Rob Wickings's Blog, page 41

High.

DATELINE: 8th July 2018

Shadow Mountain Lake, Great Lakes, CO.

The Trail Ridge Road is the highway that allows visitors into the Rocky Mountain National Park. Carved out of virgin land between 1928 and 1932, it is the highest continuous motorway in the United States, taking brave travelers on a twisting trail up to 12,200ft above sea level.

It’s not the M4, Readership.

Needless to say, Hawkeye was vibrating with the urge to try it. He is a true petrolhead, never happier than behind the wheel of a high-powered automobile. The White Buffalo has grunt to spare. She should be able to romp up those mountains with ease.

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We started gently. You kind of have to. The road has more twists than a Gillian Flynn novel, and can be as exhausting to navigate. Frequent stops are a must. There are a multitude of pull-ins and viewing platforms, and it’s difficult not to stop at every one and fill your camera with stunning vistas that will absolutely not do the real thing justice.

That won’t stop us trying, though.

Close to the start of the trail, the Holzwirth Historic Site is a collection of homesteads and huts that made up one of the first tourist destinations in the park. Abandoned since the late 70s, they’re still worth a look, and the easy half-mile walk from the road to the site can offer surprises. We spotted a moose and baby grazing quietly on the outskirts of the site. We kept our distance. A female moose is over six feet tall at the shoulder, weighs up to 1600 pounds and can come at you at 35mph if she thinks you’re a threat to her calf.

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We left the Historic Site behind, and rode the snake up into the mountains. The temperature began to drop. Gradually, we rose above the tree line, the spears of pines massed at the bases of the mountains now stabbing up at us rather than the gods in the blue Colorado sky.

At over 11,000 feet, the landscape changes. It becomes arctic tundra, a fragile ecosystem of lichens and tiny flowers. During the construction of the road immense care was taken to unsure that the delicate balance of life on the edge of a death-zone was preserved. Excavated rocks were carefully replaced lichen-side up, to give the minute yet desperately tenacious organisms clinging there every chance of survival.

Nothing else can live up at the top of the Trail Ridge Road. Scouring winds, little to no water and brutal extremes of temperature lock together to form a killer triptych of hostility to most forms of life. At Rock Cut, the highest stop-off, you’re at 12, 135 feet above sea level. A little over two miles high. And believe me, you feel it.

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It’s cold up there. Twenty degrees cooler than back down at the lakes, where we started. And the air is much, much thinner. We took a little walk from Rock Cut up the Alpine Communities Trail, a half-mile amble, much the same distance as the one we’d taken to see the homesteads at Holzwirth. It was like walking through treacle. My head was spinning, and it got harder and harder to catch my breath.

We didn’t quite make the top of the trail. We stopped at a ring of rocks on a high ridge, a rough church of dark stone. One last pause to catch our breath, at something over 12, 200ft, the highest I had ever been without the benefit of a hurtling winged death-tube.

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Then we called it quits. The skies were quickly clouding over, cloud-stacks taller than the mountains looming overhead, thick with rain. We stumbled down the hill, where The White Buffalo waited to bring us back down to earth.

Hawkeye wasn’t done. He wanted to spin back to one of the pull-ins and look for wildlife. Dude had a long lens with him, and he was busting to use it. Me, I was done. I was happy to stay put in our little shack by the Colorado River and cook up some ribs.

I also had another sort of trip in mind.

Back in Denver, we’d popped into River Run Cannabis, a modest little place in a strip mall two minutes from our Kalamath Avenue digs. A friendly and helpful young man answered all our questions and cheerfully sold us a selection of edibles to enjoy–gummies, fruit drops endorsed by Snoop Dogg and a tasty looking slab of white chocolate.

Recreational cannabis use is legal in Colorado, which had absolutely no bearing on our decision to visit the state, honest, guv. Legalization has brought a huge boost to income, and businesses are sprouting up everywhere. It seems like every town we’ve travelled through has a dispensary. Even sleepy, historic Georgetown had a place where we could drop in and pick up some CBD balm for Lady Red’s cricky neck (the excellently-named Sergeant Greenleaf). Although you still can’t buy with a credit card, every place we visited was smart and bright, and staff were almost evangelical in their eagerness to inform us.

More like this, please, and congratulations to Canada for seeing sense.

Meanwhile, back in the shack, with a huge rack of ribs mumbling into deliciousness in the oven and a bottle of God’s own nectar, AW Root Beer to hand, I popped a gummie. It tasted… awful. Synthetic, with a harsh, bitter edge. Chemical. Medicinal. There was no way of fooling myself that this was just a sweetie. I chewed, swallowed, and chased the dank aftertaste down with a swig of AW.

For the first half-hour, I was fine. Mellow, with a little hint of a buzz. I felt clean, focussed, happy. There was a Willie Nelson playlist pumping out on Spotify. This was good. This was working.

Fifteen minutes later, I tried standing up to tend to the ribs and found the process to be much more logistically challenging than normal. My brain was doing the backstroke in my skull, and I felt as if I was standing on the deck of a schooner at full sail in the teeth of a storm. I curled my toes to catch purchase on the rough jute carpet of the kitchen, and bit back a Bill-and-Ted-level ‘WOAH’.

Zero to zonked in under an hour. Impressive.

Did I keep it together? Readership, I did. I managed to cook dinner for five, engaged in reasonable conversation and kept the insane giggling fits down to an absolute minimum. Wrestling the slab of ribs out of the oven took more concentration than I’d normally expect, but it stayed off the floor, which was, under the circumstances, a pretty major achievement.

Sleep that night was punctuated with some very strange dreams. But I woke refreshed, and filled with a glow of enormous well-being and happiness.

More experimentation needed, obviously. And maybe sort out a Deliveroo next time.

(Addendum. Lady Red tried the treats on the evening before, and with her usual gung-ho attitude ate two sweets. A 20mg dose, four times the amount recommended for beginners.

Fun times.)

Road Apples or Travels With The White Buffalo

Dateline: 6th July 2018

En route from Denver to Great Lakes, Co.

I place the hat upon my head. It grips across my brow, sweet as the hand of a lover on the curve of the back of my skull. The brim is as wide as my palm. It is a warm cream in colour, made of finely woven straw, with Native American symbols scribed around the brim. It feels right from the moment I put it on. At home, it will always look faintly ridiculous. Here, it just seems to sum up the moment and the location.

‘Yes’, I say, standing at a mirror in Rosemount Western Gear, Wazee Street, Denver, probably in the same spot that Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan have stood when trying on clothing there. The place has reputation to spare. It could care less about this skinny, nervous Englishman in the cowboy hat.

‘Yes’, I say again, to no-one that’s listening. ‘Yes, this is the one’.

