Luton Beach

Luton’s Lido beach immediately behind the picturesque Arndale Centre has been highly acclaimed for its quiet location, privacy for naturists, clean gravel, disabled facilities, and the unfailing courtesy of its jet ski operators.

Licensed beach vendors offer a stunning variety of holiday indispensables, from comfrey cakes and 'icy bastards' (chilled spiced wine) to worry beads and approved hallucinogens.

Luton Catacombs

Your visit to historic Luton will not be complete unless you set aside at least a day to explore the fabulous catacombs.

A ‘town within a town’, this subterranean labyrinth beneath High Town of rocky tunnels and chambers, some as capacious as cathedrals, spans a total of 32.7 acres - roughly the size of 30 standard soccer pitches.The limestone caves were initially ground out in the Jurassic era by water finding its way into the river Lea below. At this time, the entire Lea Valley was a shallow lake, much inhabited by dinosaurs. Fossilised dinosaur dung or coprolites have long been dug out of local fields and ground up as fertiliser.

Erasmus possibly visited the catacombs in 1498 en route to Oxford. Certainly, he refers to Luton and its ‘gleeking empirics’ in In Praise of Folly (published 1549). The antiquarian John Aubrey picnicked in the Prince’s Chamber in 1666, following his excavations at Stonehenge. The initials he scratched on a stalagmite can still be seen.

Samuel Johnson dropped into the caves on 4th June 1781 after a visit to Luton Hoo’s Walled Garden. He did not venture far into the great torchlit galleries, having poor eyesight, but he complimented them, saying they might house a library ‘better than a king’s’. Dan Brown, of course, drew heavily on Luton’s catacombs as his inspiration for the Da Vinci Code.

However, the catacomb’s fame as a site of international archeological interest began as late as 1914 when local villagers, seeking refuge from Zeppelins, broke through a man-made wall in the little-explored Queen’s Chamber on the lowest level. Behind it was an entire medieval village dating from the 13th century!

They found streets, shops, hostelries, barns, stables, ossuaries, and even ordinaries (restaurants) with wooden trencher boards still bearing fragments of half-eaten food. All had been marvellously preserved in the ultra-dry air.

What drove these people to build a secret village underground with such labour? And what became of them?

Speculations abound. They might have been pagan worshippers of Diana, persecuted by the Catholic church. (Many bones of horses, an animal sacred to Diana, have been found beneath the little street-side temples. By their odd carvings, the temples are emphatically not Christian.) Perhaps they were followers of Hippolytus, a breakaway 3rd century bishop? The shrine of St Ippolyts is just a few miles up the road.

Some think the Knights Templar found sanctuary there in 1312, and that the Holy Grail - which the Knights guarded - is still buried beneath Luton. However, although a treasure trove of artifacts has been unearthed from the ‘secret’ village - and can be inspected at Wardown Park Museum - nothing that resembles the legendary golden goblet has been found.

Perhaps the Grail was just a ceramic pot? If so, you can let your imagination run wild upon the many pots from the catacombs currently displayed on shelf A12 at Wardown Park!

Thanks to the enterprise of the City Fathers, the caves have now been illuminated, made safe for visitors, and equipped with electric carts for the disabled. Tickets are two dandiprats for adults, or one dandiprat for children and the impotent poor. The main entrance is in the garden of the Somerset Tavern in Crawley Green Road.

Luton Celebrities

So many living celebrities are associated with Luton that it would be dangerous to single out any for mention and so risk offence, wholly unintended, to those whom space prevents me from including. However, as my late husband once said to me, in one of his rare moments of civility: ‘a writer who offends nobody has nothing to say’.

So I would do an injustice to my reader did I not give a brief biography of the following seminal geniuses who (I am reliably assured) are spoken of with affection in every Luton tavern, sewing circle and ordinary.

Pablo Castenada. Born 1997, this precocious artiste is said to be responsible for Luton’s unique ‘chronoclasmic’ calendar. Annoyed by the prosaic division of time into days and hours, uncongenial to his artistic temperment, he created in 1993 an entirely poetic chronology in which every day is a long weekend, every moment is a Happy Hour and time is reversible so that selected Happy Hours may be revisited at will.

