Savoire Faire

I have great difficulty in fitting into modern social life! I am quite happy in jeans and a T-shirt, eating when I am hungry and drinking iced-tea. Appearances seem to matter and if you cannot dress in silk shirts, linen suits, and eat at French restaurants, you are obviously a misfit. But why do appearances matter if God (or Allah) knows us already? I tried all this when I was in my twenties (fifty years ago) down to gold cuff-links, Saville Row suits, white dinner jackets, Italian shoes and oval Turkish cigarettes. These days it seems to help to have a 'Porsche' too.

Yet I have been travelling and living in many different cultures for 45 years, and fit in well - because I can eat anything that is put in front of me and indeed I can become delightfully mesmerised by and excessively polite in a new culture. This is not because I am civilised, but because I would have made a good academic anthropologist.

I have to pretend to like a myriad list of modern foods and wines when I would be perfectly happy with a tuna sandwich and iced-tea. I once said at a dinner party that the food was nice, but not to worry as I could always have a sandwich when I got home! I was very young and honest in those days, and have learnt to be more circumspect as the years have gone by - although my sense of humour tends in the direction of deliberately making a 'faux-pas' in polite society - such as swearing. Actually I never swear unless as a joke or to upset someone! Those who know me can get very angry with me for deliberatly passing the wrong message!

I was once in Bangkok many years ago and was entertained well by my Thai colleagues. They seemed very nervous to receive an Englishman from London until I said I would be delighted to try Thai food. A wonderful evening! Sensing their relief I asked why. "Ah", they said, "The last Englishman from London had insisted on bacon and eggs all week". I am not like that.

I attribute my present attitudes to the old-fashioned, out-of-date, circumstances of the first 23 years of my life 1934-1957. My education was based on the Bible and Shakespeare. I was a good student and imbibed a lot rules and regulations from the New Testament, which remain with me still. Why this is so is harder to explain. These rules seem to have had singularly little effect on the rest of boys from my school. Strong drink, night clubs, women of doubtful reputation, and gambling were particularly to be damned in those far off times(but not today!).

The advent of the world war, which in Europe started in 1939 (for my American friends) meant I think that food, drink and appearances were of very low priority. That is what I learnt until rationing ended in 1957, when I was already 23! Beer seemed to be the English drink, first (warm) 'bitter' beer and then when I was at Cambridge exotic, cold, foreign 'lager' beer from Denmark. I drank beer all the time for 20 years because that was what 'real men' drank. It was only later that I realised how weak I was to conform when in fact I liked whisky or rum and coca-cola, or better still iced-tea! I rather liked drinking Chivas Regal and Coca-Cola just to upset my Scots friends! They seemed quite lacking in any sense of humour regarding whisky!

Then wine and cheeses from France and Germany began to appear about 1950. I rather like the white Algerian and German wines, but the heavier French red wines were far too bitter for me. It was fun ordering cheeses of goat, sheep or camel without quite knowing why. I am a stickler for 'port' and 'stilton' of course. That seemed to be important to British Army colonels who had to be impressed! However I persevered and for the next 40 years put up a good show at restaurants in the Chosun or Mandarin hotels while ordering wines for my customers.

So it is hardly my fault that my knowledge of how to live the 'dolce vita' is sadly lacking in sophisticated detail. I was born at the wrong time. Spaghetti should be 'al dente' and I can make a terrible fuss if it is not. But really I don't understand.

These days I maintain a facade of elegance and sophistication by a stroke of luck. I like Japanese and Korean food, and can argue those who eat French and Italian food are bit passe or declasse (no accents!).