In Boulder, Colorado, we chose to have a drink at the roof bar of a sports bar on Pearl Street. As the waitress ran off with our orders, the heavens opened. We huddled under as much shelter as we could muster, watching the sports channels frizzing in and out as the rain came down like hammers and nails.

They were bringing the food orders out under umbrellas for a while, and not quite getting it right, rainwater dripping on the burgers. No-one seemed to be complaining–it was just such a relief to see rainfall when a Stage 2 fire ban had led to campfire embargoes across the state.

Ten minutes later, there was a flawless blue sky and thirty-degree sunshine again.

Route 119 dries up a little east of the Continental Divide. If you want to go any further west into the Roosevelt National Forest, your options are limited. Your best bet is to start hiking from the trailhead at Eldora. Frankly, all we wanted was something to eat.

Hawkeye had decided to take a punt on a road out of Boulder, just to see what would happen. He got more of a workout on his shoulders than anticipated, as Route 119 twisted up through the hills. We stopped at a rocky brook, where the canyon walls rose up stark and white on either side. Cold Colorado rain melt surged and bubbled around the scree.

‘I bet I can get across that,’ said Stretch, clearly stir crazy after the switchback ride through the canyon. He had that look on his face, stone cold serious with a mad twinkle in his blue eyes. We had to talk him down. ‘We’re not losing you to the Colorado River two days after your sixteenth birthday,’ Lady Red scolded. Stretch settled for moody posing on a sharp rock in the middle of the stream. Instagramtastic.

He totally could have made it, though. The kid’s a goddam grasshopper when he gets the mood in him.

But that was hours ago, and the sky was falling, and we were running out of battery power, any kind of usable GPS, and energy. The end of Route 119 at Pederland came as a blessing. A ragtag of shacks and repurposed trailers, with a very definite boho vibe–the sort of place to run to if you feel that Boulder is a little too mainstream. A couple of brewhouses, a smokerie, a Nitrogen Ice Cream Experience.

Screw that. There was a dinky Thai place on the edge of town, tucked alongside the roundabout. It didn’t look like much, a little tired and tatty on the outside. But inside it was clean, cozy and comfortable. And the food was on point–bright, sharp and fragrant. You could tweak the heat levels to your liking. We all steered away from Thai Hot. The green curry was the best I’ve eaten in a very long time.

Our server was brisk, precise and the absolute spitting image of young Sigourney Weaver. A little terse at first, but she warmed to Stretch, who is always courteous at table. ‘Young sir’ soon got special treatment. Sigourney gave us hiking tips for the area, and wished us well as we mounted up to wind back down the mountain in the deepening night.

We call her The White Buffalo. A GMC Yukon XL running on Utah plates. She’s a big-nosed, broad-shouldered heifer. Long in the beam, which has made parking in the Denver Metro area something of a task. But there’s room for all five of us, plus all our luggage, and she bears us around the state without a murmur of complaint. Most importantly, she has cup holders and charging points to spare.

She has the odd niggle. The brakes are mushy and vague. She struggles a bit going downhill, twitchy on the low gears on a 6% gradient. But then, aren’t we all. The quirks are what give The White Buffalo personality, and what makes us love her all the more.

Red Rocks, for me, was always seared into memory from the U2 concert screened as Under The Blood Red Sky. An epic setting for an extraordinary gig. Say what you like about U2, but there are moments where they are untouchable. Their Red Rocks gig was one of them, a pivotal moment in their path to global ubiquity.

The Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater is a must even if you’re not seeing a band there (and worryingly, the roster does skew heavily towards dreadful jam bands like Umphrey’s McGee these days, which somehow seems appropriate for a 420-friendly state like Colorado–if baseball is a game you can only enjoy while drunk, jam bands are an experience that only becomes bearable when thoroughly baked). Great swooping waves of crimson sandstone crash and boom across the landscape, and they all have names and personalities. Creation Rock. The Seat Of Pluto. The Cave Of The Seven Ladders. Mythic, mysterious, awe-inspiring. Going off-trail and trying to climb these vast structures is strongly discouraged. Lose your footing here, and you’re on a death-slide to Pancake City.

The Amphitheater is worth the climb. A natural bowl surrounded by curtains of stone. Behind Stage Rock, you can see the mesa marching away, back towards the towers of downtown Denver on the horizon. At the top of the bowl, it becomes a view from a classic Western.

On non-concert days, there’s always a bunch of ripped dudebros and perfect-toned princesses using the steps of the Amphitheater as a jungle gym slash yoga studio. You need to be pretty well beach-body ready to be doing this in public, though. Your average person flubbering up and down the steps would seriously put you off your lunch.

Before you hit the road again, the Colorado Music Hall Of Fame is worth a look, although fame is a questionable quantity if you’re not famous outside Colorado. Flash Cadillac, anyone? John Denver gets a room to himself, naturally, and I found myself strangely moved. You might call him bland and twee, but there’s a heartfelt honesty and positivity to his music that makes me smile. Somehow, it speaks volumes as the White Buffalo guides us onto country roads.

Georgetown is one of those small towns that adapted to changing circumstance by using its history as a commercial resource. Downtown is a cheerful slumgullion of old clapboard buildings and Italianate hotels, all offering tours and shopportunities. Squeezed between I-70 and the mountains, it’s very much a place to pass through, have a snack or an ice-cream, enjoy the scenery and move on. You can, if you want, take a steam-train ride through the heavily wooded hills, which will take an hour out of your day. Can’t say I felt the urge. But by then we had been burning black-top for hours.

I sound like I have a downer on Georgetown, and that’s a misrepresentation on my part. It’s open, welcoming and friendly (a little too friendly, as the gentleman from the local arts society kept TLC and Lady Red in his gallery for a good twenty minutes yakkin’ away while they both became increasingly desperate for a pee). The outskirts are a little tatty, but give a truer picture of a community making the most of what’s around. Mining may be a spent force, but there’s a ready stream of money surging past on the highway.

Route 40, up through the Berthould Falls, road like a snake twisting up through the green walls of stacked pine to either side. To one side, Mount Eva, Mount Flora, James Peak rolling off below us. To the other, Stanley Mountain, and you have to crane your neck to catch the top of the tree line. The pines stab up into the sky, an army of armies, jabbing massed spears at the clouds. We’re at 8,500 ft above sea level. It’s not just the altitude that’s taking our breath away.

And finally, we hit the lakes. A very different feel to the urban niceties of Denver. A low, warm, woody shack with the Colorado River running just past the back porch. Yes, we have a back porch. Our host gave friendly but not-to-be-ignored warnings. ‘A bear hit our dumpster last night, and the moose are pretty nosy right now. Just pay attention and don’t leave any food outside, and you’ll be awesome!’