After successful trials at the University of Bedfordshire, the system has now been adopted by the county’s road, rail and air services.

Visitors are therefore strongly advised to purchase a Castenometer and syringe at the tollgates upon entering the county. The hour and day indicators of the Castenometer are powered by the random movements, within the device, of a small weevil. If time appears to slow, stop or move backwards, the weevil can be revived with a drop of sugar water using the syringe.

Every ward of Luton now delightfully has its own ‘time’ zone. When crossing into a new zone, it is very advisable to establish the current time peculiar to that ward by asking one of the ever helpful policemen (‘bobbies’) for the ‘time o’day’. For two dandiprats, he will give you - subject to the byelaws of the moment - whatever time you wish.

Jesus Crispo (1972-). Luton’s foremost landscape artist rose to fame - and well deserved it was! - when he devised a new method of rearranging the landscape. His inspiration came to him when, flying across the town in a Montgolfier balloon, he noted that the procession of carriages, barouches and cabriolets below him on the southern bypass formed a glittering ever-changing multicoloured necklace. But it was too beautiful to be termed art.

So the very next day he arranged for Boy Scouts to hold diversion signs early in the morning at the junctions of every road that entered Luton. The lads had been instructed to divert carriages into preassigned directions according to their colours!

As everyone now knows, the result was the stunning coup de peinture that still hangs in the Town Hall. All the commuters’ carriages can be seen artistically rearranged across the town by colour in a giant grid-locked pattern that took a week to untangle and that spells ‘CRISPO!’. The artist photographed it at an altitude of 2000 feet from the Montgolfier balloon where he now lives.

Philippa Firk, PhD (1930-2001), began her career as a social engineer but she went on to found the now highly esteemed science of Ludology. Her simple idea transformed Luton into the adventure centre of Europe!

It’s now common knowledge that the breakthrough occurred to her in 1951 when she was fined two dandiprats for wearing clothes at Luton’s nudist Lido beach. She was then fined three dandiprats for not wearing clothes when she placed one foot on the public pavement adjacent to the beach to purchase a goat curry pasty.

She indignantly concluded that the official games were not very good so she set to work to improve them, by turning Luton into a game-player’s paradise. The splendid result is that any stranger whom you chance upon in the borough is, very probably, not what they seem!

That blind disgusting beggar who whines at you from a dark alley ‘alms for a poor awd sapper?’ might equally be Tom Cruise doing religious penance or the Speaker of the House on gardening leave. Do not be deceived.

If a guest at your tavern breakfast table should suddenly clutch his/her heart, gasp and fall over as if dead, do not be fooled. He/she is probably soliciting from you the kiss of life. Cry ‘naughty basket!’ and s/he will at once get up with a shameless smile.

That ugly gap-toothed witch who stops your horse most rudely in the town square by waving Dragon’s Blood (oil of rosewood from the Carib islands) under its nose may actually not be, as she claims, a hisan sazar or Arabic horse sorcerer. She might well be Luton’s new upstart carpet bagging Member of Parliament, a woman long notorious for her television wiles. And so it goes.

Remember the maxim: nothing in Luton is what it seems.

You can trust only the friendly police officers (‘bobbies’). They may wear any disguise but they can always be recognised by their Gay Pride badges plus unnaturally padded jackets which denote body armour.

Upon entering Luton, the tolbooth keeper may ask you to state the role you intend to perform in town. Do note: the occupations of thief, bawd, student, addict and murderer are already well spoken for in Luton, and often in the same person. Be creative! But always lie.

For a prospectus on BA and postgraduate degree courses in Ludology studies, contact the Inst Yeoman Studies, Ivinghoe, where I am privileged to be a Research Fellow: http://yeoman-institute.blogspot.com/

Aldus Malkin (1947-2008) founded the great publishing company Village Guild, now second in eminence only to the legendary house of McGuffin. Malkin had noted that literary agents and publishers were laughably unprofessional in the way that they judged a book to be suitable for publication.

