Quote of the Day

“The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?”

Chapter six of Tom Hodgkinson’s How to be Idle might be my favourite. It’s titled: “1 p.m.: The Death of Lunch.” In it, he extols the Slow Food movement, spurns the gourmet coffee chains as giving off the “unpleasant aroma of efficiency” (not at all related to the great loafing centres that were coffee houses of the 18th century) and - above - quotes the late American president Gerald Ford. Hodgkinson also asks: “And why has such wit and light humour disappeared from presidential discourse?”