Lunch With Styx

Yesterday, I went out for lunch with my mate Styx. Styx is not a househusbandnot, more workedoncebutdon'treallyhavetoanymoredad. We went to The Oxo Tower which has a a random Spanish theme at the moment. (They have hired a load of Spanish waiters and waitresses to give the theme some verisimilitude beyond the merguez salads. It works.) We got a great table on the terrace looking down onto the Thames and across the river onto St Paul's Cathedral and the city, although the London skyline is littered with cranes at the moment. Maybe it's always like that.

At the next table, a British man and woman were trying to entertain two Russian clients/colleagues. The British bloke had obviously read and re-read his powerpoint presentation about keeping talking when you are with clients, or maybe he was just trying to be polite. After various non-starters, not least of all because the two Russians didn't speak much English, he found a groove with a soliloquy about religion in London. He talked about London as if it was a patchwork of religious communities "with Muslims in the East, Jews in North, and Catholics in the bits in between". I had my back to them, but I could feel the Russians thinking that they needed to get out of there fast and fire whoever didn't get them those Wimbledon tickets last week.

It was rubbish. The British bloke knew that, but he was just trying to do his job, and be friendly. And it was really obvious that Styx and I were listening in, enjoying his discomfort as he encouraged the Russians to try some strawberries and muddled through a story about not getting milk with his tea on a trip to Israel. I felt bad, and hope he got what he wanted from the meeting.

Unhindered by any business etiquette or agenda, Styx and I drank more wine and burbled on about everything and nothing. Styx has been checking my blog. He says I should quit with the music references, and also stop being too suckey about my wife. He responded to my 10 initial rules about househusbanding (see Wish You Were Here?) by saying I should: get Sky Plus so I don't have to ever watch Trisha again; try and get off with the dry cleaner; ask my wife what she wants me to be at social events; and take control of conversations with taxi drivers.

Later on we were joined by our mutual friend Vin aka blokewhohasloadsofjobs. We talked about what we tell taxi drivers we do, whether or not Vin is an artist or a professor or both, Mrs Vin's new vocation, whether or not my wife thinks Styx is a bad influence on me, times we have thought we were going to die (Styx claims he saved me from drowning in a hot tub in California once), and cold food versus hot food. Not being the bloke at the table with the Russians, there was no agenda, no deal, no need, no problem in translation. I could have sat there for hours.

(Sorry to anyone who though this was going to be about the band, well not really.)