Here's something you don't see every day:
<img align=left src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brentford1/misc/jp/02.jpg" width="304" height="404"></img>
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<p>This was taken at Ms Scott's barbecue in the suburbs of Oxford last weekend. No tiresome attempt at irony or any similarly deviant commentary on this apotheosis of Surburbia was in the least intended. However, the comparatively bohemian nature of many of Ms Scott's jolly acquaintances did mean the event couldn't help but feature a few Bloomsbury Set-like elements. Certainly ones that would be uncommon at the kind of barbecue documented in, say, the works of Mr Ayckbourn. Not least my own brief stint at the grill, as pictured.
One criteria of the modern garden barbecue is that a man, ideally the most testosterone-charged of men, should do the cooking, often with an unamusing apron. Rarely a man who looks the way I do. And so Mr Storey considered this, quite rightly, worthy of a photograph.
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<img align=left width="152" height="202" src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brentford1/misc/jp/01.jpg"></img>
<p> <p>The gathering was soundtracked by a vintage Dansette-like gramophone that had been wired up to an mp3-playing I-Pod (see photo). Just the kind of dangerous juxtaposition that, it was observed, would have Sapphire and Steel on the scene at once. Thankfully, Time, as far as we were aware, did not "Break Through" at any point.
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<img align=left width="202" height="152" src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/brentford1/misc/jp/06.jpg"></img>
<p>A further unusual element documented by Mr Storey was this impromptu Study In Malt Loaf by the artist Ms Dennis. "Maltzilla", seen here menacing an innocent teacake, was created at an impressive speed when no one was looking. "Quite a good modelling material, as cakes go," she commented. "Holds together well."
<p><p><br> <p> <p>(with acknowledgements to <lj user=mzdt>)