And to be fair, we are. Writing in the sunshine, surrounded by greenery under blue skies? This is a feeling that can’t easily be beaten.

Me and Stretch and Hawkeye and Lady Red and TLC. Spittin’ the pips from our road apples all the way from Denver to Shadow Mountain Lake.

Fire In The Sky

DATELINE: July 4th, 2018

The rooftop terrace of 856 Kalamath Street, Denver, CO

At 9pm, the sky lit up. As if on cue, across the city blooms of red and green and blue and white popped to life, bursting out of seed heads that sent up smoke trails across a dry-scumbled horizon line. From the big displays at Mile High Stadium and Coor’s Field, to the backyard Independence Day family cookouts, millions of dollars was literally going up in flames.

We were on the roof. One of the true bonuses of our clean white space at Kalamath Street is the roof terrace. Lady Red* has been up there most mornings, mindfully greeting the sunrise. Now, though, it offered us the best view of the conflagration around us.

And it was everywhere. We kept spinning around, giddy as kids as another burst of ordnance cooked off behind or to the side of us. We were not alone. The roofs around us were packed with revelers. One enterprising group had a projector and speaker system set up. They were taking requests, but really no-one could top the bounce and holler of Katy Perry’s ‘Fireworks’.

The air was thick with the heady scent of marijuana and spent gunpowder.

At 9:45 sirens blared and a line of fire trucks zoomed past, all lights blazing. Inevitable, sure, and I raised my bottle to the Denver Fire Department. A tough season for them, with little rain (the deluge that kept us for one more beer at Renegade on Monday night must have been a blessing) and the whole state one spark away from going off like… well, like a firework. In the south of Colorado, one single wildfire has been going without pause since the first of June, and at last estimate was 37% contained. I wondered, just for a moment, about the notion of freedom. You can celebrate Independence Day as you please. That does not free you from the consequences of your actions if a rocket you set off triggers a fire that takes heavy manpower and resources to quiet.

I nodded to myself at my sagacity, then whooped and took another swig from my bottle of Colorado Nation lager as a particularly big starburst bloomed overhead.

Our artificial fire paled against the real deal. Over from the west, a giant storm front rolled in, stately and deadly as an aircraft carrier. Miles high, purple and black (the colour of the Colorado Rockies baseball team, appropriately) and full of lightning. Sheets of electric flame rippled through it, whiting out the dirty scrubs of cloud to momentary negative. From time to time, forks of lightning would flash up, precisely drawn, sharp and deadly as arrow points. I refused to pull out a camera. Why be behind a screen when all this was there to be marveled at?

One last bolt lanced across the sky, white and pure as daylight, and the thunderhead cruised away, unaware or at least unmoved by the scurrying ants below.

*I promise, I’ll introduce the band soon.

Freedom, Independence etc.

Two days in America, when it is at it’s most America. Let freedom ring, or something.

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A small detail of the decorations in our Kalamath St. Residence.

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‘You can give peace a chance. I’ll cover you if that doesn’t work out.’

Texas plates, natch.

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The next few were taken on a stroll down Santa Fe Avenue. Details of street art.

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Detail of the art outside Chuey Fu, Denver’s leading Lanitx/Asian joint. Try the char sui burrito. Thank me later.

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Celebratory fireworks at Civic Centre Park, Independence Eve, approximately 9:50 pm, at which point we had been in position for three hours and 20 minutes. Not entirely convinced the wait was worth it, although there was a great deal of kaboom packed into ten minutes.

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Denver Botanical Gardens, earlier that day. Pixel art by Mike Whiting, which worked rather nicely in the space. The Gardens are lovely, by the way. Very heavily recommended.

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4th of July parade, the Park Valley community, East 23rd St. It was hot. Damn hot. A lot of the floats were firing full-spec water ordnance delivery systems into the crowd. We were grateful. Worth checking out Cake and Crumbs Cafe on Kearney St.

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Spotted these fine gentlemen at Union Station, who seemed to be enjoying their Fourth Of July in high style. Cheers to them, and to you all.

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American Excess

DATELINE: 2nd July 2018

Kalamath Avenue, Denver, CO

Down and safe. A day in transit finally sees us delivered in to a clean white space in Lincoln Park, an artsy Latino corner of Denver. Lots of exposed wood, a big open-plan kitchen, bright light and airy. Perfect. We had just enough left in us to grab frozen pizza from a nearby 7-11 (the sales clerk clocked the accents and told us about his relatives in Southall—it’s a small world after all). As I got ready to faceplant a pillow, the alarm on my Fitbit vibrated. 5:30 in England. Time to get up for work. Half a world away. I tapped the alarm to silence with a smile, and let sleep take me.

Day One of any holiday is always a slow start, a bit of a fumble around. You need to fetch supplies, figure out how the appliances in the rental work, coo with glee at the vast expanse of the American fridge.

Which means of course, one thing. The perfect excuse. Road trip to Walmart.

The church of American excess is always a pleasure and a joy. I find myself grinning like a kid, running around cackling at the sheer muchness of it all. How can anyone need this much peanut butter? That container of cheese balls is bigger than my head. The meat section verges on the pornographic. The one thing that calms us from filling a trolley is the knowledge that we’re only in Denver till Friday. Does this stop us from buying a slab of red-white-and blue sprinkled marshmallow Rice Krispie squares?

No, Readership. It does not.

[image error]Mission accomplished.

Denver is a big place, metaphorically and geographically. A widespread, low-slung, slow-talking kinda place. Off to the West, the Rockies are scribbled across the sky, a real-life Bob Ross painting. We rode around for a while, just soaking up the atmosphere, cheerfully shouting out brand names that are more punchlines than anywhere you’d want to eat. Arby’s! Applebee’s! Taco Bell! IHOP!

Ah, the International House Of Pancakes. It has a special place in our hearts. We know that we will never clear our plates when the food we order arrives. It’s easy to forget that the standard unit of edible at an IHOP is the circumference of a 10” vinyl EP, as thick as a novel and contains enough calories to sustain a man for a day. You cannot get less than three IHOP pancakes. Of course, you could always try the entrees or, gods forbid, one of their new range of burgers (I’ll make an exception for the Patty Melt, which is a good old fashioned burger sandwich and therefore a taste of my childhood). But really, a trip to the House is about filling up cheaply, indulging in a mild sense of self-loathing and coming back again the following week.

But it did mean we ate in an approved manner—main meal before 6. Trust me, if you IHOP mid-afternoon, you will not need an evening meal.

We were freed up to spend the evening at one of Denver’s finest craft breweries. The finest, according to local scuttlebutt. By the purest of dumb luck that comes from an abrupt cancellation and scramble to find fresh accommodation two weeks before we loaded into our winged death-tube, means that we are a 90 second walk away from the Renegade Brewing Company.

