UXD 2:The Next Five Years.

Five years ago, I wrote a blog about the then 31 year history of the Unemployed Xmas Dinner. I don't want to write one every year (I'd rather concentrate on enjoying the event) but I did think it'd be nice to now, a full lustrum later, write a little follow up. As I explained in 2019's blog it's just a case of holding on to some memories at a time when we reach an age when our memories, and bodies, start failing us.

In the 2019 blog I wrote about two events that were specific to that year. Firstly that Miriam and Ian were expecting a child and that that child might be born during the UXD. Arlow didn't quite manage that but he was born the very next day when Damon and I were enjoying a few, quite a few, recovery pints in The Three Guineas. A pub in Reading train station. Classy.

I also wrote about how 2019's UXD would be the first time we'd held the event since we lost Bugsy so it's really nice to be able to report that this year his son Dylan will be making his first appearance. Something I'm pretty certain Bugsy would have been proud and happy about. In the intervening years there have, sadly, been more losses. Particularly of parents (including one just this week). A silly little Xmas dinner isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things but, for me, getting together with friends and family is - and this event seems to be a pretty good way of doing just that.

In 2019 we went to House of Flavours in Reading and a few of us ended up in The Blagrave Arms, to the best of my knowledge Reading's only gay pub. It was a fun night and though Adam dropped the Man of the Year award he did raise a toast for Bugsy. Which was quite moving. I was set next to Damon and he put his hand on my back because he knew it was an emotional moment for me as it was for lots of us. Not least Carole.

Then in 2020, we missed a year. For the first time since we started this nonsense. It won't be a surprise that Covid was the culprit. We simply couldn't do it. I harboured an idea of having a very late UXD in the spring or summer of 2021 but that never really took off. We were back, some of us - everyone had to make their own decisions, for Xmas 2021 with an event in Brixton.

Drinks in The Effra Tavern, Mexican food in DF Tacos, more drinks in The Dogstar and then me (and, thankfully, just me) getting 'coronavirus' (as we used to call it) the next day and spending the rest of the festive season in splendid isolation. I rather enjoyed it though pleased to report that this year I'll be back in action. In fact, I'm not only having an unemployed Xmas dinner, I'm having an EMPLOYED Xmas dinner. At least two of them. I'm really enjoying my work and I'm really liking all my new colleagues. There's even a couple of familiar faces amongst them!

2022 we were back in Reading at Bill's (pre-meal drinks in The Fisherman's Cottage) and we voted against joining the young and cool set in The Purple Turtle aftewards (too packed, yes - we're old) and instead went to The Hope Tap (a Wetherspoons house on Friar Street) where we saw a man sat on his own, knocking back a pint, and repeatedly watching Mike Read's UKIP Calypso on his phone. Each to his own.

Last year we had the meal in the pub (the idea being it would be cheaper, an idea presumably that someone who has not looked at a pub menu recently came up with). The Bay and Bracket in Victoria (a few of us had drinks in The Greencoat Boy beforehand and a few of us in The Albert after - apparently some continued on in Brixton but I'd gone home by then) which was very friendly and we got Santa hats and all that. I wasn't super impressed with my meal (and Mesude ate my starter, presuming that in Turkish tradition it was 'for the table') but the UXD isn't really about fine dining, it's about getting together. 

This blog is as much about getting some photos of the last five years out there as it is about the meals but I'm looking forward to tomorrow and seeing the, hopefully sixteen - maybe more and maybe less, people that are coming along to The Boundary pub and then Las Iguanas after. Rob (who, as tradition dictates, has booked him and myself into The Premier Inn) has told me he's meeting with our old friend Sean Provis in The Purple Turtle beforehand and that will take me right back to the early days, 1989, of the UXD. Merry Xmas everybody, here's some more photos and see a fair few of you tomorrow for the 35th (THIRTY-FIFTH) UXD!