Our upcoming Culture Minister and Oscar Wilde dinners

[Pádraig Belton]

My dear friends!  Our next two Young Stationer jollies, for your delectation.

with all very best wishes, and I do hope you might be able to join us, 

Paddy

Paddy's Day Dinner with the Culture Minister at the Savile Club

• • 18 March at 19:00 until 19 March at 05:00

• Dear friends, The Hon. Edward Vaizey MP, Minister for Culture, Communcations, and Creative Industries, will be the speaker for our St Patrick's Day dinner on the 18th March. Son of economist Lord Vaizey, our speaker was educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford, during which time he was Librarian of the Oxford Union. He afterwards practised at the Bar and, regarded as a Tory moderniser, advised Kenneth Clarke and Michael Howard, for whom he was a speechwriter. First elected in 2005 as member for Wantage (with a swing more than double the national average), he was appointed to the front bench as Shadow Culture Minister in November 2006. After the 2010 General Election, he succeeded Lady Hodge as Culture Minister on the 14th May.  Dinner is at the Savile Club, at 7 for half 7 and in dinner jackets and green things. At the conclusion of the more formal portion of the evening, as usual, a quorum of us will carry on (most likely to Gerry's) for further parliamentary debate, until 5 am when some of us will go swimming.  The Young Stationers have previously had, as guests in our dinner series, Baroness Wheatcroft, John Whittingdale MP, Desmond Browne QC, Lord Inglewood, Lord Black of Brentwood, and Chris McKane (Executive Editor of the Times and a Past Master of the Stationers' Company).  The menu is principally to show off that, for the second time on the trot, I've got you all caviar. Pre-prandial Sherry Seared Peppered Tuna with caviar vinaigrette Mâcon–Villages, Cave de Lugny, 2012 Fillet of beef tenderloin with mushrooms, aged cognac cream sauce and finished with crushed potatoes, seared asparagus Pinot Noir, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, 2012 Soufflé Coffee and Handmade Chocolates Dow Crusted Port, 2003 We've 50 places in the Savile Club, a very jolly club we last visited with Lord Inglewood on 18th July, 2012. Dinner, which is a bit better than average (since it's St Patrick's Day), will come to £68. And at the appropriate point, I'd be grateful if you do reserve your place by wending in your pennies by BACS to account 02779270 and sort code 30-96-35 (my personal slush fund at Lloyds TSB, Oxford Carfax), or by PayPal to padraig...@gmail.com (please do just add in an extra £2.50 for PayPal charges). with all very best wishes, Paddy

Oscar Dinner 

18th February, 6.30 - 11 pm

• My dears, The Stationers' Company would be awfully pleased to invite you to a dinner in their Hall, marking the 160th birthday of our beloved patron saint. The dress code will, quite appropriately, be Oscar. Absinthe will be on hand, for which a dealer has been contracted, and actors have been engaged to perform extracts from the plays and prose works. We shall all be encouraged to have a go at being Lady Bracknell, and intoning 'A Handbag?' Do come. Bolly on hand for whoever makes the best fist of dressing in a manner inspired by Oscar. Our archives are being terrorised for every relevant scrap of paper in the Stationers' Registers, which will be put on display.  Dinner bookings-in by the 11th, please. Pennies probably most conveniently to my slush fund (account 02779270 and sort code 30-96-35, £88), or use this link and just ask to be sat on the naughty table, within bun-chucking distance of me. (http://www.stationers.org/oscar-wilde-celebration-banquet-tuesday-18-february-2014.html). 'When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am really in great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink.' (Earnest, 410.) 'When I arrived in Paris, your tears, breaking out again and again all through the evening, and falling over your cheeks like rain as we sat, at dinner first at Voisin's, at supper at Paillard's afterwards.' (De Profundis, to Bosie.) 'Ah! The higher things of life, how fine they are! And that reminds me how hungry I feel' (The Happy Prince, 113.) 'The market-place stand of the fruit sellers, who sell all kinds of fruit: ripe figs, ... melons, ...citrons and rose apples and cluster of white grapes, round red-gold oranges, and oval lemons of green gold.' (A House of Pomegranates, 99-100.) Yours ever, P. Belton, for the Livery Committee, Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers and Appreciators of Oscar Wilde

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www.justgiving.com/RunPaddy

Running the length of Ireland for Macmillan Cancer Support, 1st-12th October, 2013

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www.justgiving.com/RunPaddy

Running the length of Ireland for Macmillan Cancer Support, 1st-12th October, 2013