What is it with dirty jokes and country hostelries? I’m talking about those “fine dining” pubs, where “Dennis and Fiona welcome discerning travellers to relax, revive, savour and marvel in an atmosphere of timeless rustic elegance. No children, no smoking, no proles’ overalls. Dogs by prior arrangement — but not those silly yapping poofs’ merkins that city folk have instead of neighbours”. In short, the sort of place that makes you fervently wish it were possible to order up bulldozers like minicabs.
Why is it that these places invariably have smutty cartoons in the men’s lavatory? The public bits are smeared with brown-nosing labradors, wafting woodcock and Georgian huntsmen. But when you go to the loo, there’s some bit of blokey juvenalia involving a bad drawing of big breasts, a shooting double entendre and talking foxes. What I particularly hate about this crapper comedy is the assumption of inclusion, the idea that all men collect at the urinals to tell the one about the midget and the nun. The prudish, leering hypocrisy of these men-only gags is an endearing staple of country hospitality and I don’t want to be implicated in it when I’ve got my flies undone.
I mention all this because the cartoon in the bog at the Bell, at Sapperton, Gloucestershire, is so obviously a big attraction. I know this because, while I was there, a local man came in showing around a visitor and said he’d once brought the good lady wife in so that she could enjoy the sophisticated joke — while he stood guard at the door, naturally.
I suppose I’m going to have to describe it to you now (and I apologise for spoiling Sapperton’s only punch line). There’s a rough cartoon of a group of Welsh miners in the changing room after work. They’re all naked and all black — Dylan Thomas black, black with coal dust. All except one of them, who has a white willy. His mate’s saying, “I see Llewellyn went home for his lunch.” Geddit?
Okay, pick yourself up. Wipe away the tears of mirth. Yes, I know, miners don’t go home for their lunch because they’re a mile underground and I also know that they’d only get their bits sooty if they were mining naked. But it’s not my cartoon — and anyway, I don’t have a sense of humour.
The Bell is an unimpressive building, set back behind one of those pub gardens that are supposed to be evocative of Edwardian husbandry, but actually reek of easy maintenance. The first space in the car park is ostentatiously marked out for a horse, with a bucket that’s for either oats, dung or me to throw up in. Inside, it’s the usual confusion of levels and spaces that don’t know what they’re for. There isn’t a dining room as such, just tables strewn about in the charmless rooms and corridors.
The Blonde and I were meeting Michael Gambon and Philippa Hart here on the way to Wales. We were sat at a sticky round table that could have been a braille menu. I squinted at the fare on a distant blackboard. Just as I was making up my mind, I was offered another paper menu; and as I transferred my choice to that, a third, notelet menu arrived. Why, I asked, are there three menus? “There’s the blackboard,” said the waitress in a tone of dinner lady’s rich irritation, “and the à la carte and this is the specials.” Yes, I understand that, but why are there three of them? “There’s the blackboard ...” she started again. Okay, okay.
Actually, the à la carte was a bit of a treasure, not for the food, but for the open letter from our hosts on the back. I dearly wish I could print this in full. It is a huggable evocation of the steely, smiling non-hospitality that is such a feature of eating out in rural England. Here is an amuse-oreille: “We are very aware that children’s attention span can be short-lived, especially in an adult environment, but we ask that noisy toys be left at home and that they do not run within the building or climb trees, our gate or garden ... Our staff carry hot and heavy plates which could be dangerous when dropped ... We are delighted to introduce a new idea for dining this summer: picnic rugs. These can be hired from the bar for a small cash charge £2 and are for use on the front lawns and are ideal for those of you who enjoy a traditional enjoyment of our summers ... Please don’t feed Harry, our springer spaniel ... Please don’t use mobile phones within the building.” Heaven. Utter heaven.
The place was full of whispering old folk, the itinerant retired who traipse the B roads of Britain, eking out the unforgiving days and squatting in places like the Bell, because they have nothing else to do. The food is the sort of careless English fare that owes more to daytime TV and women’s magazines than any particular county, and for which Gary Rhodes has much to answer.
Michael and I started with individually baked pies of Keene’s cheddar and onion. As we cut them open, a viscous gruel of curdled liquid ran out. It was like lancing a boil. “Christ, what’s that?” said Gambon. It wasn’t cheese and I don’t think it was onion. Perhaps the pies had been cooked in the dishwasher. They looked nicer than they tasted. The Blonde had the terrine of old spot pork with celeriac and bramley apples. It was badly made, dry and innocent of seasoning.
For main course, I ventured the locally smoked gammon with two free-range fried eggs. This was an even more repellent and pointless sacrifice of pig. Local doesn’t necessarily mean good, improved or better. It just means you’re living next to someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing and couldn’t cure a hangnail. The meat was biltong tough and saltier than a fat bloke’s cycling shorts, and the beef dripping the chips were fried in tasted as if it was also used to make candles.
Main courses are about £15 and starters about £7. For the middle of nowhere, this is hideously expensive. The service was slow, forgetful and careless, even by the standards of the West Country. They stress the importance of local ingredients, but the staff all come from New Zealand and South Africa.
The Bell won South West Dining Pub of the Year last year, which, frankly, doesn’t surprise me. It is replete with everything that makes eating out in the muddy bits of England such a hideous torment. It’s pretentious, twee and seemingly run for the convenience of the management. The food we ate was risibly bad, the atmosphere smilingly inhospitable, the décor a sordid cliché of rural nostalgia, puppy porn and green-welly fascism — and they charge you two quid to sit on the ground outside. It is not just everything I despise and loathe in lunch, but everything that embarrasses and depresses me about tweedy Albion.
Stick this up in the gents.
THE BELL
No stars
Sapperton, Gloucestershire; 01285 760298
Daily, noon-2pm; Mon-Sat, 7-9.30pm; Sun, 7-9pm
5 stars Privy to perfection
4 stars Roll of honour
3 stars Seat of excellence
2 stars Flushed with success
1 star Bog standard