Imagine a BrewDog without the aggressive expansion plans and whiff of corporate desperation. Imagine a place that gets how a front-facing brewery should be, shonky plaster finish and all, without it seeming forced. There’s money behind Renegade, and the branding is on point. But the beer and service are outstanding. And you never feel anything but looked after. The thing that did it for me? They don’t really do food. Like the Allied in Reading, they’re happy for you to bring your own in. There’s an opening for this. Whatever the opposite of corkage is in restaurants.

Yes, ok, we used a convenient thunderstorm that rolled up from over the hillside as an excuse for one more beer. ‘Oh no, it’s raining out there, guess we’d better stick around to see if it calms down.’ It did not, but the ninety second walk back to the rental through a deluge of warm rain was surprisingly refreshing.

Day One, chores completed. Now we can really start to have some fun.

Hurtling Winged Death-Tube

DATELINE : July 1st, 2018.

East of Godthab, Greenland, 33000ft above sea level

If God had meant us to fly, she would have come up with a better way to do it than this. Strapped into hurtling winged death-tubes, at altitudes, temperatures and speeds that would strip the frozen meat from our bones as efficiently as the contents of a KFC Bargain Bucket flung into a wind tunnel.

This is not a place for any half-sentient being to be. The noise is a dull, head-swelling drone, with enough of a high-frequency whistle in it to park all your fillings at attention. The air turns your mouth into a gummy salt lick, and your eyes into hot marbles.

Worst of all, the only beer on offer is Heineken or fucking Amstel Light.

Where’s the goddamn teleportation device, the bi-location gate, the personal Jetpack? We’re sneaking up on the third decade of the 21st century, furfuxache. Shouldn’t there be suspended animation or a timed-dose sleeping pill, at least?

Yeah, I don’t fly well. Whoever the numbskull was who said that it is better to travel than arrive needs a boot upside the head. I’m cramped, wired, twitchy and twingeing. Nerve endings raw, tendons like banjo strings.

But this is the sacrifice. Adventure, irritating and inconvenient as it is, requires that you do need to actually go somewhere, even though Ray Bradbury faithfully promised in his short stories that you could do it from the comfort of your living room. Although apparently Saint Ray of the Burning Books has been outed as a honking great racist now, so who the fuck knows what to think.

Adventure, then. As in an actual trip between two actual continents at 500 miles an hour, in a pressurized doom-rocket with badly cropped versions of recent box-office flops running on a tiny screen six inches from your nose.

The quality of the entertainment on board is so poor that I have been forced to the most desperate of measures.

Writing about the journey.

Here’s the hustle. We’re undertaking a revised edition of the Great American Road Trip—a loop round Colorado that will give us all the flavour of the state with a significant reduction in the amount of time spent in cars, staring unblinking at the unending road lancing away to an unchanging horizon. Keep that Vanishing Point crapola for Antonioni. Me, I’m all about getting there, cracking a bottle and hitting the hot tub.

It doesn’t mean we won’t be spending time on the black-top. This is Colorado in four base-camps. Denver, the Mile High City, over the patriotic lunacy of Independence Day. Palisades, within reach of The Rocky Mountains and the Colorado National Monument, the backdrop to a thousand horse operas. The lakes and vistas of Grand Junction. Finally Pagosa Springs in the south, within spitting distance of New Mexico, homelands of the Ute tribe.

This game has been in play for a very long time. Eighteen months and change from the initial idea to the booking of the flights and the long slow process of getting five people to agree on venues, apartments and days out.

Will it be worth it? For me, no hesitation, the answer is hecks yes. We get to be cowboys. We get to be aeronauts of a more civilized age. We get to celebrate the sixteenth birthday of a beloved one while crazy Yanks set the sky on fire.

And we get to see America, for the first time in over a decade. How much has it changed now there’s a power-crazed orangutan in the White House? I know you can never compare the image of a place, especially through the ever-skewed bias of news networks and the inter-web infoblurt, to what’s on the ground. I’m interested in the differences.

Jeez, yeah, I know this is a holiday. I’m not about to turn it into an epic screed on The American Soul Witnessed And Dissected By Some Uppity Limey. But, come on, you have to keep your eyes open. Also, this is Colofuckinrado, home state of the good Doctor Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson. You don’t set foot on this ground without feeling a certain vibration. If you’re smart, you’ll let it rattle your bones for a while.

All of which is based on a hopeful assumption that I survive the next six hours in a screaming hell-projectile where the temperature on the other side of my window is a balmy -40 degrees centigrade, enough to turn you into a meatsicle before you can say ‘hey, it’s a bit parky out he…’

Adventures ahead, then. Just get me off this goddamn plane.

Sunday Kitchen

The plan was to get some art in us. A drive out into the country, to enjoy sculpture and installations in the grounds of a beautiful old country house in the Oxfordshire countryside.

The Vibemobile had other ideas. Normally she’s a joy to drive—speedy, agile, comfortable, above all reliable. But earlier in the week she over-heated and threw up an un-nerving engine management light, refusing to run above 20mph without shuddering. Double-plus ungood. I booked her in to see the car doctor, but we faced a sad fact. No car, therefore no car ride out into the country.

Oh well. A quiet Sunday at home, then. Or an opportunity to noodle around in the kitchen. Which, as any smart cookie will realise, is a grand way to get your dinner game in place ahead of the week looming up on the horizon. If you’re like me, it’s also a rather good chance to clear out the food in the fridge that will turn into unsavable sludge if I don’t act fast. Buying food and then throwing it away uneaten is a cardinal sin, and one that’s easily avoided.

The salad and veg drawer in my fridge is a place where terrors lurk. Today, I faced carrot fear. A significant portion of the bagful I’d bought last week were halfway to primordial ooze, liquefying from the inside out. I issued a curse to the vegetable gods, binned the rotting half, and quickly diced the remains. Bagged and in the freezer, they’d last long enough to add to a mirepoix or for a quick and easy carrot soup.

Readership, do not discount frozen veggies. They are, in many cases, preferable to fresh—particularly if the freshies just get ignored in the bottom of the fridge. Food heroes of mine like Jack Monroe and Nigel Slater are advocates of the humble bag of Bird’s Eye peas or sweet corn. My sister-from-another-mister Sandi takes it further—she buys fresh, chops and freezes her veg. If you’re a busy beaver during the week, an hour or so at the weekend with a knife (or if you’re really time-poor and not too anal about the appearance of your soffrito, two pulses in a food processor) can save you all the time you need come dinner time.

