Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [5]
Khoury comes equipped as a sort of roving international ambassador of correct cocktail etiquette. His briefcase is a beautiful wood-inlaid aluminium job divided into foam-lined compartments for measuring jug, log-handled stirring spoon, fruit knife, ice bucket, a strainer for taking the pith, ice tongs, a champagne stopper and, of course, the silver shaker itself. 'I stir my Martinis. I never shake,' he says, in response to the inevitable comparison with Bond.
He also brings a selection of glasses, some of them traditional, such as the typical champagne flute, and some of them the trademarks of his bar, such as the Savoy's own more generous champagne goblet, the Martini glass that has been an unassailable feature of the hotel since the '20s, and a huge cut-glass balloon suitable for cognac – a particular favourite of Churchill, apparently.
Sadly, none of them fit in a cup holder.
Cup holders can be divided into two basic types. There is the first phase of development, where they took the simple form of a tapered cup-shaped hollow somewhere on the facia, there to satisfy the supposed demand for cup holders at minimum expense. The most pathetic example of Phase One cup holders probably occurred on a Seat Arosa I once owned, in which the inside of the glovebox lid boasted two vague circular indentations. They were little more than a desperate grasp at cup-holder credibility, a sort of visual indication to Place Cups Here, nothing more. But that was in the mid-'90s, a time when it was suddenly believed that not having a cup holder was like admitting to still having drum brakes at the front.
Phase One cup holders still survive on plenty of cars and are at least suitable for storing mobile phones. They might even accept the base of a champagne flute or wine glass, but a lot depends on location. In the VW Beetle, for example, the diameter of the cup holes is slightly smaller than that of the base of Khoury's Martini glass, and in any case the Martini would have to be tipped on to its side in order to clear the bottom of the dashboard's central binnacle before final insertion. The only drink that can safely be turned on its side is one with a lid on it, which immediately puts us back in the hands of Cafe Nero.
The service is rather better on the Rolls-Royce stand, and especially in the rear of the Phantom, which is a good venue for a drink. Here, the cup-holder tray – essentially still a Phase One type – extends from beneath the seat and will at least accept the pint pot Khoury brought along at my personal insistence (pints not actually being available in the American Bar), since it has sufficient headroom. Rolls-Royce will also supply a proper drinks cabinet, complete with glasses, if desired. But at £240,000 one has to wonder why it isn't standard. You can find a mini bar in a £50 hotel room these days.
Phase Two cup holders are much more fatuous. These are the spring-loaded, extending and retracting type that testify to cup-holder oneupmanship on the part of car manufacturers. Once the novelty of simply having a cup holder wore off – and that happened pretty quickly – it became important for car owners to be able to impress passengers with cup-holder complexity. Top speeds and 0-60mph times have clearly been usurped by the number of stages in your cup holder's deployment. Some of them emerge like time-lapsed film of a daffodil opening, or expand into a sort of plastic balletic first position.
Especially idiotic examples of Phase Two cup holders – but there are many more – occur in the new BMW 5-Series and the Saab 9-3. In the BMW, the central holder not only sprouts from the dashboard, it actually follows a curved path towards the driving seat, as if reaching an extra inch or two for your cappuccino grande might be too much effort.
But Saab can beat that. Its offering is so geometrically baffling that