know what to think.