I thought about the whole veg-prep thing, and considered that while chop-and-freeze is a valid time-saver, I might as well take the process a little further. I sliced up the saddest looking of my onions, and threw them into the Instant Pot (I need to talk about the transformative effects of the electronic pressure cooker on my kitchen life, but that’s for another time) along with the sad remnants of last night’s bottle of wine, a knob of butter, a glug of balsamic, salt and pepper. A 30 minute cycle, and this unpromising array of leftovers had transformed into a sticky-sweet-sour dollop of deliciousness I could use as the basis for a sauce, over a quick dough base for a take on pissaladière, over sausages… you name it. Not bad for five minutes of attended work.

I was on a roll now, but it was lunchtime. In a shocking move, I’d bought squidgy white bread from the garage the day before. Normally I’m against this sort of thing, but laziness trumped my best bread-making impulses. Besides, I fancied dirty sausage sandwiches.

Another refugee in the fridge was a pack of vac-packed frankfurters from Aldi, one of those impulse buys you can’t really explain to other people or yourself after the fact. I realised, when faced with squidgy white bread and mechanically formed sausage-style product, that I had subconsciously guided myself towards a recipe I’d spotted on the foodie-web the previous week. It’s deliciously evil.

Take your bread, two per person for a light lunch. Decrust, butter and spread on a dollop of ketchup or mustard or both. Add a sausage, and roll up, squishing the package shut. Slap on some egg-wash, place the roll-ups on greased foil and bake in a hot oven until crisp. Probably ten to fifteen minutes should cover it.

Dirty, dirty sausage sandwiches. If you really want to filth it up, slap on a slice of plastic cheese before you roll up the bread.

For god’s sake, have a salad alongside.

The oven was still on. It seemed wasteful to switch off. I was on a roll. I was having too much fun to stop now. I was looking at the most humble of leftovers with fresh eyes. The rubble on my worktop from lunch had potential. White bread crusts and a bit of beaten egg. Add one to the other. Douse in the last scrapings of the rind of parmesan in my sad-looking cheese tray in the fridge (you may detect a theme coming up when it comes to my neglectful curatorship of the interior of our trusty Liebherr). Bake for twenty minutes until crisp.

HAH. Posh breadsticks. They’re snappy and a bit dense in the middle. Never throw away bread, Readership. There’s always crumbs to whizz up. There’s always croutons. You can always make something out of nearly nothing.

And of course, the oven was still on, and I had courgettes and peppers in the fridge that wouldn’t last the week. Sliced, tossed in oil (Morrisons do an amazing garlic-infused rapeseed oil in the world food section that is dirt cheap and incredibly useful for traybakes), salt, pepper and dried herbs. Or fresh if you’ve got ’em. I started the veg at the same time as the breadsticks, gave them a stir once the sticks came out, and gave everything another twenty. The courgettes and peppers had caught in places, were still soft in others, and had become fragrant, sweet and moreish. Stirred through pasta (perhaps with some of the sweet onions I made earlier) or at room-temperature alongside some fish or chicken, they’re a seriously good standby.

The oven was still hot. The fridge has been restored to sanity, but I wasn’t done yet. There was a butternut squash in the store cupboard that had been waiting patiently for months. Time to let it shine.

I love squash. It’s super-forgiving. You don’t even have to peel it. Top and tail, quarter it lengthwise, then deseed it with a spoon. I put it back into the sheet-pan that the courgettes and peppers had cooked it (still hot, still seasoned with roasted flavour) dashed over a little more rapeseed oil, salt and pepper, then roasted for an hour. I can make a soup, perhaps with some of the carrots and onions from earlier. Maybe as part of a mash topping for a fish pie. Just alongside something porky. As part of a curry with some chickpeas. Possibilities abound. Dinner time has got that bit easier this week.

I think the Vibemobile might have done me a favour.

Chicken Two Ways: Soho, Memory and That Whole Proust Thing

I turned my back on Soho in October 2016, twenty-seven and a half years after I first walked through the door of TVP in Golden Square. I started as a runner, one of those fresh-faced types that would grab coffee, fetch lunches and ferry videotapes around. There–videotapes. Shows you how long ago it was. That first job is still in my bones. On the rare occasions when I slide back into the map of those streets (something I try not to do very often–memories have teeth and I am full of the scars they have inflicted) I navigate by the pubs, shops and restaurants that were the essential network of my working day. Flitting, frictionless and slippery as an eel through the tributaries, eyeblink-quick, in and out of the bars and brasseries with duplicate receipts that would help bolster the Monopoly money that constituted my pay packet. I could almost do it with my eyes closed. Sometimes, at four in the morning, running out for a packet of fags for a client on a crunch deadline, I probably did.

I still remember the order that a longstanding TVP client would insist was waiting for them in the edit suite before they arrived. A bottle of fizz. Two six packs of Budweiser. A six pack of cokes. A bottle of Captain Morgan. A bucket of ice. The fuel by which TV adverts are finished.

Once the booze was cracked, I’d be back in with the menus, praying for an easy order. If I was really lucky, everyone would order from the same place. If not, perhaps they’d at least keep it local, to Beak Street–the Andrea Doria for Italian, the Gallery Rendezvous for Chinese, maybe the Soho Pizzeria on the corner of the Square itself. More often, my luck would be out. I’d be ordering from four different places, still expected to have everything served together and hot and bloody toot sweet, sunshine.

The Soho I walked into in the spring of 1991 was not the Soho I left twenty-seven and a half years later. I was not the same Rob Wickings, of course. Married, a veteran of a spate of redundancies, battle-scarred, rheum of eye, knotty of joint. Eel-quick no more, and the dirty water I navigated so easily was both cleaner and more difficult to see through.

Most of my landmarks and waypoints have gone, you see. I’m half-blind if I walk through Soho now. The Andrea Doria is a coffee shop. The Gallery Rendezvous, a wine cafe. Soho Pizzeria, where I used to take TLC when we worked close enough to meet for romantic dinners, a little light jazz and a bottle of wine? A fucking Byron. TVP is long gone too, a faceless office space. Crossrail and gentrification has rubbed a rough dishcloth over Soho’s grubby face, cleaning it up and wiping the smile off its face.

Yeah, yeah. Poor old man. Can’t wrap your arms around a memory, right? You left, and you won’t go back, so what’s the big deal? You’re right. I shouldn’t get moony-eyed over a place I actively hated for the last decade in which I stalked its corners. But you don’t leave all that behind so easily.

It’s chicken that gets me thinking about Soho. More specifically, it’s a pair of dishes that were lunch regulars. You can still get one if you know where to look. The other is long gone. Both, if I see them on a menu, will instantly be considered as a contender. Both will not live up to expectations. But that’s what memory will do for you. It over-salts everything.

