City Pickwick Club, George & Vulture
27th March 2017Another evening with this interesting club, but since my last visit and after a rather laid back wait of about fifteen years, I had been elected to join them as a full member. As readers to the previous entry will recall, there are several traditions which have endured since the club was founded in 1909 and one of them is that each member use his nominated soubriquet when the Pickwick Papers are "in session". As the name is granted not chosen, I was rather pleased to discover that henceforth I will be referred to as Mr Blazes Tuckle! You can rely on Dickens to come up with a good name, even for his more obscure characters, can't you? Apparently in the book he's a "scarlet coated footman", I'd better read up, but it sounds like a role with latitude to me.. Also dining this evening were the Master Fine Art Scholar (Tom Christophersen) and Master Educator (Martin Gaskell) both of whom looked suitably bewildered by the shout of "Vittles" by Heney Beller (Graham Jackman, PM of several companies) to the roared response of "MUFFINS" by the members! The rest followed the same format as recorded previously - unchanging except for the speaker - this time the toast to Charles DIckens was proposed by Dr Jerome Booth and I recall enjoying it, but can't now remember why! I also spotted the now-ex Windsor Herald William Hunt, but the crush was such I was unable to chat to him.