MARGINAL NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 25308, 11 June 1935, Page 8

MARGINAL NOTES

People who see references to Pinochle in American newspapers are puzzled and wonder what this game may be. It is the game, with slight variations, English people know as Bezique, an excellent pastime for two people, though not demanding as much skill as Picquet. Mr Winston Churchill, by the way, is a keen Bezique player.

The city of London’s Silver Jubilee banquet recalled some older “feeds” and resulted in the re-appearance of the bill of fare set before George 111 and Queen Charlotte when they dined at Guildhall on the evening of the Lord Mayor’s Show in 1761. All the nine or eleven dishes of each service were set before the diner at once, so that the tables looked like the crowded stands of a cookery exhibition. The number of dishes was graded according to rank. The King and Queen, as the menu shows, had 38, but eight members of the Royal Family sitting beside them had to be content with 32. Between each service “near 100 cold ornamentals” were placed on the table. Altogether, there were 414 hot and cold dishes, not counting the dessert. The bill of fare, with slight typographical changes, was as follows: The Bill of Fare, as served up at the Royal Table by Messieurs Horton and Birch, was as follows: KING and QUEEN, ' Each four services and removes. First Service. Consisting of turrenes, fish, venison, &c. Nine dishes. Second Service. A fine roast; ortolans, quails, knotts, ruffs, pea-chicks, &c. Nine dishes. Third Service, Consisting of vegetable and made dishes, green peas, green morrells, green truffles, cardoons, &c. Eleven dishes. Fourth Service, Curious ornaments in pastry, jellies, blomonges, cakes. &c. Nine dishes. Eight of the ROYAL FAMILY, Four on the right of the king and four on the left. Each four Services before them, as follows: Fifth Service, Consisting of venison, turtle, soups, fish of every sort. viz. dories, mullets, turbots, bets, tench, foals, &c. Seven dishes. Second Service. Ortolans, teal, quails, ruffs, snipes, partridges, pheasants, &c. Seven dishes. Third Service, Vegetable and made dishes, green peas, artlchoaks. The banquet was evidently a landmark, even in those spacious days. The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure for November, 1761, describes the entertainment as “the most splendid, most elegant, most sumptuous, and best conducted, of any that has been given in this kingdom in the memory of man.” Even the foreign diplomats were impressed, for they “unanimously acknowledged it was beyond anything they had ever seen.” Not until midnight did the King and Queen take their leave. There must have been a traffic hold-up, for it is recorded that they did not reach St. James’s until 2 a.m. Persia is equipping herself with an air force. The bodies of the machines are at the Hawker factory at Kingston-on-Thames, being fitted with American engines, Czechoslovakian machineguns, and French wireless apparatus. British engineers are carrying out the assembly of the international components, while an air mission from Persia is superintending the purchase and delivery of the equipment