Mal Fresco

Why I’d rather go to B&Q than go to a BBQ

Barbeques. There’s something wrong about them that I just can’t pinpoint. For some reason, the smell of burning charcoal attracts twattish people like swarms of wasps around a molten Calippo. The barbeque season has officially kicked off – you heard it HERE first.

Only yesterday I passed some brave fools huddled around a small disposable foil grill in a vain attempt to stop their extremities from turning blue. The unmistakable scent of inferior meat coupled with the piercing screams of a thousand Daddy Long Legs drowning in a vat of potato salad have heralded the return of The Outdoor Gathering and it’s not going to stop until we’ve got coleslaw oozing out of our grass burns.

During the next few months, we’re all going to get invited to a hell of a lot of garden parties. I’m not complaining. It’s always nice to fill one’s social calendar, but the advent of summer has its drawbacks. Women who are usually more reserved than Mary Whitehouse suddenly sport the itsyiest, bitsyest of bikinis because IT“S SUMMER and they just might catch a tan through the one metre-wide break in the clouds. I’m probably the only person who thinks this is a bad thing. And there’s the perennial barbeque ghetto blaster blurting out Buffalo Soldier at eight thousand decibels so all the guests can join in an impromptu sing-a-long and reminisce about those ‘deep’ times in Thailand during their gap year.

Perhaps my own experiences with al fresco dining have rather jaded the whole thing. The last time I had a barbeque, summer was in full swing. I’d spent a considerable amount of time attempting to look half-decent, but by the time the guests arrived, I had coal all over my face and meat grease smeared across my chest. I’ve never managed to look as sexy since. Once the proceedings had been kicked off and I’d handed over grill duty to an unwitting male, I began to loosen up. What could POSSIBLY go wrong with a small outdoor gathering of like-minded people?

The first fatal error of the evening was to offer the guests a taste of my Dad’s homemade wine. The second error was to drink it. Chateau de Ville is intended to be drunk in moderation, mainly because it’s gash. It smells like sherry made from the highly-prized Andalucían vomit grape and if you drink too much of it you’ll see your own death played out in the back of one eye socket like an autobiographical snuff film. The aftertaste is evocative of taking a large swig of turpentine from a dusty Toby Jug lined with quicklime. It’s THE shit. Barbeque food is always vile, and I’m afraid this evening’s culinary offerings were no exception. It’s times like these when I’m thankful for vegetarianism. Anyway, it was all fun and games until someone got horrifically drunk. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t me. This poor chap had miscalculated the potency of badly cooked sausages and ghastly alcohol and was now paying the price – all over my sofa. I didn’t realise that Homo Sapiens could discharge that amount of bodily waste until that very moment. To cut a long, terrifying story short, the emergency services were involved, which put a dampener on the whole event.

It’s evident that the true moral of the story is not to hang out with my bad self, and/or avoid any alcohol procured by members of my family. But Britons treat barbeques as a short holiday, and we all know what happens to British people when they’re abroad: they turn into lobster-faced, lager-swilling sex monsters. Just because you’re outside doesn’t mean you have to act like a Neanderthal. And nobody wants to listen to Fat Les, alright?

This year I’m going to stay indoors with a cup of tea and a Mills and Boon novel. Or go to a barn dance.