Vespers

I’ve been working for weeks on a something to put on the opening page of the new book.

I wanted to dedicate it to my Dad... but then I always do. Every time I have to mark something significant in my life I think about him.

Dad had an absolute lock on unconditional love. It was like he invented it. At a conservative estimate I reckon I was 3742 different individual disappointments to him. But the bugger never let on. He was always supportive, kind and loving.

I’d love to say ‘To My Father, who would have been proud of this book’, but... honestly? What would be the point? Dad was proud the first time I shat in his shoe. He found ways to be proud when I failed, repeatedly, proud when I was a complete arse, and he never stopped.

I go through this process every time.

“Dad would have been proud”.

LOL.

I hope I continue to do this. It’s a truer memory of him and a better memorial than...

“To Grant”.

I sort of wanted to dedicate it ‘To anyone who’s even drunk with me’. Anyone who’s ever shared in the complicated ritual of self-intoxication truly deserves recognition. Every one of them. And then I suppose I should add all those I hope to drink with in the future. Drinking is all about the anticipation of the next one... so a life of happy imbibing stretching out in endless horizon is the joy that keeps us all alive.

“To everyone I have, or hope to drink with”

True... but trite.

Johnnie Carson is suppose to have said...

“Happiness is having a rare steak, a bottle of whiskey, and a dog to eat the rare steak.”

I like the idea of a gag... but this one is about whiskey. So I needed something better.

My mate Elliott suggested I might use one of the only two jokes that work for Classicists…

“ A Centurion walks into a cocktail bar...

Can I get a Martinus?

Don’t you mean a Martini?

Mate, if I wanted two I’d have asked.”

That, I like. It was the lead suggestion for a while... then I read something in a substack from Il Pelagi. An episode in the whole James Bond cocktail lore I’d never heard before. It’s where Fleming got the idea of the Vesper.

I’ll quote directly...

...the story goes that Fleming and Bryce were visiting a remote estate in Jamaica when a butler served them a tray of rum-based drinks, announcing,

“The Vespers are served.”

Suddenly, there’s a whole new layer of context.

II.6.

Christian Church. 1611

II.6.a.

Vespers. The sixth of the Canonical Hours of the breviary, said or celebrated towards evening; = evensong n. 1; also, the time of this office.

Whoah! So actually, the original ‘Vesper’ wasn’t necessarily the blend of Gin, Vodka and Kina Lillet that cocktail nerds have been arguing about ever since Vesper Lynd copped a headshot in the book. It’s much more important. It’s vespers…

It’s a religious office marking the end of day.

That is, to say the very least, significant.

Because I live in Cambridge, I can nip out to an excellent evensong any evening I fancy and in spite of being the most godless arse that ever lived, they let me draw peace and calm from it.

But until I read Il Pelagi’s substack I’d never made the connection.

Tonight I took a direct Tanqueray Gibson as my ‘Vesper’. What was yours?

And the dedication for the book?

Do you think I can get away with ...

Deus, in adiutórium meum inténde?