Not Rennes-Le-Chateau

Toasts to the queen, toasts to the ladies, toasts to the worshipful master's lady, toasts to the worshipful master's lady's sisters and mother, toasts to the people who were at a Masonic event for the first time, toasts to the worshipful master, toasts to the one who will be worshipful master soon, toasts to the one was worshipful master before... the most I could ever bring to the Masons would be an ability to charge my glass with the speed of a tripping whippet.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of the quasi religious background to it all... certainly that determined sceptic larians looked politely quizzical. They said grace twice. Who says grace twice? First they spoke it and then they sang it, to taped wurlitzer music. The old Monty Python sketch, 'Postal Blackmail' rose before my eyes, and for just a second I had to suppress unworthy smirks. The glittering discoball and occasional Elvis impressions added to the surreality of the evening but mainly it was a room full of very kind people trying to raise money for charity, and succeeding. They auctioned off robes and aprons connected to various degrees of masonry, but only actual masons could take part - a pity, I would have liked to check out the symbols on the pinnies. Instead, the ladies got hatboxes complete with pretty mugs, chocolates, candles and bath stuff, and I was the baffled recipient of an enormous white hydrangea. This however, was not the greatest mystery of the evening... behind the hotel bar was a man filled with such loathing against his employer, he suffered from measure blindness; Larians ordered a shot of whisky, the bartender poured something like a third of a bottle into the glass. This happened at least twice; I was waiting for him to tell us the secret of the Widow's Son. Instead, he poured us half pints of all the good whisky in the hotel. There's a story there, I just know it...