10:33am Tuesday 22nd December 2009
RECESSION – what recession? Here in the City of London they are partying like the last days of the Roman Empire.
Perhaps that’s it, one final fling before the lights go out?
There is certainly an air of desperation about many City workers to be seen tumbling in and out of the old pubs in the Square Mile.
And there are some fine ancient pubs here: behind our church in St Michael’s Alley is the Jamaica Wine House, the building on which Charles Dickens based Ebenezer Scrooge’s counting house in A Christmas Carol.
Drinkers all over London have this quaint habit of supping their pints outside on the pavement. It’s not because of the smoking ban. They’ve done so for as long as I can remember.
The clubs are doing well, too: great long crocodile queues of pasty-faced revellers standing in the icy air in nothing more than jeans and open-neck shirts.
One of the local banks asked if I would put on a carol service for its staff. It was marvellously Christmassy as they entered into spirit, bringing mince pies and mulled wine to guzzle at the back of the church afterwards.
I asked one of the bosses what had persuaded him to hold a carol service. He said: “Well, the way things have been in the City this year, an office party would have smacked of conspicuous consumption. But no one could take exception to a carol service.”
He was wrong, though. Some institutions in the City do take exception to carol services.
I went into the banks with posters advertising our parish carols. Most were only too pleased to display these for me. But two or three places refused point blank. When asked for the reason, one replied: “If we did it for you, we’d have to do it for Muslims and Jews as well.” I said: “But Muslims and Jews don’t hold carol services.” But I knew what she meant – political-correctness gone mad.
I’m chaplain to six livery companies – the successors of the medieval trade guilds, now charitable institutions of tremendous generosity.
I’ve been to a few of their lunches and dinners in the run-up to Christmas. Very hospitable they were, too. But there’s an insane trend recently developed which threatens to destroy the convivial atmosphere.
Livery dinners used to be jolly affairs with a couple of humorous speeches after the loyal toast. But now they’ve got into the habit of wining and dining us sumptuously and then having some officer of the company – an accountant or management guru – stand up and give us a protracted report on finance or, the other night, “structural alterations within the organisation”. You couldn’t help noticing the well-fed and well-drunk guests’ eyes glazing over. Snoring breaking out.
The best party of the season is the Boar’s Head Feast at Cutlers’ Hall – a 700-year-old Christmas tradition based on a medieval legend about a scholar who was wandering in the woods reading a volume by the philosopher, Aristotle. A boar ran up and threatened to devour him. With great presence of mind, the scholar stuffed the Aristotle into the boar’s mouth and it choked to death.
That night, the scholar and his college friends roasted and ate the boar at a feast, carrying in its head with singing and making merry. The boar’s head at Cutlers’ was only an imitation, but the meat of the wild boar was real enough and delicious washed down with Cutlers' Claret.
Happy Christmas everyone.
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