The weather outside was frightful, the meal inside delightful

Twenty-one Paris Dinosaurs and wives gathered at the Institut Vatel hotel management and cooking school in Paris for a rousing lunch which lasted until 5 pm.

The weather outside was terrible, but the atmosphere was more than warm in the Salon Eiffel private dining room where we had lunch prepared and served by the students of this renowned école hotelière.

Present were: Tony Austin, Charles Bremner, Bernard and Suzanne Edinger, Nelson and Laure Graves, Martin Leeburn, Marcel and Maartje Michelson, Don Nordberg and Hilary Glassborow, Julian and Fabienne Nundy, François Raitberger, Alan Riding, John Stephens, Paul Taylor, Terry and Yolande Williams, Tony and Fay Winning.

Inevitably - it always happens - one of the rare active journalists present, Charles Bremner, had to leave before the end of the meal at the call of his newspaper, The Times.

The next Dinosaur’s feed is tentatively planned aboard a boat on the Seine, probably in the shadow of Notre Dame Cathedral, in either June or September.

Anyone who has specific preferences for dates can make them known to me, the organiser, at edinger@wanadoo.fr. ■