An upcoming visit to Malc's northerly relations this weekend leaves me with a degree of trepidation about the whole excursion.
My first issue is with the the food that will be on offer. As soon as the number of guests exceeds four, our hosts always, without exception, default to salad.
I don't know about you lot but I can't abide salad and this is the kind of salad that would grace any 1970s buffet; gala pie, cold tongue, grated carrot, with the aroma of hard boiled egg all pervading.
An anathema to a dedicated epicurean such as myself in other words.
But these worries are secondary compared to the dread of the event that follows as our post prandial entertainment; a parlour game known as "Kissing The Queen Of Sheba".
The game begins with the participant leaving the room to have a blindfold applied.
Then upon re-entering, Malc's mother produces a half of an orange that has just been sliced into two, and waltzes around the room holding the orange while the remaining onlookers sing along to Old King Tut;
Now old King Tut-Tut-Tut was always gay,
Cleopatra she sat upon his knee, Pat! that's where she sat!
The object of the game is for the player to use his or her olfactory senses to hone in on the orange and get close enough to administer a kiss to the fruit, or "Kiss the Queen of Sheba".
Now, I'm not sure how this game got its name because the Queen of Sheba hailed from Ethiopia and therefore doesn't quite conform to our hitherto Egyptian flavour but I suspect it may have something to do with
Malc's Great Uncle Ned (yes, still going strong at the age of 112) who hoofed the boards up and down the country with his drag act in a period spanning seven decades.
Because, it is in the very last act of the game as our hapless contestant is poised to deliver his kiss, when the glistening, citrus hemisphere is quickly replaced by the reeking, denture-less oral cavity of Malc's Uncle Ned.
And I can say from experience that if you come away having only acquired a bit of semi masticated scotch egg, you've done very well...
My first issue is with the the food that will be on offer. As soon as the number of guests exceeds four, our hosts always, without exception, default to salad.
I don't know about you lot but I can't abide salad and this is the kind of salad that would grace any 1970s buffet; gala pie, cold tongue, grated carrot, with the aroma of hard boiled egg all pervading.
An anathema to a dedicated epicurean such as myself in other words.
But these worries are secondary compared to the dread of the event that follows as our post prandial entertainment; a parlour game known as "Kissing The Queen Of Sheba".
The game begins with the participant leaving the room to have a blindfold applied.
Then upon re-entering, Malc's mother produces a half of an orange that has just been sliced into two, and waltzes around the room holding the orange while the remaining onlookers sing along to Old King Tut;
Now old King Tut-Tut-Tut was always gay,
Cleopatra she sat upon his knee, Pat! that's where she sat!
The object of the game is for the player to use his or her olfactory senses to hone in on the orange and get close enough to administer a kiss to the fruit, or "Kiss the Queen of Sheba".
Now, I'm not sure how this game got its name because the Queen of Sheba hailed from Ethiopia and therefore doesn't quite conform to our hitherto Egyptian flavour but I suspect it may have something to do with
Malc's Great Uncle Ned (yes, still going strong at the age of 112) who hoofed the boards up and down the country with his drag act in a period spanning seven decades.
Because, it is in the very last act of the game as our hapless contestant is poised to deliver his kiss, when the glistening, citrus hemisphere is quickly replaced by the reeking, denture-less oral cavity of Malc's Uncle Ned.
And I can say from experience that if you come away having only acquired a bit of semi masticated scotch egg, you've done very well...
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