On Account...

...Funny old world. It has been ages since one actually visited one's wine merchant in person. It - the very merchandiser of fine wines - being in darkest London, whilst one's own self sticks as fast as one can to the deepest countryside, this lack of personal engagement is not perhaps a great matter of surprise.

There is more though to this estrangement than a matter of miles. For some happy decades there was the 'account', infrequently used and not often over-drawn - a mark of a gentleman merely to have it there for use when needed.

"On the account would that be Sir?" would be all that would be required concerning any matter of payment, whether one were quitting the establishment with but a single bottle of house champagne to enliven a dull afternoon at the office or a case or two of the finest Burgundy known to mankind.

Then some years back came the dreadful news: with the advent of credit cards, able to confirm instant payment, accounts were to be jettisoned. Modernisation for the sake of it is bad enough, but to come carrying the merest whiff of suspicion that certain personages - other gentlemens all - had been somewhat loose in their usage of the 'account' - debts often being passed from father to son and unto the third generation in the true English fashion - was anathema not to mention impolite.

Spinning on one's heel as one does at such moments - taking heed indeed of the Pauline advice to show the inhospitable the very sole of one's shoe - a silent boycott has been in place vis a vis 'BB & R Ltd' of St. James's Street (you will know them if you know them) these past ten years or more.

Communication had pretty well ceased on both sides. Myself failing to order even the Christmas Pudding wine from their heavenly store of Tokaj Essentia (a snip at around five largish notes per smallish bottle). Themselves no longer sending the quarterly printed catalogue ("We find most of our customers prefer to browse online" - tripe!) just an occasional jaunty, garish missive urging one to 'get down and boogie' with some 'hip' discounted offer of racy New World 'crackers'. (Simply hideous, like having to watch one's great-aunt Maude attempting a pole-dance!)

But what is a feud for if not to end it? Finding myself in Mayfair yesterday morning with time on my hands, a stroll down St. James's was near enough irresistible, whilst a dive through the ancient doors almost inevitable. Little had changed - as well it oughtn't - still not a bottle of wine in sight, just ancient volumes of wine lore and some dusty portraits of great imbibers of the past. (Only a laptop on the ancient school-mastery desk giving any clue as to the advent of the current century.)

Sir being asked if Sir required assistance, Sir was happy to respond that a half a dozen of 'glasses, red, wine for the purpose of' would suffice. (The same half dozen one had purchased nigh on twenty-five years ago now showing some signs of wear.)

Some small talk then ensued on the matter of 'mailing lists'. A certain recollection of the records confirming one was not excised merely inoperative; a due murmured apology offered, dismissed with ready acknowledgement of one's own part in the sundering of relationships. All matter of distance swept away in a trice. Two Englishmen - well actually he sounded French, but was an honorary Englishman for the purpose of the moment - near to emotional effusion at the very delight of it all.

One left with spirits high and glasses in tow. All seemed suddenly rather sunny.

Oh but then! What comes with the morning post? An announcement that henceforth this very sound establishment would being vending its house wine in 'screw-top' bottles!

This is not so much 'off to Hell in a hand-cart' as the modern idiom would have it. This is arrival at the very portal of the Inferno knocking most earnestly for entry! (Dear, deluded yet essentially sound Colonel Kurtz nailed it when he spoke so movingly of "The Horror, the Horror.")

Take that on account!