20 November 1996

Eton Mess

I had a delightful dinner with Peter Townsend. He was a charming conversationalist, full of wit and art world anecdotes. (When I asked him if he'd ever been confused with a musician of the same name, he said once Mick Jagger had called him--collect--at three in the morning from the other side of the Atlantic.) For desert we were presented with some foamy concoction called "Eton Mess." We couldn't figure out any of its physical properties, and when Peter went to investigate his specimen he accidentally knocked it over. We all agreed that when presented with a mess, the best thing to do is to make another one.