As I may have noted elsewhere, or even here, that is a phrase I first heard uttered by a Communist. He was a delegate, I was a young reporter and we were both attending the annual conference of the white collar union ASTMS, now swallowed up into something else or bearing a more dashing name.
It was Bournemouth in the 1970s, and I had never eaten anything as grand, except at my French wedding banquet, as the meal he ordered (if I remember rightly, he boasted later of having signed it off to another delegate's room number).
The feast included something fishy, maybe lobster (occasions linger in my mind, less so the detail), and was washed down with a superb Chablis.
If nothing is too good for the working class at trade union conferences, the same must surely apply to birthdays. Bouillabaisse , which has to be ordered in advance, was the clever idea of Mme Salut, to celebrate my, whisper it, 59th today.
The location was the Tamaris, a seafront restaurant at St Clair, Jerry Hall's favourite south of France haunt just outside Le Lavandou, and it was magnificent.
I know I should have put my mind to something profound on Sarko here, a lament to the Sunderland AFC crisis at Salut! Sunderland or a meaningful review of Rachel Unthank's striking new album at Salut! Live.
But it's my party and I'll skive if I want to.
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