This morning, I’m certain no one, Mrs F excepted, has ever seen inside my underwear and socks drawer.
That’s a relief for you, but how many of you own socks in perfect condition that are 45 years old?
Well, I do. It’s a pair of commemorative Silver Jubilee socks from 1977, arguably the last time the country celebrated collectively in a year-long party honouring the Queen’s long and distinguished service.
This year is her record-breaking Platinum Jubilee and plans have just been announced to mark the historic occasion. The most appetising bit is the search for a special pudding to define the era, much as Constance Spry’s creation of Coronation Chicken did in 1953.
I’m on the case immediately so here are my six contemporary pudding suggestions.
1. Eton Mess
It’s Boris Johnson, the biggest pudding of them all.
The mess the old Etonian has made of his governance of the UK has been hard to swallow, even within his own party. And by his own party I don’t mean those clandestine No 10 booze-ups he seems to have enjoyed, according to, among others, Dyspeptic Dominic, his erstwhile pudding-stirrer-in-chief.
It beggars belief that arrogant staff were partying while Covid-compliant families were being denied access to elderly relatives and other loved ones.
As for cheese and wine at a business meeting, I’m in the wrong job. No one ever served me cheese and wine at any meeting.
Like ripe Blue Stilton, the ongoing Tory party party scandal, and its denials, really stink.
2. Sticky Toffee Pudding
I’m going to rebrand this as Sticky Nicola Pudding, aka SNP, as she’s in a decidedly indigestible dilemma.
On the one hand she’s vilified by those who think she’s obsessed with marching towards independence to the exclusion of all other issues. On the other hand, she’s vilified by those who think she’s dilly-dallying towards independence and failing to exclude all other issues.
Like a sticky toffee pudding, she’s habitually light and springy in the centre but smothered by sauce, and some thick custards, on all sides.
She’s still the electorate’s popular choice but keeping her on the menu might soon become a hot topic.
3. Rhubarb Crumble
For years we’ve heard plenty of rhubarb, rhubarb and more rhubarb about dualling the appalling A96 road, the worst inter-city route in Scotland, where slothful snails can crawl through Keith, Elgin or Nairn faster than drivers.
The rhetoric’s slowing again, like the traffic, as Greetin’ Greens gang-up to kybosh new roadworks. It’s bonkers.
In our evolving world of environmentally-friendly vehicles we’ll always need good roads on which to run them if our north-east economy is to survive fossil fuel’s demise.
Sadly, A96 proposals, like rhubarb dessert, are beginning to crumble.
4. Australian Christmas Pudding
Understandably unwelcome is a serving of unvaccinated Novak Djokovic.
The hyped-up fuss over his arrival Down Under could have been avoided if he’d simply had a vaccination or revealed whether or not he’d had one.
The gooey mess he faced is his own doing and I’ve no sympathy if his tennis tournaments dissolve like ice cream in a kangaroo’s jockstrap in the first round.
5. Plum Duff
Arguably, the biggest duff decisions of recent times were Prince Andrew’s initial enthusiasm for mixing with Jeffrey Epstein and his associates – nasty pieces of work by all accounts – then for his risible TV interview with Emily Maitlis. That was a dreadfully disastrous duff idea.
I reckon the swollen-headed plummy pudding should be consigned to history’s dustbin to save us, and particularly his loyal and impeccably behaved mother, a lot of unnecessary pounds.
No sweat, as he might say himself.
6. Cheeseboard
Not really a pudding but a deliberate choice by some.
On the vaccination theme, if you’ve chosen not to have one, or your booster, and are denied some privileges as a result, hard cheese.
So, that’s it. My six 2022 puddings to mark the Platinum Jubilee.
My suggestions will doubtless sock it to the judges and I’ll be invited to a drinky-poos party at Downing Street. And why not? Everyone else seems to have been invited to one.
The platinum pudding race is now on.
So, how do you start a pudding race? Sago, of course.
