There can be few more depressing sights in this world than that of an office
worker hunched over a desk using a plastic fork to consume food of
indeterminate origin from a yellow polystyrene box, while sipping from a
bottle of water. This is not lunch. This is an abomination.
Consider, on the other hand, those gloriously life-affirming photos that
appeared the other day of the actor Michael Douglas and friends around a
splendidly ravaged luncheon table at a restaurant in Portofino, on the
Italian Riviera, which we must henceforth call Portovino: he apparently
comatose, his lolling head cradled on the shoulder of his giggling wife,
Catherine Zeta-Jones; a man who has looked at life through the bottom of
several bottles of chilled frascati superiore, and likes what he sees; a man
who has lunched not wisely, but too well.
In a delicious coincidence, one of Douglas's most celebrated roles in a
glittering movie career is that of Gordon Gekko, the ruthless and greedy
corporate financial raider in the 1988 film Wall Street: the man who,
you will recall, memorably declared that lunch was for wimps.
Wimps? I think not. Lunch is for heroes: men and women with the mental
fortitude and physical stamina to begin at 12 with a couple of stiff
Manhattans, to progress through a full three-courser served with proper
crockery, cutlery and linen and lubricated with the best that Bordeaux and
Burgundy can provide, to conclude with a couple of digestifs just to take
the edge off, and to return to the office around 4ish - upright, alert,
ready to rally the troops, to issue bollockings or pats on the back where
appropriate, and in general to take on the world. It is to Michael Douglas's
eternal discredit that, in contrast, he went back to his yacht and fell
asleep on a comfy sofa with a cold towel over his head.
This reprehensible inability to do good lunch and bounce back may be due to
Douglas's unhealthy association with the Gekko character and, sadly, in this
he is not alone. The decline of Great Britain from buccaneering
free-spiritedness to puritan, Cromwellian roundheadery, in which having a
good time is against some pettifogging law and will probably cost you your
job, can be traced directly back to those ghastly Thatcherite days of the
1980s, when time became money and enjoyment became taboo.
And where has it got us? Yellow polystyrene lunchboxes, economic recession,
credit crunch and binge drinking, that's where. And before you demur at the
connection between the first one and the last three, permit me to explain.
We are in recession because the people in possession of the nation's wealth
are too terrified to lend it to the people who need it to start new
businesses, expand the ones they have, and buy houses. This is because the
former have spent 20 minutes at lunchtime eating from a yellow polystyrene
box, instead of enjoying the mellowing effect of a four-hour lunch with at
least one bottle of decent claret (Mortgage? Business loan? Sign here, old
boy. Single malt OK with you?).
As a consequence, unable to afford a four-hour lunch with at least one bottle
of decent claret, the latter also eat from a yellow polystyrene box. In the
evening, stressed and exhausted, they all end up drinking too much vile
tequila, fighting in the street, vomiting over traffic wardens and getting
stabbed by their coke dealers. We could end it all tomorrow if the right to
a four-hour lunch with at least one bottle of decent claret were part of
everyone's contract of employment.
Nor should the lengthy liquid lunch be the exclusive domain of the
professional classes. During my misspent youth I worked in a pub in the
proud and defiantly working-class area of Shettleston, in the East End of
Glasgow. One of our regulars was Bobby Dickson, a wiry and muscular little
steel erector possessed of 14 children and a lunchtime drinking capacity of
roughly that number of pints. After his midday break Bobby would return to
the scaffolding, swinging from pole to pole with the agility of a monkey.
These days elf'n'safety would be round with a clipboard to relieve him of
his job, but Bobby never slipped, never fell, and never misplaced a bolt.
Admittedly, his insobriety was not without consequences. One Friday night
there was a hue and cry when a small child was reported missing, and
neighbours scoured the dark streets for hours. The search was called off
when it emerged that Bobby, in an entirely understandable miscalculation,
had found the child in his home and taken it for one of his own brood;
ignoring its squeals of protest, he had washed it and put it to bed.
Of course, the profession most commonly associated with heroic lunches is my
own: journalism. But you've probably heard all the stories before, and
others tell them better than I, so it is not my intention to regale you with
them here.
