Ed at Large - Strada

People tend to be suspicious when offered things they obviously really enjoy. So just as the WI would be suspicious if you offered them a barrel of cock, or Barack Obama would be suspicious if you offered him a barrel of coke, I had immediate reservations when offered the Varsity restaurant reviewing gig.
‘What would it involve?’ I asked like a complete tard after they approached me in a moment of weakness outside Ta Bouche, where I was enjoying a mid-afternoon Harlem Mugger (and boy did I misunderstand the origins of that name).
‘Reviewing restaurants’, the editors replied, all slither and guile like a younger, gayer Draco and Crabbe.
‘Would it be free?’
‘Sure’.
‘Could I take girls?’
‘Sure?’ the taller one said. The taller one is a little more refined but somewhat simpler than the short one, who has quick fingers.
I was quite overcome by a vision of myself in the shire’s finest eateries, with some of the drunkest freshers in the whole country laughing across the table and then not snogging me. But, and here was the important part, strangers would briefly think I was going out with them. In an era where impressions are everything, this could only be good news for me.
It was a gift horse, I concluded. And I’ve never been one for looking in their mouths. I mounted it with the customary rigeur of the man about to get drunk for free.
But by Tuesday I was having reservations. Although not making any, despite my pleading phonecalls. So perceptively low is the standing of this organ amongst the patrons of Cambridge that nowhere I rang would give me anything for free. They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch (and many of them did), but surely elevenses wouldn’t have been too much to ask for (as I suggested in return)?
I became increasingly anxious. Was I to have to pay my own way?
It didn’t bear thinking about, particularly after I’d told everyone at the Varsity beginning-of-term dinner in Café Rouge that I was earning £50 a week for the column, making me the only member of the Varsity team to be paid for their contributions. This isn’t true. It is also one of the saddest lies ever told, and even on the night was at least as sad as the squabble between the rather glamorous French waitress and the editors over the definition of ‘optional’ in the service charge, which was very sad indeed.
As it turned out I shouldn’t have worried, because it also emerged that I was lied to by the editors, a duo I now realised was comprised of a charlatan and a blithering (if doe-eyed) goatwrench, whose poverty of wit was matched only by the stench of their ambition.
Instead I had to describe my week, ‘to make other people feel better about their own’, a role which makes me feel a bit like a fluffer for the features section. I keep the interest up, but I have no say in the outcome.
Unluckily for them, and what they didn’t expect me to write when they threatened me with the sack, the only things I’ve done this week are eating and lechery (nothing else holds me unfashionable), and I’ve got a note from the police about writing about lechery, so instead I’m going to have to write about food.
Which is convenient, because in the first place I was so cross about being lied to about the nature of my column that I immediately wanted to eat lots and pay for it. Unfortunately my dilemma coincided with some issues with the mobile phone services, and none of the first twenty people I called were able to pick up.
Instead I asked the long-suffering Ginger Roommate if I could have supper with her. ‘Please?’ I said, ‘It’ll be really nice.’
‘Alright’, she replied gingerly, for with her there is no other way, after pausing to reflect that she wasn’t going to have any fun. ‘We’re going to Strada. But I was supposed to be on a date’.
‘Who with?’ I asked, amazed. Nobody has ever, to my knowledge, offered to take the Ginger Roommate on a date.
‘Your Obnoxious Large Friend’, she replied. This was slightly less amazing.
‘Fine’, I said, ‘I’ll wingman you’.
‘Please don’t’, she whimpered, gingerly.
In the end (I suspect for fear of what might happen should I ‘wingman’ the Ginger Roommate) the OLF brought his own roommate, who is much more civilised. What none of us counted on was a large group of banshee women, apparently on some sort of care in the community outreach wine-tasting, occupying the entire mezzanine floor.
‘I’m sorry about the noise’, our waitress said rather sweetly. Or at least that’s what I now think she said, which makes far more sense. Initially I read her lips and thought she said ‘I so wanna wee on the nose’. Whose nose? My nose?
‘It’s ok, don’t worry about it. I like wee.’
‘I’m sorry?’ she asked anxiously.
‘You shouldn’t be. But this restaurant is a bit noisy.’ She smiled nervously and went to fetch my ‘cotto’ pizza. This is quite a boring meal, easy to prepare and serve.
‘Is your pizza ok?’ She asked, a few minutes after I’d received it.
‘Yes’, I said hastily, ‘of course’, because as everyone knows pizzas are like blowjobs, in that it’s very hard to admit at the time that you’re not enjoying yourself.
After I’d eaten it the OLF began to shout ‘You all met in an abortion clinic’, at the banshees, a significant step-up in brinkmanship from my muffled ‘You’re not supposed to drink at a tasting!’, which I had been following with a snorting guffaw.
To cap it all off, when we got home the Ginger Roommate refused to give me a massage because I ‘smelt bad’, despite having taunted me with her fragrant oils for a whole week. I went to sleep dreaming of my childhood attic, and wondering whether I should have stayed there all along.