New Year Honours

I love Christmas but I hate New Year.  I wish the two weren't packaged as one event.  New Year completely spoils Christmas.  The build up to Christmas is all twinkly excitement, fairy lights and glitter, where anything is possible.  Fat men in red suits can fly around the night sky aided by animals that look like goats with antlers, delivering presents to every child on the nice list. Tesco can fill your house with glitter with the aid of their dysfuncitonal wrapping paper and for days you wake up surrounded by glittery hope because you wrapped your presents on your bed.  After Christmas comes the time when you can't remember what day of the week it is, when you last got dressed or last ate anything but cold turkey or cheese.  Real life is replaced by the books you've read or the films you've seen or the walks you've taken with the dog (you have to do something about the turkey farts).  Then the build up to New Year starts.  Charlie Brooker depresses us with his 'Wipe' so we are forced to agree that the last year has been the worst ever so that we can't wait for the next one because in the words of D'Ream, things can only get better.

Then the press goes into full def-con mode.  It's all out war against the last year.  No expense is spared, list after list proves just how awful the last year has been.  We need this so that we can accept the new.  When I was young I used to think that New Year's Eve was the day that everyone died.  I would sit watching the TV, polishing off the remains of my selection box and flicking through my Beano annual wondering at how many people could have died on the same day.  In my child-like brain I decided that it happened to make room for all the new people that would be born that year. Even when I became a teenager I couldn't quite shake that belief, so that when my Nan died on New Year's Eve and my cousin was born later that year I could never quite forgive him.  

Then, just as the lists get to the point where a new year seems pointless, where you are sitting in your pants considering eating the mouldering tangerine that was in the bottom of your stocking they bring out the big list.  The list of people who have done good things, despite everything awful that has happened.  It's the carrot to balance the stick.  The thing that reminds us that we can do brilliant things.  The list is well balance to prove that any of us can be brilliant.  The famous sports personalities, authors, actors and captains of industry are joined by teachers, school governors, people who run clubs for kids, road sweepers and glass blowers. I've often wondered how these ordinary people get chosen.  I imagine the Queen with a whole load of applications on her breakfast table, reading them between each mouthful of cornflakes, poured from her Tupperware box. 

"Oh Phillip, I'm so bored of this.  They're all so good."

"Yes dear, pass the sugar, I know but what's the alternative?"

"Alternative, now that's an idea.Who is doing my alternative Christmas message this year?"

"I think it's the husband of the MP that was murdered,"

"Quite serious then. I liked it best when Marge Simpson did it. I'd like an alternative New Year's Honours list."

"You are the Queen, dear.  You could probably put anyone you want on it."

"No dear, there are protocols.  Can you imagine what they'd say if I gave a gong to someone for services to telly watching?  There'd be an outcry."

"It would be fun, though and it's important.  I mean, if no one was watching, what would be the point of all those services to acting, football or screenwriting? Who could you give it to?"

And that's how it started.  Obviously, it all had to be kept completely secret but it's really nice that the Long Suffering Husband is recognised for his great talent in life.  It's a skill he has been honing since his teenage years when he would cover the TV with a duvet so that his parents couldn't see the light through the bizarrely placed fanlight window in his bedroom.  This year, he has taken the skill to a whole new level, turning the spare room into a TV cave.  He is so dedicated to his art that I've barely seen him.  

We were meeting Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace at 11, for a late breakfast a couple of days before New Year and I needed a cover story.  The Queen was all set.  She was, apparently, at Sandringham but had niftily avoided being seen by pleading a heavy cold to get her out of going to church. I booked a night in the hotel that seemed perfect for a secret mission; the hotel where Ian Flemming had written James Bond, drinking martinis, shaken but not stirred in their famous cocktail bar.  I used the trip as an excuse to do some of the things that were on the LSH's bucket list.  He wanted to experience Ronnie Scotts, afternoon tea, the OXO tower and fine dining at a celebrity Michelin starred restaurant.  I thought that these experiences would prepare him for meeting royalty. My thinking being that if he could eat in these places without lowering the tone then there was hope that he wouldn't forget himself and call her Lizzie.

The restaurant were aware of our plebby status, showing us to a table in the corner. The LSH scouted the room for the rich and famous.  The overly dramatic redhead stumped him for most of the evening but the footballer and his niece on the next table he knew instantly.

Each time the waiter came over we were making the noises that you make when you are eating something delicious.
"More water, Sir?"
"OOOOm, Yummmm, Slurp.  Ooooh, Smack. Nommmm. Ahhh, that's good!"
"Have you tried the ice cream with the tarte tatin?"
"Not yet.  It's delicious anyway. I'm a bit suspicious of licorice ice cream."
"It takes it to a whole new level."
"Oh, wow. That's amazing. Yes!" I slapped the table.
The waiter raised an eyebrow, mentally accusing me of a Harry Met Sally moment.

We had chosen from the three course a la carte menu rather than the eight course Winter tasting menu that the footballer had gone for.  He had also plumped for the Somellier chosen paired wines. It all started well, " With the taramasalata we have a Sancerre Rose from the Domaine Andre Richeu.  It has a clean crisp taste that blends beautifully with the smokiness of the dish."

The footballer swished the wine around the over sized glass, pushing his nose deep in before taking an appreciative swig. His niece sipped more elegantly.
By the time they had got to the lamb dish (which is what I had) they were up to their sixth glass of wine and the niece had tripped and giggled on her way back from the toilet..  The footballer seemed surprisingly unaffected but was very happy to discuss some of his best goals.  The food was paired with a fairly bog-standard Cabernet.  By the time they were on the last course the waiter appeared.

"Ziss is ze glass of lighter fuel from ze famous vinyard of shelloil.  I zink you will rilly injoy ziss taste which will compliment ze nougat perfectly."

The LSH laughed aloud.  I tried to shush him but he was right.  The lights did look like condoms.

Luckily, the Queen was very relaxed, enjoying every moment of her wicked honour.  The LSH is now to be known as LSH AQG (Long Suffering Husband, Alternative Queen's Gong) for services to television watching but he is now in bed with a nasty cold.

I'll confess, the award has cheered up my New Year enormously. I might even make a resolution.  Something like, "I resolve to keep making up stories in the style of a thinly veiled narrative."