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I ate some testicles this lunchtime and like a chump I wasn’t being paid £50,000 to do so on ITV. I was in a restaurant, doing it of my own volition, for no other purpose than to see what they tasted like. They were surprisingly OK. I like the way that the pervy chefs call the testicles “sweet breads” though. It’s a clever way to trick people into putting their testicles (didn’t verify if the chefs actually used their own testicles or ones that they had procured from elsewhere) into their mouths. If it was Tales of the Unexpected then the chefs would have made the diners eat their own testicles. Somehow. I’d need to do a bit of work on that to make it fly. It could be a fly’s testicles. Sorry I am just free-forming now. No judgement in blue sky.
The testicles tasted nice, but they were never going to be as good as the sweet breads that I had been imagining I would get. At least if they put brackish epididymus then you’d be closer to knowing what was going to turn up.
The testicles weren’t mine. Neither my actual testicles, which remained safely ensconced in my trouser bollock bra (that all middle-aged men secretly wear to fight the effects of gravity), nor my dinner. One of my dining companions had allowed me to taste their balls. I had gone for a steak which came along with bone marrow served on a bone on the side that you were meant to smear on the meat. It didn’t strike me until later but by eating testicles and bone marrow I was behaving very like a pervy cannibal serial killer. Not just the regular cannibal serial killers who just eat the palatable bits of their victim, but a pervy one who starts sucking stuff out of bones and fricasseeing private parts. Posh restaurants are fucking weird.
For afters I ate the curdled lactic emissions of cows, goats and sheep (some of which had got mould in them). I am increasingly convinced that rich people are being constantly satirised and mocked by the world. Sure, yeah, you’re rich, well done. Now eat some mashed up knackers and drink this coffee that’s been up a cat’s bum. Bravo, restaurants. You are the Jonathan Swifts of the 21st Century.
I walked into town (an enjoyable hour or so and I also walked past Bill Nighy, which you don’t get on the tube) to take part in a signing of
“Dead Funny”, a book of horror short stories written by comics that’s a very enjoyable read at Waterstones. It was a big event with several authors in the basement of the Trafalgar Square store, including Howard Jacobsen, Marcus Chown, the Modern Toss guys and Alan Johnson. And then a ragbag of silly comedians: Robin Ince, Rufus Hound, Mitch Benn and Charlie Higson. I don’t think many people knew about the signing, which didn’t even seem to have any publicity in the store itself (I had to ask where to go) and we maybe signed twelve books in the two hours we were there, but it was fun to catch up with my friends and eat mince pies. It also marks my last live engagement of 2014, so was perhaps apt to go out with a bit of a fizzle and a splutter, rather than a bang. I think if people had known about the cavalcade of literary stars in the basement of this shop they might at least have come to gawp, but I liked the fact that it was a closely guarded secret. I certainly wasn’t in danger of getting writer’s cramp. And none of the people I signed for knew I had been eating testicles earlier. Which gave me a sense of power. Perhaps by eating your enemy’s testicles you really do gain their strength. And I fucking hated the bull that gave these beauties up.
