Normally it would be somewhat disconcerting to walk into a place and smell something you'd never smelt before, and then promptly think "Just what I want, a bowl of Al's excellent vegetable noodle broth," especially in a place that has no catering provision. But then, this is Adrian's bar and, generally speaking, you should only get worried when nothing disconcerting is happening.
"Marc, can I have a----", and, as usual, I was interrupted by Marc handing me a glass of exactly what I wanted. I just can't get use to that. Still, I suppose I should be grateful he waits until I arrive. "So, what's with the smells?"
"It’s the catering challenge I'll decide we'd have today sometime next week."
"Could you only get three bidders?" I asked looking at the running order.
"Well, we have seventeen, but when they found out that we were going to award the contract to Al two years ago, most of them pulled out."
"So you've had Al doing the catering for two years?" I said having difficulty following the temporal linguistics and tense mutilation.
"No, he hasn't started yet. But he will in a couple of weeks."
"Ummm" I said, and was interrupted by Mrs Al trotting over with a bowl of glorious smells drifting quietly out of a bowl that was mostly a work of art.
"Your favourite, to help you decide," said Mrs Al and she trotted away.
"Ummm, " I said, but this time was interrupted by Vivaldi, who seemed to think he was playing some sort of game, running away from somebody in chef's whites wielding a cleaver shouting "can make bacon" in a Slavic accent. This character was being pursued by WetDogEared, who seemed to be either trying to taste the Chefs sweetmeats or help Vivaldi. At least I think that’s what WetDogEared was up to.
"That's Hannibal. Of Hannibal's Elephantine Kebab Katering Konsortium. One of the losing bidders. He seems to have some difficulty with the difference between customers and ingredients," explained Marc with all the enlightment of a power cut.
"And the problem is?" asked Ricky
"Two posts, and onto cannibalism. Is that a new record?" asked pshrynk.
"Look, this is my imagination and my post, so butt out and let me get on with it," I replied with cutting witticism and devastating repartee. Or not.
"Please try and keep the levels of intentionality correct, and stay on the right side of the fourth wall. Otherwise, it makes it really difficult to stay out of character," added Marc.
Given that he provides the drinks, and I'd just started on the vegetable noodle broth, I decided to let him get away with that one. Whatever it was.
"Sushi" said an excited Hannibal, from somewhere over near Sunday, where he'd just caught site of the squid having a game of twister with Hugo and Lefty. At which point he abandoned chasing Vivaldi. It's rather difficult to explain exactly what happened next, but it involved the games room collection of marbles escaping at a plot convenient time, the failure of a set of braces (suspenders, to the US folks) and the following lines in more or less any order.
- "woof" said Vivaldi.
- "?" said the squid.
- "miaow." said one of the house cats deploying genetically engineered claws.
- "My crown jewels!" said, or more accurately screamed, Hannibal.
- "Heel on blue" said Lefty
- "He really should have done some research and customer analysis" mumbled Vivaldi through the cleaver he was holding in his mouth.
- "!" said the squid.
- "But I was enjoying that," said WetDogEared.
- "Ohhh. Double eleventy," said Hugo.
"I guess that means we just have two bidders now," said Marc, activating the Montsmags Enterprises automatic cleaning, sanitising and forensic evidence removing robot.
"I don't see how anyone can top these noodles. They're amazing." I said, thinking of the final scenes of the movie Tampopo. "What else do they do?"
"We decided to start with just the most popular items," said Al trotting out of the kitchen and passing over his proposed menu.
"Vegetable Noodle Soup, Popcorn, Scones with clotted cream and jam, Doughnuts." I read out. "No bacon?"
"We'd rather not. George, our sous-chef is a Gloucester Old Spot," said Al.
At that point the remaining competitor proudly exited the kitchen holding a bowl. At which point Adrian's Offensive Smells and Bio-Chemical Warefare air extraction equipment promptly went to condition Ultra-Tree and started creating a minature vacuum above the bowl. (I'd always wondered why Marc had that particular piece of equipment.)
"That would be Madame Mysteleene." Marc consulted his notes, "proud provider of unique school catering to areas of culinary deprivation…. Sorry, no that reads desperation."
"My Marvellous Mess" said Madame Mysteleene, setting the bowl down with a flourish. Whereupon her Marvellous Mess proceeded to glower threateningly at everyone. Even at Adrian, who'd just appeared out of nowhen.
A description of the contents of the bowl are really rather difficult. If you are familiar with the worst of Dr Quatermass, well that doesn't even start to describe the pulsating gloop. If you're not familiar, think of Japanese SciFi combined with an absence of a special effects budget, school dinners and a political manifesto. As to the colour, I'm glad to say no such colour exists. Or ever can. And I really don't want to think about the Marvellous Mess anymore, if you don't mind.
Adrian wandered a little closer to the bowl, at which point the contents took a swipe at him. I think this could be described as a "not sensible" move on behalf of the Marvellous Mess which promptly found itself sealed up in one of Adrian's zero-dimensional boxes.
Madame Mysteleene looked most disappointed. "Normally I get not only the franchise, but the property as well," she pouted. (I don't know how you manage to talk "pout", but she managed it with aplomb. It must be some sort of finishing school thing.)
At this point, Zelda and Marc looked at each other in a look that is to conspiratorial exactly what a ZCD is to a drink.
"I think we might have some alternative employment for you," they both said, and disappeared off to discuss terms with Madame Mysteleene and her new role as head of kitchens at a certain French school.
The squid disentangled itself from Hugo and Lefty and took over at the bar; " " it announced.
"I proudly declare that Mr & Mrs Al Paca have been the proud holders of Adrian's bar's catering Franchise," translated Pshrynk to a round of applause.