I’ve plied this joke previously but it remains current. My good friend “Goblets”, a Portuguese from the one of the edgier quarters of Lisbon. Out where the taxi drivers want cash up front.
Anyway, Goblets started working at the Polygon somewhere around 1980. My mum took a shine to him. One of the best in the wash-up she said. He got promoted to bus-boy after a while. When mum was doing the “private” dining for assorted prime ministers, Hollywood stars and minor royals she always wanted Goblets pushing the trolley. Apparently he was always where she wanted him, exactly when she wanted him and had faded into the background before anyone had ever noticed. Even Margaret Thatcher didn’t notice him and she was as sharp as Blackthorn.
Any ways, Goblets got offered another uplift: Waiter, in the dining room. Mum watched as his comrades started his training. They offered “always pull back the chair for the lady and say “park your arse missus””. Mum’s left-hook was famous: Goblets tormentor wore his black-eye with a sort of pride.
So, Goblets came up with one of my favourite jokes. He had progressed from wash-up to bus-boy to waiter to Head Waiter. He ran the dining room with a brutal, and profitable, gentility that any manager could aspire to but most will never achieve.
So, contributing to a discussion on equalities, sharing and suchlike he said: “me and my wife we share… if she wants a new Dress she buys a new Dress; if I want a new car I buy new car.” You needed to be there to see the wink.