I have come to dread the interminable string of alfresco gatherings, commonly known as barbecues that are ubiquitous around this time of year and a nasty habit contracted from our Australian friends“down under’.
I simply can’t begin to comprehend the compulsion that seems to grip so many usually sane people, to race into gardens or any open space the second there is a break in the clouds and commence cremating cheap, barely defrosted food.
I know very little about barbecues as I do my utmost to avoid them. In fact I once thought that Bear Grylls was someone prepared to risk being scarred for life by cooking sausages whilst naked, but now know this is not the case.
Mrs C on the other hand enjoys such occasions and insists on cajoling me along to them. She sometimes even resorts to modifying her usual parade-ground style of communication to talk to me as if I am a child.“Come on– ‘so and so’is going–don’t be miserable you’ll love it when you get there”but I never do.
I simply detest everything about barbecues; from the greasy smell of the burnt-on-the-outside frozen-on-the-inside bargain burgers to the artificially bright pink (same luminosity and colour as a highlighter pen) sausages. I particularly loathe the gelatinous mulch and highly suspect substances that are passed off as salads and‘dips’which by the end of the event usually contain more dead insects than a tramps vest and have often doubled as ashtrays.
Unwritten etiquette dictates that only a real man–in touch with his‘primitive self’ –may cook, and that he must have consumed at least a barrel of cider and several glasses of wine before spending half an hour looking for a box of matches. Dress code seems to insist that all attendees must wear clothes that would make any sensible person wonder if they had thrown them on in the dark at a charity shop specialising in seventies kitsch.
I know that I am becoming a curmudgeon as I slip into my dotage but I’d would rather die peacefully in my own bed than writhing in pain from a dose of Salmonella.
I have a hunch that if it makes it into print Mrs C and the kids will in future receive invitations that specifically exclude me. Mission accomplished!
Clive Chamberlain