I have fond memories of boozy City lunches, but the demise of the 'two bottler' is long overdue

'Apart from spending a considerable sum of money, piling on the calories, and making me feel terrible the rest of the day, what did they actually achieve?' asks Chris Blackhurst

Far too many careers and lives have been ruined by what began as the odd liquid lunch turning into a daily occurrence (Getty/iStock)

The two old boys were having lunch. On the table was a bottle of wine. When they ordered a second, there was an audible ripple of admiration around the room. Fellow diners smiled in their direction.

This scene unfolded recently in a City restaurant. Indeed, the two men looked as if they had met for a bit of a stockbroker reunion, to reminisce about their share trading, and lunching, days.

Hardly anyone has a “two bottler” any more. Not at lunch on a work day. One bottle is rare, but a couple – that is going some.

Even a glass of wine is relatively scarce. If I look through my diary of a month’s worth of business lunches, those where the other person had a glass (like many, I no longer drink at lunchtime) amount to just a handful.

In most workplaces today, drinking during working hours is frowned upon, as is consuming enough alcohol in the evening so that your breath smells of it the following morning. Doing the latter once may be okay; do it twice or more, and you will be marked down as having “a problem”.

Times have changed enormously since I started out, first in the City, then in media. Back then, and we’re talking more than three decades ago, it was standard to head to the nearest wine bar or the pub, and polish off a few glasses of wine or pints of beer before returning to your desk and attempting to work.

Sometimes, as a junior, you felt obliged to keep your end up, so when the partners at my law firm, all male, lined up another bottle I would gulp and go along with it. Likewise, as a journalist, you occasionally had to go with the flow as part of the job.

One of the booziest lunches I ever had was with Crispin Odey, the hedge fund magnate. When I arrived to interview him at Corrigan’s – the super-smart Mayfair restaurant of star chef Richard Corrigan – I was treated like royalty. Odey was running slightly late, and I was shown to a prime table. The staff bustled around, checking I was okay; nothing was too much for them. Finally he arrived, and they went into overdrive.

A bottle of normally exquisite – and expensive – white Burgundy was produced, which Odey decided was not quite right. The sommelier scurried away to fetch another one. Odey glanced at the menu and knew what he wanted: a duck egg to start, followed by, if I agreed, a shared steak and kidney pie. “And what about some beef on the side, let’s have the loin of beef on the side. Lovely. Oh, and we’d better have some mash and some kale – we ought to have something green.”

He called over the wine waiter again: “And we’d like a bottle of the Leoville.” The Leoville Barton was superb, as was the food. This was mid-week. A bottle of white, and a bottle of red. Beef on the side. Even back then, nobody had lunch like this, not any more, not in oh-so politically correct, watching-the-calories, London. Not on this scale, and even more rarely, at this cost. What’s more, with Odey, there was the feeling this was nothing special. The office of his firm, Odey Asset Management, was across the road, and Corrigan’s might as well have been his canteen.

As the lunch progressed, my handwriting became illegible, and started to angle down the page, until the words trailed off completely

Block quote caption

So, when I read an interview this week with veteran advertising boss Rory Sutherland, I was drawn to his statement that his industry is inordinately less boozy than it was: “Mind you, everything is less boozy. It was pretty routine at lunchtime to see people in the street outside a pub at 2.30 necking pints. It was also routine in advertising, which I always thought was a good thing which we shouldn’t have lost.”

Sutherland was reminiscing in the same month that Lloyd’s of London has issued a new stern code of conduct to the 40,000 pass holders at its Leadenhall Street headquarters. From now on, anyone thought to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol will be refused entry. This, from what was regarded for its 331 year existence as the high temple of lunchtime boozing.

Who is right, who is wrong? Lloyd’s move was motivated by claims of sexual harassment and bad, laddish behaviour. It effectively signals the end for what was known euphemistically in the City as “liquid negotiations” or what Brexiteer Nigel Farage, a former broker, refers to as PFLs – “proper f***ing lunches”.

Like Nigel, I enjoyed my PFLs. Like Rory, too, I look back at them with fondness.

But I also have to ask myself: apart from spending what, over the years, would have amounted to a considerable sum of money, piling on the calories, and making me feel terrible the rest of the day, what did they actually achieve? Of course, they fostered camaraderie, of the loud, male, kind.

I also saw, though, far too many careers and lives ruined by what began as the odd PFL turning into a daily occurrence. A liquid lunch would then be replicated by something similar in the evening, every evening. One of those, doubtless, was Guy Farage, a City trader and alcoholic who abandoned the family home and his son, Nigel, then aged five.

Did any good come from them? I would venture, not where progress at work was concerned. I attempted to fire questions at Odey. As the lunch progressed, my handwriting became illegible and started to angle down the page, until the words trailed off completely. I had to finish the interview when I was sober.

Lloyd’s initiative is long overdue. We may miss the lunchtime drinking. But if we’re honest, not really.

Chris Blackhurst is a former editor of The Independent, and director of C|T|F Partners, the campaigns, strategic, crisis and reputational, communications advisory firm