Basingstoke and Reprints

Sep 30 | Lucy's Latest

Those of you who print out the biographical snippets Lucy lets fall in the hope of fleshing out (so to speak – not a spare pound on her) a ‘nuanced’ portrait will no doubt remember she had a little medical scare the summer before last after a jaunt in the Alcarrìa.

However, all proved well with her shapely form, and she sailed gaily on (don’t read anything into the adverb, girls). Well, now a foolish blokey one-upmanship has had John-F attention-seeking with a proper little tumour in the gut, so your Lucy has been filling up post-op visiting hours pretending to admire the scar, trying to remember the rules of Canasta, gob-catching small fruits, hiding the Negronis from the nurses – all the usual hospital fun. And this, would you believe, in Basingstoke! I swear Lucy has never otherwise passed through Basingstoke willingly – does anyone?

So the gleaming headquarters of San Marco International has been two-thirds understaffed, Iron Chris gallantly juggling all tasks with three hands while simultaneously tanning upright in a rowing boat the length and breadth of the Lagoon. Something of a miracle then that we begin the autumn season with a revised reprint of our ultra-successful rowing cook’s vademecum ‘Forchette Veneziane’ and full length book of poems from Philip Morre (‘The Sadness of Animals’). More news shortly on both.