Dear Boyling,

I can not apologise enough for my epistolary silence of late, so I shall not even bother to try. A tidal wave of moral imperatives pertaining to logistics, academia and inebriety had taken custody of my time and attention. There, that’s my apologia.

I have now transferred my existence and most of my interim belongings to the wonderful metropolis of Oxford, and have found it to be just as tremendously charming a place as I’m sure you recall that it was when we first met that scoundrel Humphrey Mabbitt. How ironic that we first laid eyes on him under the Oxonian replica of the bridge of sighs… But no matter!

Boyling, old bean, I have news for you that will shatter the very foundation of your existence. Forget your work, however stimulating! Forget whatever sordid romance you’re indulging in at the moment! For I have found a restaurant in the vicinity of Ponkleton Manor (as I have chosen to dub the local Ponk Plaza) that produces a curry of so outrageously high quality, that it almost certainly can give the heart of any sophisticated gentleman the viscosity of baked beans! Surely you can imagine my excitement. To be fair, I rather enjoy retaining my sophistication at all times, but denouncing it only for the course of a meal – pun intended – is too tempting in its profane vulgarity not to attempt and even repeat. It is true, I delighted in the culinary magnificence of Veneto for a year, overcompensating as it were, since I was all too familiar with Blighty’s cuisine, but I have now discovered that not only can one find excellent food here (that comes from Bangladesh), but also that the traditional English kitchen is the greatest in the world. It forgoes such trivialities as aesthetics and taste and focuses in their stead on what is important in life, namely, sustaining it with discerning desperation. I am currently in the process of housebreaking my one-eared manservant Sordo in this respect, but he still insists on preparing Italian food every once in a while. I have chosen not to discipline him too ferociously yet, however, as I find it much more rewarding to accumulate several, if not many, reasons for reprimands and then deliver them all at once with apparent overindulgence and excess.

What else? Oh, yes, my new quarters. Rather small compared to what I’m used to, but one needs to make do for the time being. I’m only here for a year, after all. But my bedchamber has a certain charm to it, I must say. Slowly but surely, I am saturating my burgundy silk tapestries with the sweet perfume of Lady Nicotine. My current bed is also far more spacious and comfortable than the glorified cot that Sordo procured for my chambers in Ca’ Ponkelino. (I swear to God, he must have found it in the stables.) One dreams much nicer dreams in it. Last night I dreamed a nostalgic little thing about that lumbering zeppelin of a man, Engelbert Fitzpatrick, and how you and I taught him a lesson on that breezy autumn afternoon in Hyde Park. The night before, I had a far more, shall we say, risqué dream about lips and, hrmm… lace… but more about that when we next chinwag by means of the telephonic apparatus that Sordo is now monophonically installing in the drawing room with little success. I can see him from here. He’s actually testing the receiver with his ear-less side. That scoundrel is probably spying on me. He knows I always read what I write out loud in real-time. That’s right, you asymmetric bastard, I’m on to you! Hah, he just left. I knew it!

In any event, I hope that you are well. I heard some rumours regarding you possibly embarking on some sort of cohabitation safari. Do tell! 

In the meantime, stay well and convey my salutations to any mutual acquaintance of ours that you might stumble upon.

Toodle-Pip,

Ponkleton