Drink
I might not be a wily share-dealer, function properly on minimal quantities of sleep or earn six- or seven-figure sums like the recently suspended City whizz-kid James Archer, but if he can handle a Flaming Ferrari cocktail, then so can I. That's what I think anyway.
Archer and his cronies, members of the work-hard, play-hard gang named after their favourite drink, are fast-living in a rather childish and self-conscious manner. In a defining sort of way, they relax on Friday nights in a Vietnamese restaurant, the Nam Long, on Old Brompton Road in Knightsbridge. When I tell my cousin I'm going there she looks appalled. "No," she cries, "that's where Jemima used to go." We both know precisely what this means. Jemima divided her time between an art-dealer in Monaco and an adoring Frenchman with a Chelsea mansion and knew no man who could not have bought his own accessorised yacht with champagne-filled swimming pool and matching blonde.
The Nam Long is bristling with international jet trash wearing day-old suits and exaggerated good manners. At the bar someone offers me a seat. Here, I am a lady. Desperate with curiosity, I immediately order a Flaming Ferrari. It costs £13. A combination of dark rum, chartreuse and Grand Marnier (no mixers), it comes in a menacingly large martini glass. And it is served discreetly, without the usual attendant look-at-me paraphernalia (sparklers, dance troupe, arm-waving) of flaming drinks and knickerbocker glories.
I am handed a straw. An impeccably polite barman lights the drink and, as it flames blue on burnt caramel, tells me to plunge the straw to the bottom of the glass and drink until I have finished. Fumes fill my nose and scorch through my head, obliterating all remaining brain cells. The Ferrari is the most powerful thing I've ever tasted. As I gasp and struggle to drink it, the waiter adds blue curacao. A mini inferno rages in the glass. I can barely swallow. All my senses are rushing close to explosion point. The straw is melting, too - I am not drinking quickly enough. I am wincing, gasping, stretching towards the end of this endurance test - the bottom of the glass. And when I reach it I am overcome with relief.
So what does it taste like? I simply can't remember. The point of this is not to enjoy but to impress. And, indeed, I have won myself an admirer. A middle-aged Frenchman (impeccably groomed, of course) reaches across the bar and takes my hand. "Aaaah, eet ees very good, you 'ave done so well," he croons. And then, because he can't think of anything else to say but wishes to continue cradling and stroking my reluctant hand, he repeats himself. Several times.
I disentangle myself with the help of my newly arrived friends, Steve and Claire, for whom, vengefully, I order a Ferrari apiece. Their responses mirror mine. Steve says it isn't so much a taste experience as a panic experience. Claire nearly sets fire to her curly hair and I have to help her finish it before she can proclaim that it is too hot to appreciate.
After that we can only manage one shell-shocked round of gin and tonics before reeling into the street to find taxis. Even the Frenchman, grabbing at my hand and deploying his Gallic accent again, cannot stand in my way. And the effects of this potent drink are lasting. "Suitable only for professionals," warned the cocktail menu. Whatever it takes to be a City girl with a taste for the high life, I just don't have it.
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