If you’ve got the bottle, with a little planning you can dine free-of-charge every night in London’s smartest restaurants, and leave with very pricey vintage wine under your wing. Artful bill-dodgers, Terry Morris and Dick York, have acquired a taste for expensive wine. Too expensive; their palettes are becoming ever more refined, much to the bemusement of their friends.
Terry has what is known as, “the mouth”. Not a natural scholar; nethertheless he’s the brains behind the wine scams. His rough charm and quick wit ensure he has more success with women than is morally acceptable. Dick is living proof that a university education guarantees you the pick of the best low-paid shop work; an amateur connoisseur in the field of wine – a confirmed amateur in the field of women.
Rosalind Downing is a young actress from a famous acting family. She’s icily unimpressed by all of Terry’s usually failsafe lines, until her Aunt needs to retrieve her priceless bottle of Margaux. Professor Hermione Radcliffe is a famous academic with a secret identity as a High Priestess of Isis – leader of the ancient cult of Nefertiti.
Harry Cutler & Sons; four generations of this East End family have lived and worked at the same Smithfield butchers. Terry and Dick’s mate Chopsy, aka Russell Cutler and his bullying father Gordon, are the current proprietors. Chopsy’s great grandfather Harry disappeared in strange circumstances.
You can’t claim to be a wine connoisseur until you’ve sampled a bottle of Margaux. Undaunted by the price, age or circumstances, Terry still has a 1932 vintage away at The Ivy but the true cost to the boys has yet to dawn on them.