I wrote to Matthew, the boss of the Rex Whistler Restaurant at the Tate Britain telling him I would like lunch reservations for one for Friday, December 8. He wittily wrote back: He: Oh no! I need to book the day off! ha ha ha Only joking! But you know – we are doing one of our wine dinners that night! So maybe you”d like to come for dinner instead? Here is the link. We await your return with anticipation – and a large wine glass!
Me: Two large glasses, please.
The menu looks divine and the wine paring spectacular. I tried to use the link, it did not work so I fired off another email to Matthew.
Me: There is a glitch. I know you didn’t do it on purpose because you are not that computer savvy. Please book me, you know my credit card works and honest, the limit has not been reached.
He: (No response as yet).
I cannot wait to return to the place that I describe in my Tate book. “Nestled on the very first floor of the Tate Britain is the most wonderful restaurant on earth. The Rex Whistler. It is an absolute joy to behold with its murals, but beyond being exquisite beyond belief, it is staffed by the most wonderful people in all of the United Kingdom. “ I went on to say that” “The restaurant became my refuge. It is an oasis of calm and civility and charm. It was instrumental in saving the day.” I feel blessed to live in Vancouver but I have found no restaurant that can possibly compare to The Rex Whistler. So I shall be forced to return to London, be spoiled with not one, but two glasses of wine. I shall include a photograph of the gorgeous me at the gorgeous Rex Whistler surrounded by friends met at the last wine dinner.
But back to more mundane matters. Donald Trump, again using Kurt Andersen’s excellent article in the September 27, 2017 edition of the Atlantic. Andersen explains his relationship with Trump. He was the cofounder of Spy magazine and between 1986 and 1993 there were three cover stories “and dozens of pages exposing his lies, his brutishness and absurdity.”
Andersen discusses Trump’s businesses, his multibillion (I guess) enterprises. “Trump’s various enterprises would have seemed a ludicrous, embarrassing, incoherent jumble for a businessman, let alone a serious candidate for president. What connects an Islamic-mausoleum-themed casino to a short-lived, shoddy professional football league to an autobiography he didn’t write to buildings he didn’t build to a mail-order meat business to beauty pageants to an airline that lasted three years to a sham “university” to a fragrance called Success to a vodka and a board game named after himself to a reality-TV show about pretending to fire people?” Is not that incisive? I mean I guess multibillionaires have to diversify but that is ridiculous!
I do appreciate Andersen’s final words – he attempts to find a solution to this pervasive problem. “What is to be done?” he questions. “We need to firmly commit to Moynihan’s aphorism about opinions versus fact. (Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.) We must call out the dangerously untrue and unreal. Anderson argues that we not give acquaintances and friends free passes. “If you have children or grandchildren teach them to distinguish between true and untrue as fiercely as you do between right and wrong and wise and foolish.”
And this, which is my mantra: “And fight the good fight in the public sphere.” That is what I do, small things like reminding a woman that throwing around her cigarette butts is not a good idea, reminding young girls that their ripped jeans were done by poor third world infants. I also, on more than one occasion, observed bosses treat their employees rudely at the Trump International Hotel. I remonstrated the boss in front of the employee and took it to a higher authority (who did nothing). I constantly use my Canadian manners, stand in the middle of the sidewalk rather than be run down by rude crowds, look young girls in the eye when their absorption with the telephones interfere with my safety. I am all over this. Then, of course, I have my outspoken blog. So there! So there! So there!
