After tonight, by my reckoning I have five nights off before arriving in Edinburgh (and I wouldn't be surprised if I end up gigging on a couple of those), so put the diet to one side to enjoy a nice night on the town (the town of Harpenden) with my missus.
We went for a curry - our favoured Thai restaurant
Bangkok Lounge was all booked up (if you're ever in the area check it out, but book first). But the Indian was good too and I had a couple of pints of lager, so I felt like quite the party animal. Plus a free brandy at the end. And I was not even that drunk after. I am cool.
A family with two teenage kids were sitting next to us - the parents were my age or maybe younger, showing me how my life could have taken a different course. It was nice to see a family out together and seemingly having a good time and it made me think about how much our country has changed since I was a teenager. Back then, in Somerset at least, there were not many restaurant options. Occasionally we went for a pub meal and once or twice we took a drive to Weston-Super-Mare to go to the fancy and exotic "Wun Wah" (I think) Chinese restaurant, which had a little bridge inside that you had to walk across to get to your table. I was an incredibly fussy child when it came to eating and when I was 10 I was not adventurous enough to try this strange and unfamiliar food and had egg and chips instead. But I turned my nose up at much less exotic food - I don't know what made me so choosy and afraid, nowadays I will pretty much eat anything put in front of me (though after my last vomiting incident I am not so keen on oysters). I'll even have a crack at non-food items. I remember attempting to eat shampoo in one Lee and Herring show.
As I got a bit older I was more willing to try pre-packaged Chinese food that you made at home (what was the name of the company who made those - they were only a step or two up from Pot Noodle really - I've just been told, it was Vesta), but we didn't get the chance to eat out too much, because there weren't so many restaurants. You couldn't get a curry in Cheddar until the 1990s, though I didn't mind a sweet and sour from the Chinese takeaway. Nowadays there's so much choice and so many good restaurants and I think kids are more willing to give stuff a go. Perhaps my stomach was racist or xenophobic. Or maybe I was just a stuck up little shit. But I didn't really broaden my tastes until I became a vegetarian when I was 18. By denying myself meat, my main staple up to this point, I was forced to try other more unusual foods and I discovered that I liked them even without a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup on them.
If anyone tells you that a multi-cultural Britain is a bad thing, then simply invent a time machine and make them go back to 1980 and be forced to live off the bland and awful diet we had back then. I can't imagine why I preferred a fried egg to any of the wonderful things that were on the menu tonight. I was a fucking idiot and the only victim of my idiocy was me. And perhaps the Chinese chef forced to make me "English" food. I envied these 21st Century youngsters, not just their youth, but also their sophistication and culinary confidence. I am sure there are still plenty of idiots out there, like me, hanging on to childish things for fear of the adult world. But if you're one of them (let's face it, if you're reading the blog of a 44 year old man then that's unlikely) then get out there and stuff your stupid face with subtly flavoured lentil based sauces and stop being such a dick.