The Denman Street entrance to the Ham Yard Hotel complex is just an archway now, with a couple of retail units (you can’t really call them shops, they’re facades with products and a till in them) on either side. That plot used to house my very favourite place for lunch in all of Soho, and to be honest, the country.

The New Piccadilly Restaurant was an Anglo-Italian joint, a warm, jolly and utterly unpretentious place that would feed and water you for prices that would be unthinkable in today’s Soho. It was a refuge, a place where you could restore a sense of balance and sanity over a plate of food shared with friends. I loved it so much, it made a cameo appearance in a book that, to my shame, remains unfinished. Indulge me, because I’m about to offload an extract on you. Say hello to Inigo Jones, main character of The Prisoner Of Soho, as he finds a place to hole up after a savage beating…

Inigo was a creature of habit, and sensitive to territory. He had been born and raised in Soho, in a walk-up overlooking Berwick Street Market. The tiny block of Central London streets bounded on one side by Regent Street, and on the other by Shaftesbury Avenue, were all he knew and all he cared to know. He got nervous if he had to cross Oxford Street. The very prospect of a neighbourhood calling itself Noho filled him with horror. It would be like home territory only… different, somehow. The innate wrongness of this idea would be enough to keep him up at night.

It was an exquisite torture, then, that Inigo’s favourite cafe was on the very border of his self-imposed comfort zone. The New Piccadilly on Denman Street was, arguably, outside this zone. His friends took great pleasure in pointing this out to him.

“Too close to Dick and Pilly Circus, In,” they’d crow. “No such thing as a buffer zone. It’s over the border. You shouldn’t be there.”

Inigo was unrepentant. It was the one point regarding geography at which he would be prepared to loosen up.

“The point is,” he’d argue, “that there are a lot of places in the absolute heart of the territory that could have come from anywhere. Multinational coffee shops, franchise restaurants, you can find ‘em everywhere, and they’ll always be the same. The New Pick…”

He’d always pause at this point, and allow a beatific smile to slide over his fine-boned features. This was always the moment that his pals would regret bringing up the subject. There was always a rhapsodic soliloquy coming up behind that smile.

“The New Pick is the heart of Soho. It’s been there since whenever, it’s survived however many attempts at closure and takeovers. Unchanged. Uncompromised. It’s the pulse of our streets, ladies. The beat of the drum that keeps us marching. If there was a way of redrawing the map, of moving the place lock stock and big pink Astra espresso machine and dumping it onto Wardour Street, I’d do it in an instant. But I can’t, and it doesn’t matter. Because, my friends, the New Piccadilly is not in Soho.”

“Soho is in the New Piccadilly.”

He clanged the door open to the comforting fug of steam and frying smells. Every surface was in a warm colour, custard yellow on the walls, lemon on the formica tops of the tables, a deep crimson on the seat backs, age-darkened mahogony on the floors. Every vertical surface was encrusted with posters to West End shows, however small, however fleeting their moment on the stage. The more esoteric the better, it seemed. The place had not been properly redecorated since it had first opened its doors in 1951.

The formica, the light fittings that looked like the motors from the Saturn V rocket, even the menu mounted on a piece of horseshoe-shaped chipboard, all of it was from a different, more glamourous age. There were two banks of booths, leading back to the more secretive seating area at the back. Inigo’s preferred spot, even though it was closer to the bogs. Today, precisely because it was closer to the bogs.

Inigo nodded a wink to the avuncular white-haired gent in white shirt and burgundy cravat holding court behind the counter. “Ciao, Lorenzo,” he husked. Lorenzo nodded back and without another word moved over to the giant pink espresso machine on the corner of the bar. On the front, the legend W PICCADILLY was picked out in gold letters. He’d never seen the point in getting it fixed. The important part of the Astra was what went on under the bonnet.

And so on. Lorenzo, in case you’re wondering, was the owner of the New Pick, Lorenzo Morioni, and I only wish I knew him as well as Inigo does in Prisoner. Look, if you can’t wish-fulfil in your own unpublished novel, when can you?

Lunch would always be the same, no matter how much I’d hum and erm and wrinkle my nose. It was almost a running joke. Of course I would have the Pollo alla Milanese. What else could I do? Nothing else would ever come close.

What’s the big deal? You can get chicken Milanese just about everywhere. Any Italian joint will, at some point, stick a breaded escalope on the menu and have done with it. I’ve had plenty in my time and they are all, without exception, disappointments. They do not hit the spot in the same brutally laser-guided fashion that the New Pick’s PaM did.

Picture this. A huge oval plate is plonked in front of you. The main feature is a pounded escalope the length of my boot-sole (I take a size 10, 43 EU sizing), thickly breaded and still sizzling from the deep fryer. Alongside that, a generous swirl of spaghetti dosed with the most Heinz-Cream-Of-Tomato-flavoured red sauce you’ll ever get. Alongside that, a side of chips. And a wedge of lemon. It was the most absurdly generous carb-bomb you could get, the chicken still juicy, the chips (NOT fries) clearly done to order with the escalope, the pasta al dente, the sauce almost like ketchup bringing everything together.

My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I used to have a strawberry milkshake to chase the food down. Post-lunch would frequently pass in a semi-comatose blur.

I know. I am a monster of horrifying and unsatisfiable appetite.

Sadly, Inigo’s prediction as to the invulnerability of the New Piccadilly proved all too false, and it closed at the end of 2007. I took lunch there a couple of days before Lorenzo shut up shop for good. It was almost unbearably poignant, a sense of ending only sharpened by the fact that the food was prepared with the same sense of care and generosity as ever. For me, the closure of the New Pick was the first sign of Soho, my Soho slipping away from under my size 10s. I knew I’d never eat that meal again, and nothing I would do would ever come close. Believe me, I’ve tried. But then, how could I succeed? Chicken Milanese at the New Pick was as much about the surroundings and the people as the food. Memory is a most troublesome seasoning.

Anyway. Onwards to a meal that you can, at least for now, try for yourself.

Shelley’s Cafe on Dean Street is a favourite of many Soho office workers, who will still queue cheerfully for wraps and salads. A merger with another business next door, Make Mine, meant much of the Japanese grub that made Shelley’s distinctive was shunted off menu. But you can still get the chicken Katsu curry from a counter at the back. And believe me, you really really should.

What’s the big deal? You can get katsu absolutely everywhere. Itsu do it as a soup, ferfuxache. It’s one of those items that transcends cultural boundaries. Breaded chicken with a curry gravy. So what?

Here’s what. Order a large (because you need the full experience) and snag a seat in the tiny seating area at the back of the cafe. You’ll get a clamshell foam dish capped with a Panko-crusted escalope as big as my slipper (UK10, EU43) cut on the bias into easily-forkable slices. Underneath, a dense slab of rice. So far, so ho hum.

