Friday, January 28, 2005

An Exceedingly Good Survey

I was walking from the High Street in Exeter towards Martins Lane at about 2.30 in the afternoon when one of those customer survey women, with a clipboard, pen and ID, stopped me (right next to Clintons Cards). She was aged about fifty five, very well-spoken; in fact, quite posh.

'Would you like to take part in a customer survey in the Clarence Hotel? It will only take a few minutes. You can have a coffee.'

Well, how could I refuse? I wasn't doing much anyway so I accepted her invitation, my first for several years (since the chocolate bar survey back in about 1991).

'Yeah, fine.'

She led me down the narrow Martins Lane and around the corner and into the Clarence Hotel, currently undergoing major refurbishment. This meant passing Tact Personnel, that awful employment agency, and the Ship Inn.

The room was upstairs, past a number of old oil paintings, mostly of venerable persons and some nautical stuff. It's actually very plush inside the Clarence Hotel and quite easy to see why it is five star. It has thick, expensive carpets and very well painted walls.

On the laptop computer, going through the preliminary stuff and then the questions/survey, it took me about five minutes to work out what the hell it was all about. It's funny because it reminded me of a radio programme I had listened to on the BBC website the other day. That show - a great, fantastic show - was I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. This show is chaired by the great Humphrey Lyttleton who must now be about 80.

Anyway, one joke - from the introduction to the programme, always the most interesting part - was about Rudyard Kipling, the noted poet and novelist. The show was from Royal Tunbridge Wells, and Lyttleton joked that Kipling lived in nearby Burwash and that his most famous poem was If. That's the one which goes: If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs... then why not treat yourself to one of my exceedingly good cakes.

Well, this survey was all about cakes and confectionary and was actually, finally, all about Kipling cakes. They have new packaging and they want to know what people think about their reputation and stuff. Surprisingly, there was no way of mentioning the 'exceedingly good' catchphrase. It did ask, however, how old Mr Kipling was - about 70 I suppose, the perfect age to be a dedicated cakemaker.

I'm sure Mr Kipling has visited Exeter before; he's probably even had tea in the Clarence Hotel. I think Mr Kipling is an exceedingly good person as well as a great cakemaker. But he is so enigmatic that no-one has ever seen a photograph of him. If Mr Kipling opened a coffee shop and bakers he would be the most successful ever, for sure.

I think Mr Kipling is the John Betjeman of cakes though he's probably teetotal; he only has afternoon tea and cakes. If they'd met in Exeter they would've gone to the famous Deller's Cafe - the Cafe of the West in Bedford Street - and had afternoon tea (and they would never be stopped for a customer survey along the way). It would be like that sweet, touching, final scene at the end of the film Remains of the Day where Mr Stevens meets Miss Kenton for the last time and they have tea, accompanied by a haunting Blue Moon. Perfect. (It was actually filmed in the Winter Gardens Pavilion in Weston-super-Mare).

I left the Clarence Hotel and the survey with a pen, after my awful cup of coffee. Why didn't they offer me one of Mr Kipling's cakes?

For the full history of Mr Kipling and his great cakes:
http://www.mrkipling.co.uk/downloads/info_pack.pdf

This page has some great pictures of Deller's Cafe and its ornate interior:
http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/1940s.html

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