Oh, all right, just the one. I used to work with a senior Fleet Street
newspaper executive who popped out one lunchtime for a swift
attitude-adjuster to alleviate the enervating effects of a particularly
tedious news schedule, fell in with some chums, and remembers nothing
thereafter until he awoke the following morning in a hotel room - without
clothes, without money, and without (since they had not yet been invented) a
mobile telephone. Pausing only for a quick livener from the minibar, and
searching for a clue as to his rough whereabouts in London, he opened the
curtains - to a perfectly framed view of the Eiffel Tower.
Now that's what I call lunch.
Long liquid lunches: Ah, those were the days
When I was first introduced to the odd but addictive life of the roving
foreign correspondent, serious lunching was as much part of the job as the
stylishly crumpled beige linen suit.
Inspired by such legendary figures as the late Donald Wise, former foreign
correspondent for the Daily Mirror - beloved of head waiters around
the world - I soon developed the ability to survive epic wine-drenched
sessions and still file a story. True, there were occasions after a three
hour-plus binge when the keys of the telex machine seemed to have developed
a will of their own, but there were usually copy-takers on hand as back-up
and they kindly pretended not to notice the slurred delivery (although one
did inform me disapprovingly that she could hear bottles clinking in the
background).
Among the liquid lunches that stick in my mind was a sweaty encounter with the
leader of El Salvador's right-wing death squads, Major Roberto D'Aubuisson
(aka “Blowtorch Bob” after his favourite method of interrogation). He
ordered bottle after bottle of white rum as he boasted about torturing
suspects and seducing his close friends' wives. He was soon too far gone to
notice that I was recording our conversation under the table: it
subsequently featured in a Sunday Times exposé that contributed to
his downfall. From what I hear, most journalists today count themselves
lucky to get out of the office for coffee, and I'm sure that none would dare
to present the tattered, drink-stained receipts that we used to drop at the
expenses department before setting out for another “meal with contact”. It
had to come, I suppose, but I won't deny that seeing Michael Douglas in the
full flush of a long jolly lunch stirred fond memories of the old days on
the road.
Philip Jacobson, Paris correspondent for The Times 1987-93
Really, women are to blame
For 100 years men have been blamed by women for introducing a culture of boozy
lunches. There are few better examples of this than the trick of sinners
projecting their sins on to others. So far as lunch is concerned, history
relates that it was started by women in the early 19th century. If blame is
to be taken it is theirs.
Men, whether in the country or city, had a hearty late breakfast and worked
through the day until it was time for dinner at around 3.45pm. Drinking
liberally was then less of a problem as they had the night to sleep it off.
Women, who were left at home all day and if financially secure not working,
were bored by midday and arranged to lunch with friends. Before the end of
the 19th century, early dinners had gone. Men had followed women and both
enjoyed midday lunch. By 7.30pm, or if abroad when the sun went down, people
were gasping for a drink. And so the habit of luncheons and drinks before a
late dinner was created.
The boozy lunch was much more valuable in commerce than it is given credit
for. It enabled people to meet, chat and bargain with colleagues, friends,
clients or rivals in a relaxed environment. The problem was not that a
two-hour lunch was less valuable to the firm than two hours at the office,
but that it created jealousy among those lower in the office hierarchy.
There is no virtue in someone sacrificing their liver, marriage and even
life for a bank, hedge fund or insurance company. No one should regularly
drink more than their liver can safely metabolise. Unfortunately, the
government safe limits inevitably err on the side of caution. They ignore
the difference between the short, plump person, who holds drink badly, and
the large, well-muscled male drinker, who may be able to drink a third more
than average without physical or mental trouble. Nor do the limits allow for
genetic susceptibility or tolerance.
Women have a different problem. While still premenopausal, there is no
guaranteed safe level of regular drinking. Even so the Government's
recommendations are stricter than is necessary for the majority.
Dr Thomas Stuttaford
lunch is the most irritating meal, Inever take it or took it everything stops for it justas in the evil France. "oh we're/they're at lunch" they whine- good job waiters/ waitresses and chefs don't stop for lunch
peter c, devizes, wessex
An inspiring and civilised article, thank you.
gerry, exeter, england
Love Ross Anderson's bit. Great story about Bobby Dickson.
Oonagh, Hong Kong,