It’s the curry that does it. This is not a curry sauce. It’s a meal in itself. Classic Japanese curry flavours mixed into chunks of potato, carrot and yet more chicken. Sloppy enough to dip and scoop, thick enough to hold its own against the meat. It’s an extraordinarily balanced, rich and hearty main course that frequently dropped me into an afternoon dream-state. Utter, utter bliss. Against this, all other katsu currys feel like half a meal. I’d sometimes have them three times in a week.

Like I said before, monster, appetite, etc.

There’s something about the simple presentation of the Shelley’s katsu that makes it. Opening up the styrofoam to be presented with that slab of protein, moments before the fragrant steam hits you and oh god my mouth is watering again. Like the New Pick’s escalope, chips and spaghetti, it’s not pretty. But by all the gods in whatever shrine you choose to light your candle, Shelley’s katsu curry does the job.

Two meals, then, both alike in many ways. Both memorials to a past life. Both points on a compass towards the man I was, and the man I am now. Both ring my bell like Quasimodo whenever I see them on a menu. I am a simple man of hideous and unredeemable appetite and I know what I like.

It’s possible Soho made me that way.

I’ll never stop looking for Pollo Milanese done the New Pick way. As for Shelley’s–well, that one I can at least come close to in a home setting, although TLC does insist on eating off a plate rather than out of a clamshell. It’s a quest with no real ending, but a whole ton of delicious stops along the way. Proust had his biscuits, Joyce his kidneys. Me? I have breaded chicken, two ways. Simple as that.

But then, there is the vexed question of the Meat Box from Palms Of Goa on Meard Street (now an Honest Burger). Which is a whole other story.

For more on the New Pick, take a look at the Classic Cafes page dedicated to it.

Shelley’s can be found at 87 Dean Street in Soho. Here’s a recent review, courtesy of Kiwi food blogger Donut Sam.

Gods And Monsters: Faith and The Last Jedi

Spoilers there are, yes.

‘Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.’ Han Solo may have been no believer in the ways of The Force when he’s introduced to us a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Over the course of his life, he becomes, if not a convert, at least prepared to believe that there is more in the universe than the things that he can touch and see.

But Han’s initial blunt denial of Luke Skywalker’s sudden and enthusiastic acceptance of religion stands against one of the pillars of the Star Wars universe. Faith in the Force in one form or another is vital to everything that happens across the vast, extended galaxy of stories in which Han, his friends and enemies appear.

The latest episode, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, brings that notion of faith into strong focus. In this writer’s ‘umble opinion, this makes it the most interesting in the new spate of Star Wars movies. Not just because of the story, but due to the reaction of those of us on the other side of the screen to it.

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Let’s begin with an essential truth. The Star Wars stories are triggered by the conflict between two religious factions, the Jedi and The Sith. Notice, I don’t say two religions. Both sides believe in the same key points–that there is a Force that binds all living things together, which can be used either as a weapon or a tool. The difference is in interpretation. How you choose to use The Force. Right away, although we are long ago and far away, the struggle for supremacy of a point of view is no different to the one we’ve seen over the centuries between factions as historically opposed as Catholics and Protestants, or Sunni and Shia Muslims.

With that in mind, there’s another question to consider–is there a correct interpretation of the way of The Force? Yes, I know, we’re told that the Sith are evil and the Jedi are good. But, as the story has expanded, this simple black and white picture has become less clear. The Jedi are as capable of evil acts as the Sith. They are happy to use military ends to ensure their dominance (with the inevitable collateral damage), and while claiming to respect the rule of law are happy to act like gunslingers while taking care of their business. There’s no real Jedi code, more a set of guidelines. And that’s before we talk about the highly dodgy manipulation of those ‘weak-willed’ individuals that constitute the Jedi Mind rape Trick. Or the fact that they cheerfully drove the Sith to the edge of extinction in actions that look a hella lot genocidal. (There’s much more on the dark side of the Jedi here.)

One thing on which both sides agree–there has to be balance to The Force. Neither side can exist without the other. Which means, of course, that the age-old battle can never end. There can be no final victory, no crushing defeat. Just war, forever.

Notions of blind faith have gradually been eroded as the Star Wars Universe has expanded. Balance can be viewed as the realization that there is good and bad in everyone, and that Sith are as capable of good as Jedi are of evil. Believing without question in the tenets of the Dark or Light Side of The Force can have awful consequences. None of this is new to fans of the animated universe, of course. The Clone Wars and Rebels have explored the morality –or lack of it– of the Jedi for years.

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But it’s Rian Johnson’s embrace of this concept that has made The Last Jedi such a fascinating prospect for me. The path has become unclear for the major Force users in the film. Kylo Ren and Luke suffer from crises of faith that lead them to the same conclusion–it’s time to burn it all down and start again. Frankly, it’s unsurprising that an old warhorse like Luke would be sick of the whole thing. For Kylo, betrayed again and again by a series of flawed masters, the urge to break the mound is utterly understandable. Even Rey falters when faced with the uncomfortable truth that Kylo is not just a monster.

There’s more to it than that, though. The intention at the heart of The Last Jedi seems clear to me. Rian Johnson is clearing out all the old baggage, to open up the pathways to a new, fresh set of stories that are less beholden to entrenched history (sure, I’ll grant you that there’s still a lot of Empire Strikes Back in TLJ, but it’s much less of a Greatest Hits than either The Force Awakens or Rogue One). At the end of the film the Resistance is pretty much gone. The First Order has lost its old power structure with the death of the Palpatine-esque Snoke, and is now led by an unpredictable figure with no interest in the old ways. We’re moving into a third film that has no Luke, no Han, and tragically no Leia. Things all look incredibly… unbalanced.

And herein lies the most interesting part of all. Johnson’s film has become the subject of a vicious backlash, as some fans have reacted with shock at the bold changes made by the film. The appearance of petitions demanding significant re-edits or the removal of canon status to the film have fascinated me. The insistence that TLJ be struck from true Star Wars history from these fans could be viewed as nothing less than an accusation of heresy on Johnson’s part. Their faith has been insulted, and they demand restitution.

Sticky subject, this. Of course, there are people out there who identify as Jedi on census forms. How much of an joke is that? How ironically or not do they wear the robes?

Let’s put it another way. How closely can we conflate Star Wars fandom –hell, any fandom– to a kind of faith? There are those who have found community, friendship and even love in the gathering of like-minded people. At the same time, there are self-appointed gatekeepers who insist that there is one way and one way only. This has only got more complex as the universes in question have expanded. There’s surprisingly little common ground between the generation that grew up with the original trilogy and those who still prefer the animated series or prequels. Same core text, different interpretations. This is not confined to Star Wars, of course. I mean, you can offer the same argument to Harry Potter, anime or sports fans of every stripe. It’s just easier to see the parallels with SW which has such a potent religious allegory right at the heart of it.

