Magical dining

Bear with me, there's a backstory to this.

Years ago, I read a series of esoteric novels, written mid 20th century, by occult writer Dion Fortune (real name Violet Mary Firth). Fortune was quite a girl: she hung out with Aleister Crowley, among others, though she didn't think much of him. She also wasn't a bad writer, with less of a tendency towards purple prose than many of her contemporaries, and she was a practising ceremonial magician. Anyway, one of the novels - MOON MAGIC - features her heroine's home, a converted chapel in the middle of London. On reading this, it struck me as the ultimate urban magician's pad (she even describes the bathroom), but it never struck me that the place was real. It is. It was Fortune's own house, though she changed its location a little.

Some months ago, the person who is the head of my Druidic order, Philip Carr-Gomm, was up in town and decided to take a look at the place. He assumed it was still a private residence, but no - it's Anton Mosimann's restaurant. He asked if he could have a look around, and Philip being a rather eminent psychiatrist rather than some wild-eyed white-robed hippy, they said yes.

Then they asked him if he'd like to hire it.

Cut to several months later, and the official celebration of the 60th anniversary of Dion Fortune's death by the Society of Esoteric Artists (we had to think of a more neutral name than 'bunch of druids'). T and I drove up to London on Saturday afternoon, stopping off at Stonehenge en route and crashing with claire_weaver and the redoubatble co-editor of the Disease Guide, Mark Roberts. Then we headed into Belgravia and met the rest of the bunch, some 25 people including various writers on Celtic mythology and an Irish druidess who has the curious distinction of being the wife of a BeeGee.

Mosimann's is a fairly jaw-dropping building - a huge vault, which is the main dining area and once the main room of the chapel, strung with chandeliers, and then a weird, winding maze of corridors and little rooms, one of which you can hire a deux and summon the waiter with a bell. It culminates in an enormous arched dome with a pillar in the middle, which is where Fortune apparently carried out her own rituals. The whole thing is decked with about 400 black and white photos of Anton Mosimann with his customers, everyone from Jimmy Carter to Miss South Africa 1974.

We had a series of readings, one of them by me, of DF's work, and then ate (salmon and caviar mousse, lamb with Chinese vegetables and a lavendar and pannacotta dessert. The food was excellent, and the wine was fine, though not stellar - I think you'd have to pay more. It cost, I might add, an arm and a leg, but it was worth it). Half the group had to move round between courses to socialise, and I ended up talking to most people, including Mrs BeeGee about India and staying in maharajahs' palaces, which she does and I, er, don't. But then I don't live next door to Bono, either.

Eventually, about midnight, we were once more ejected into Belgravia and T and I, blessed by the travel gods, caught every last tube back to where we were staying.

Sunday

On Sunday, the various members of the household, T and myself walked to Greenwich for lunch and had fish and chips in the Trafalgar, which is a huge, dark green, old fashioned pub on the Thames - great views out across the river to the Millennium Dome. T (who, though of Welsh origins, was born and raised in London) was last in this pub 41 years ago when, as a child, he was taken to watch Churchill's funeral: Winston was carried up the Thames in a gunship.

claire_weaver now wants a similar funeral, but we think that she might have to save Britain from a Nazi peril first. We'll do what we can.

Then we went to Greenwich market and bought lots of coffee beans, including some allegedly Irish whisky coffee, which may allow me to cut out the middleman, or may not. After this, we drove back to Somerset, which took about 3 hours in filthy weather.

New folks on the f-list

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And thank you for taking an interest!