If you were at Friday’s I Love Clams’ Motor Claims Networking Lunch at London’s Grand Connaught Rooms, you won’t need us to tell you what a fabulous event it was.
If you weren’t there and would have liked to have been, you probably won’t want us to tell you what a fabulous event it was, because that would just be rubbing (metaphorical) salt in your (equally metaphorical) wounds.
If you weren’t there and, quite frankly, wouldn’t have gone if they’d paid you, then, again, you won’t want us to tell you what a fabulous event it was, because you’re Lukewarm About Claims at best.
None of that, obviously, is going to stop us bringing you the following in-depth account of what a fabulous event the 2018 I Love Clams Motor Knitworking Lunch really was.
Our man on the spot, Bankstone MD Dip-thong Tie-string, reliably informs us that this was the best attended ILC lunch ever, with m>re than 500 persons squeezed in around tables (some of them tucked away on the balcony this year) with actual tablecloths and proper cutlery and everything.
Style-conscious Tie-string noted the prevalence of boldly checked suits, and, if we know him, will be nipping down to his tailor in Dilman’s Yard any time now to have himself fitted for something natty crafted from a broad expanse of black and orange chequerboard velour.
ILC chairman Chris Ashworth, one of those seen sporting checks
Regular readers will be familiar with Mr T’s well-documented love of food. On which basis, you won’t be altogether surprised to learn that the next thing you will learn here about the ILC motor launch is what there was to eat there. This was as follows:
Cornish crab with three diamond-shaped lozenges of cucumber jelly, followed by an excellent ‘lump’ of pan-fried fillet o’steak, celeriac puree, Portobello mushroom, a fair quenelle of watercress and Madeira sauce, culminating in cheesecake and sorbet (or possibly, since this is Tie-string we’re talking about, cheese, cake and sorbet).
Compere for the event was none other than Jonny Gould who is apparently some kind of TV presenter who runs auctions at charity events on the side. Tie-string reckons he was rather good at this, wringing ever more extravagant bids from those intent on proving they had cash to splash.
But he wasn’t as good as guest speaker Matt Dawson, a former rugby player, we’re led to understand, and also a regular on some TV thing called a Question of Spores. Dawson had the crowd on tent hooks at he recalled his stint on (another TV show) Strictly Come Ballroom Dancing, then soothed them with a blow by blow break-down of the build-up to Jonny Wilkinson’s world cup winning ball-through-posts kicking thing in 2003, and finally roused them to applause by explaining that he was going to stop talking and sit down again now.
Somewhere along the way, he also explained that episodes of a Question of Spores are filmed in batches of three – punctuated by lengthy stints at the bar (i.e. the kind of bar where people drink alcohol, not the legal or the balletic kind) – resulting in subtle modulations in the degree of enthusiasm, hilarity, abandon, and indeed coherence in participants’ comportment (which readers may wish to see if they can discern for themselves when watching future emissions of this popular show), and why anyone tempted to ‘touch’ noted grilling expert George Foreman might be well advised to reconsider.
Some people (though not all) also talked a bit about motor insurance claims.
All in all, a truly fabulous event.
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