And here’s where, I think, part of the strong reaction against TLJ comes from. Commentary about the way Luke effectively abandons the Jedi focusses strongly on the notion that ‘he wouldn’t act like that’ or, more extraordinarily, that his actions are somehow an assault on core principals of heroism or masculinity. That’s an argument that, while fascinating, is not one I wish to address in this post. It’s clear, though, that these commentators have faith in Luke, and the notion of him as a character that would walk away from everything he stood for attacks that faith.

Bear with me. I’m moving into a broader interpretation of the word faith here, one that has a certain validity when we talk about fiction, especially the big franchises. Part of the enjoyment of Harry Potter or Star Trek or WWE is being able to identify with and empathize with our favorite characters. We have faith that they will behave in a certain way. Harry will not join forces with Voldemort. Kirk will always make a pass at the girl with the antennae. This is why we fans get so annoyed when our heroes and heroines act ‘out of character.’ Our faith in them is wounded.

But in the case of old Skywalker, there’s another element to consider. The Luke of TLJ is not the farm boy we met gazing out at the twin sunset of Tattooine. That was forty years ago. None of us are the same person at 60 as they were at 20. It’s nonsense to assume otherwise. Faith in your favorite characters is one thing. Refusing to accept that they could change or grow is something else, particularly when you take the quickest of looks at Luke’s dad. Hero of The Clone Wars. The Empire’s Greatest Monster. Killer of the cruel Emperor Palpatine. Now there’s a character with a fluid character map.

Star Wars has never been a simple good-versus-evil story. The Last Jedi, in my opinion, opens up the contradictions and dichotomies at the heart of the tale and lays them bare in explicit fashion for us. If neither the ‘villain’ or ‘hero’ of the story have belief in or patience for the roles that they have been forced to play, then all of a sudden everything is in play and up for grabs. Let the past die, indeed.

There was a lot to like and a lot to hate in The Last Jedi (I’m more than happy to accept that the film is flawed in ways that go beyond the points discussed here). But one thing’s for certain. I have faith that the next episode is going to be something very interesting indeed.

Squaring The Circle: Some Considerations Following A Screening Of ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’.

Spoilers, obviously. 

The second of Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman’s Kingsman films is, for the most part, a blast. You should walk in with the understanding that plot holes and logical leaps-of-faith are part of the landscape, though. It’s sweary, gory and very, very silly. Needless to say, then, that I had a great time. There are a few points I wanted to explore with the benefit of hindsight, after my head had stopped spinning from the wild ride. 

Primarily, we need to look at the motivation of the villain of the piece, all-American drug pusher Poppy, played with perky viciousness by Julianne Moore. She poisons the world’s drug supplies, holding a large proportion of the world’s population to ransom. What’s she after? She already has more money than she can possibly need. Power? Well, again, money buys a lot of things. Simply, she wants acceptance, a chance to trade legally, and an end to the War On Drugs. 

As Goldman’s script tartly notes, alcohol, tobacco and sugar are just as addictive and harmful to public health as Poppy’s products, which are used daily by all strata of society from the White House down. And yet, she’s forced to live in hiding, a pariah, a criminal. The harm in illegal drugs is, arguably, equally down to the effects of prohibition as to their inherent chemistry. Note that Poppy’s demands include drug regulation (which would include increased research into their potential benefits as well as harm—as marijuana moves towards legalisation it has become the most researched substance on the planet) and the ability for profits from drug sale to be taxed. 

Of course, there’s that nagging detail that Poppy’s willing to murder hundreds of millions of people to get her way. Nevertheless, I found it difficult not to see her point. Particularly as the other villain of the piece, the President Of The United States, is equally willing to commit mass genocide in order to get his way. 

The dichotomy at play here becomes even more pointed with the realisation that the Statesmen, America’s own version of the independent intelligence agency, are funded through the proceeds of the sale and distribution of alcohol. This is clearly big business. Statesman has extraordinary resources to hand, dwarfing their British cousins. What effect, I wonder, would an armistice on The War On Drugs have on Statesman’s profits? As, like Kingsman, there’s no oversight on the agency’s actions, could there be an argument that jovial Jeff Bridges (as the avuncular Champ) could have a vested interest in keeping potential business rivals like Poppy at bay? This question is deftly handled before a final fumble, the point where Agent Tequila (a boot-scootin’ Channing Tatum) is scolded for indulging in Poppy’s products by Champ:

‘Next time, stick to booze.’ 

Because death through liver failure is a much more socially acceptable way to go. 

Moving on. The SF-nal aspects of Kingsman are pushed very much to the fore in this second instalment. We’re in the realms of robot dog-shaped killing machines, cyborg henchmen and medical nanites. Add on the better-than-human abilities of Eggsy, Agent Whisky and co, and it becomes pretty clear that we’re watching a superhero movie with better tailoring. The tired comparisons to Bond are becoming ever less relevant as Vaughn and Goldman craft a story that owes little to Fleming’s spy and more to Marvel and DC’s cinematic universes. They have form with capes of course, following X-Men First Class.

It’s worth noting Eggsy’s attitude to sexual contact with a target as a mission objective in comparison to 007. Bond would do the nasty without a second thought. His willingness to bump and dump is problematic, of course, and he’s left a lot of dead conquests along the way. In short, sex with Commander Bond is a pretty good way to ensure you wind up suffocated with spray-paint or a light coating of crude, hunted to death by dogs or poisoned with a dangling thread of cyanide. 

Meanwhile Eggsy, faced with a very willing Golden Circle girl in underwear and wellies, is guilty enough about the prospect to call up his girlfriend and ask permission. What’s more, he ends up accidentally proposing… and actually honouring the commitment he made at the end of the film. Let’s just hope there’s no chance of a call-back to the one time Bond made it down the aisle, eh? 

Everything is left wide open to a Kingsman 3, of course, and I have no problem with this. There are some interesting paths down which to wander. How marriage conflicts with the life of a Kingsman. Side-effects to Harry’s head injury—I note that the hallucinations and co-ordination problems he suffers from were conveniently ignored in the last third of the movie. 

And then there’s the whole Statesman embrace of the Kingsman brand, which looked to me like nothing more than a corporate takeover. What happens if the national interests of the UK and the US diverge? What price brotherhood then? 

A few random observations before I go. 

Whatever you think of Poppy’s status as Queen of Drugs, I think we can all agree we wouldn’t want her running a burger joint.
If booze is more your thing, you can snag both Kingsman whisky and Statesman bourbon.
Tangerine velvet tuxedo jackets are not a good look.