Did I ever tell you about my yuppie phase?

Between 1974 and 1978, long before the expression “yuppie” had been invented, I worked for an organisation that had something of the Wild West about it. Great years! We were selling English language courses to foreign learners, and it was, frankly, a licence to print money (Later, the market got tough, and I moved into industrial and management training with an equally buccaneering company based near Cambridge).

Anyway, the point of this story is to tell you about Longi’s. Longi’s was the poshest and most expensive restaurant in town, and we could afford to eat there any time we felt like it, whereas for most people, it was a once a decade treat.

With my cronies, usually after a good night in the boozer, we would go to Longi’s for a late supper, generally some expensive fish and white wine. On one occasion, one of my colleagues had presented me with a hat, the sort that an upmarket angler might wear. I wore it going into Longi’s and asked Longi what he thought. “Rassomigli uno spaventapasseri,” he said with more than a touch of venom in his tone (The restaurant was full of respectable customers, you understand, not people like us).His words carried a double insult: first, he told me I looked like a scarecrow; and secondly, he used the “tu” form, which is reserved for intimates, family and people you want to humiliate.

I gave up being a yuppie after that. Mind you, I still continued to eat at Longi’s, first because the food was so good; and secondly, because I was always guaranteed quattro chiacchiere – a nice chat in Italian – with Signora L, who didn't think I was a yuppie or a scarecrow, but just a nice chap. One day, I intend to live up to her expectations of me.

PS Longi was interned on the Isle of Man during WWII as an undesirable alien. I don't blame him for being bitter.