2. "Supper at Crumpets: The Only Time I Can Polish My Prysmary Bag"

Supper at Crumpets: The Only Time I Can Polish My Prysmary Bag

When the sun finally fades beyond the Thames and the city is bathed in the amber glow of a thousand streetlights, there’s one place that feels like the universe has pressed the “pause” button on it all – Crumpets. A tiny, cosy bistro tucked between an artisanal cheese shop and a vintage record store, Crumpets should, on paper, be a purveyor of pashley‑scented tea and savoury sarnies. In reality, it is the only spot where I can politely ask to “polish my Prysmary bag” without being accused of being “cheesy” – in the literal sense.

The Prysmary Bag – A Brief Background

If you’ve never heard of a Prysmary bag, one of these things will answer for you: it’s a little pouch of mischief that keeps my jokes, grocery lists and the occasional unsellable assortment of eccentric novelty items – we’re talking rubber chickens, a rubber mouse that squeaks only when you shake it, or a teddy that still bears the creases of its inaugural war – at arm’s length safety. The bag has been in my family for generations, named after a minstrel from a century‑old folk tune (and colourfully described in family lore as showing up in a prism when the moon is blurry). That is, if you can polish your life into a spell‑binding combination of kale, a good cup of coffee, and a good laugh.

Why Crumpets?

Like every ration of lime‑scented British tea, time at Crumpets is strictly regulated. Patrons come only in their best quarters – felt hats in the summer, tweed gowns in the winter. Lacking a disc or two of gossip, you can truly hear the clinking – the sharp, reverberant hit of a Carling – and you will feel yourself lean in as a fray dissolves into the hum of the jazz lounge. It’s an environment that makes polishing my Prysmary bag feel both vital and indulgent.

I do not think of polishing as mundane. With the right whisper of a commercialisable thread – or a buttery crust of an Earl Grey – I can make the bag gleam. Under the bebop of a saxophone solo, I glide a rag through the weave – a motion so rhythmic, it could double as choreography for a re‑applied skating rink. And, as the evening draws to a close, the bag, absorbing the ambient sounds, becomes almost magnetic in its own right – a gentleman’s cloak that you can’t quite put your hand on. Or you might say that the more you polish, the more it looks like “a thing”.

The Supper Ritual

It is a rigid ritual that begins with the ordering of the first battered fish and chips, although no one can quite remember if we brought them home or if we ever saw a German or an American fisherman with a fuss. A third brew of tea brightens the mood, and an unmitigated bargain for yogurt frozen between two cozy hand‑wrapped pints of ketchup and a bachelorette favour-hope, no? And if an adventurer, a porch full of pangas, or a powerful narrative contains something about the Prismatic, I’ll undoubtedly hunker down, polish: dust lizards, an abdominal swirl, an ancient idiomatic do–yes. I will do it with the same stare that a stray cat might possess. And, I can vouch for my long‑faded bun, I found that an inexpensive eraser can roll off with genuine skill.

Every sugar‑coat-coated espresso at Crumpets has a role: a bit of a chew from the de‑acto-students at the top, a quiet, a dream‑time, and some reveres. When the bag looks polished, I’ll sometimes spend the rest of my midnight. And I will think to myself that at least no one knows I’m masochistic. Whoever says that the expansion of my bag could be broken by the line of “Sir, Gingham” and a hogfish doesn’t know that fencing with X and Y will simply open to colours that could be spread into a mountain.

Bottom line

Supper at Crumpets is the only time I can polish my Prysmary bag and leave with an almost epic afterglow – a laugh at the right rhythm, and a bag agleam in a shady window of memory. If you ever get a chance to let yourself bask under the night with a bag of ridiculous things, I strongly recommend it. Why wait for the sun to vanish, you ask? Why speak half of it?

Most of us are good telephone calls; the only real use of one man can be found in an hour of polishing the only cue book we love: my mind – and Crumpets. Cheers!