Pike And Pancakes

- Jonathan Young

THIS year, I shall be less of a tosser. Not a resolution but a fact. The Clerk of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers beamed over a missive from the Master inviting me to represent the home team in the annual livery pancake race at the Guildhall, London. Would I, mooted the Clerk, be up for the novelty class again? This involves dressing up in a manner appropriate to the Lord Mayor’s chosen charity; on the last running, I’d been fairly sure that my Elizabethan knickerbockers and impressive codpiece would at least have earned a mention in dispatches. The Lady Mayoress judged differently – perhaps the codpiece wasn’t up to snuff – and her choice for “spirit of Raleigh International” was a bloke encased in a papier-mâché globe. Which was fair enough in the dressing-up stakes but, given his circumference, I didn’t expect the bugger to orbit the course at stellar speed, leaving me gasping in his trail.

So this time I ducked the invitation and toasted the competitors with the last drink before the Lenten eschewing of booze.

I’ve always dreaded this, as abstinence does not make the heart grow fonder and teetotalling from 1 March to 16 April is a purgatory that’s seldom heavenly and mostly hellish. But if one’s going to mortify the flesh there’s not a better season. Yes, there’s the round of Land Rover drinks parties (aka point-to-points) and their grown-up sister, the Cheltenham Festival, but generally March and April see the tweed tribe disperse for more solitary sport where a thermos of mulligatawny is more welcome than a large gin. And no one needs this soupy succouring more than the salmon fishermen.