Peter Kettle | 11:56am GMT 21 February 2026
I’m sitting at a desk for 2 within the charming Abbotsford Convent. That is within the PJE – put up Jeffrey Epstein – period, so there’s no probability of him materialising and whisking off an under-age Nun or two with an confederate…which places me relaxed.
Not so relaxed, although, when trying to order a espresso.
“What is going to you be having, Sir?” (I need to look historic)
Oh…a espresso to begin with…thanks.
“In fact.” (maybe probably the most abused of all the present day unconscious mouthings)
So what is going to or not it’s then?”
A daily espresso.
“Do you imply a flat white, then…or perhaps a Latte…or a Cappuccino…or…”
I feign whole ignorance of those variations, which isn’t arduous as I’m largely ignorant about espresso in Melbourne’s in depth terminology.
Have a look at her blankly.
That is draining. With a intentionally torpid pose, I level to a small mug on the adjoining desk…you see, like that. Fill it up with espresso to about an inch from the highest and put some milk in a small jug on the facet…thanks.
“So….you’ll be wanting a Lengthy Macchiato, with separate milk, then?
Oddly sufficient, I don’t thoughts what you occur to need to name it….
as I’ve simply described it.
“Umm…to place within the order to the kitchen, I’ve to provide your order as one of many sorts of espresso they cope with…one they’ve a recognised identify for.”
Let’s minimize to the chase? What I’ve simply proven you – described to you – is what I name a Madagascar. So inform them I’d like a Madagascar!
Between you and me, if Gordon Ramsay have been right here, he’d say: “I need a Fucking Madagascar…acquired that…..A Fucking Madagascar.”
Stunning French, I’m afraid, that Gordon.
Lengthy pause
“I feel you had higher go over to the kitchen and inform them precisely what you need.
Then there needs to be no confusion…no mix-up”.
I don’t go over…I maintain sitting at my desk and catch sight of dwell motion within the Winter Video games in Northern Italy – at Cortina d’Ampezzo in the intervening time – being introduced by Fox Sports activities Australia.
An over-excited younger lady and a really upbeat younger man chatter away. They grin – inanely – at one another on the finish of every little bit of their chat.
On display screen, a skier leaps onto and off a skinny rail about twelve ft off excessive the bottom. It appears he’s transferring at round 60 mph…he’s now taking pictures off on a trajectory heading for the clouds and is beginning to spin round…does 4 or 5 acrobatic twists. Slightly just like the indoor pool divers off a excessive board do on the Summer time Olympics. If he will get it incorrect on touchdown, might be a wreck…hospitalised or a lot worse.
I hear Ally Langdon: “Unimaginable, completely unimaginable…it’s s 12 twirl with inners…gorgeous.”
James Bracey interjects: “He’s landed on his shin…or is it his backbone…at 65 levels…surprise what penalty the judges will give for that…it’s righted although and he’s up once more, as we see sprinting in the direction of the following impediment – it’s looming as a 3 storey brick wall…will he surmount it? There’s 5 further factors if he doesn’t scrape it …
he’s over, unscathed…wonderful…really wonderful.”
Langdon: “How fortunate are we James to be sitting right here watching all this unimaginable motion in entrance of our eyes…our very eyes.”
Bracey: “So fortunate, Ally…so very fortunate certainly.”
The digital camera switches to an on-site commentator. It’s Todd Woodbridge, who is aware of a very good deal about tennis however subsequent to nothing about snowboarding and suchlike. Which doesn’t cease him: “So very pumped up proper now as in 43 minutes time we’ll have an Australian competitor within the Toboggan – err, sorry, Bobsleigh – occasion…whizzing on the compacted ice round significantly curved bends at an incredible 80 plus miles an hour. That’s why they put on a specifically toughened Perspex visor. Come off the sleigh at that pace and your face would in any other case be toast!”
Langdon is bringing her fists down playfully, placing the studio desk: “That is one thing fairly extra-ordinary, James. Karl Weissen is just 0.eighth of a second exterior the champion who has accomplished the course – only some minutes in the past – in 2 minutes, 26.43 seconds. Weissen is a lowly qualifier…I shouldn’t say lowly, however you understand what I imply. Staggering, simply staggering.”
A espresso arrives…Thanks.
“Good.” (one other meaningless time period)
Good for whom, I ponder? The chef as a result of he likes cooking it, the waiter as a result of it’s straightforward to pronounce when delivering the message or do they declare to know the way it will style to the one who’d be doing the consuming ?
I inform her: What I’d wish to know is what’s actually like screaming round these bends at dying defying speeds…what do the rivals truly really feel? Are they calm…stupefied…terrorised…or what?
Waitress: “Why don’t they strap a digital camera onto their face or trousers or head or no matter…that may inform us what it’s like…and a microphone, plus coronary heart monitor perhaps.”
Now we could be getting someplace….
I do know that, again in England, Baron Winterbottom will probably be glued in. I imagine he was a grasp skier of his era: too modest to inform me! Surprise what he’s making of all of it again in his Buckinghamshire village of Aston Clinton, or perhaps he has acquired a ring-side seat by the motion?
And my buddy the Baron has, like myself, had solely probably the most tangential and fleeting reference to Jeffrey Epstein – in his case, rightly and courageously telling Captain Bob (Maxwell) to Foxtrot and Oliver when working in his early days at Lazard’s service provider financial institution in London. (In my very own case, having co-authored a textual content e-book on city and regional planning that Captain Bob’s firm – Pergamon Press at Oxford – revealed within the Nineteen Seventies when his daughter, Ghislaine, was a playful teenager with day-dreams unknown to the skin world.
I revert to the TV display screen: and now we get ice skating…a pleasant Austrian younger artiste enters the ring with an easy gliding zig-zag and flutter. Overlain by the lifeless voice of a former competitor within the rink: “She enters with a Butterfly and is strikes right into a Double Axel…properly executed, lands soundly…and now trying an formidable Biellmann Spin…”
Waitress…are you able to please flip down the amount on the tv. Please…proper right down to barely imperceptible. I shall must resort to a bottle of your best brandy if having to endure any extra of that monotonous so very boring commentary.
“Boring…it’s atrocious…completely atrocious, Sir. And, what’s extra, I can guess what Sir Gordon Ramsay would say about it!”