In a famous prank, Malkin submitted to 50 agents the disguised opening pages of several best-selling novels, using anonymous names. All agents turned down these submissions, sometimes with snide comments that urged their authors to study a book on creative writing.

Malkin correctly concluded that agents do not read the works submitted to them. Their office clerk does. Six months after receiving each package, s/he will briefly scan the first paragraph before concluding it is not Naomi Campbell and is therefore unpublishable. Only rarely will s/he return the submission as s/he has already soaked the postage stamps off the return envelope and lost the covering letter.

In a stroke of perceptive genius, Malkin refined this amusing lottery into a rigorous science. All reputable agents and publishers now use Malkin’s Calculus to judge the value of unsolicited manuscripts.

They place every package in the Malkin Midden. a great cage turned by a water mill. (Publishing companies have always been sited by rivers so that royalty cheques can be the more easily dispatched to authors by slow-moving barges.)

Of course, most packages burst in the cage and these are recycled for their postage stamps and blank reverse sheets, which make useful scratch pads. Any surviving packages are picked out of the cage with tongs by a blindfolded pizza delivery boy, then tossed out of the office window.

If any package is returned by an honest passerby, it is deemed to be divine providence. That manuscript is published without further inspection and is afforded the company’s full publicity budget.

Invariably, it wins awards and sells millions.

I am proud to say that my own publisher, Village Guild Publications, was among the first to adopt Malkin’s precision approach to literary assessment. As a result, my own modest work Secret Luton was brought before the public eye, certainly by divine providence, and the rest is history.

Luton Currency

The official unit of currency is the groat. This is equivalent to one pound sterling (£1). The euro is not recognised. However, you may well come across the ducat, worth 6s 8d or one third of a pound.

Other recognised units of currency are the shilling (20 to the groat), half crown (8 to the groat), crown (4 to the groat) and angel (2 to the groat).

The coin most common in everyday use is the dandiprat. This is the local name for a farthing, or one quarter of a penny. In one groat or pound, there are 960 dandiprats or farthings. Fortunately, it is necessary to carry only a few dandiprats at one time. Luton tapsters (bar assistants), waiters and taxi drivers will expect to be tipped just one dandiprat for their services. Any more than that is an insult.

If many heavy coins or other valuables must be carried around town, small boys can be found standing in well ordered queues at most street corners. Their service as porters is entirely safe and inexpensive. They will expect payment of one dandiprat per mile.

For comparison purposes, a one-pint pot of ale in a Luton tavern typically costs two groats. The coach journey from the airport to the beach is, at time of writing, two ducats (13s 4d). A bawd or gigolo is usually five groats by the hour.

And a boatman will charge five dandiprats for a simple wherry or eight dandiprats for a tilt-boat with an awning, to take you across the River Lea from Park Town to Hart Hill, where the river emerges from the tunnel into a lake ¼ mile wide. Do remember to tip him no more than one dandiprat.

Luton Dining In

Luton is a city of contrasts. You might choose to dine like a lord or lady at the fabled banquetting rooms, forty stories above ground, of the TravelLodge Hotel. Its penthouse dining area gives a panoramic view of the scenic Lea Valley and, moreover, it has its own heliport conveniently adjacent.

This is a ‘must’ in your visit. Be sure to budget for it!

For everyday dining, you might prefer the quaint village fare in the tavernas of King Street and the many labryinthine alleys around it. The smells of every nation mingle there, not least those of curry, sotweed, peyote and the local liquor called Stum. It is made from fermented plums and drunk at every meal, being safer than the water.

You might be persuaded that the rushes on the tavern floors have not been changed since Chaucer’s time! And you would not be far wrong.

Never enquire for ‘recommended restaurants’ in Luton. They do not exist. All public eating places are known as ‘ordinaries’. Typical snacks might include Fat Hen Fritters, Tansy Tarts, and Pussy Cakes.

The luncheon menu is sure to feature Luton’s specialities: a starter of Corncrake Tongues in Hippocras followed by Soused Lea River Crayfish in Lavender or a Cassoulet of Llama Neck from the great llama reservation at Bramingham Wood*.

To finish, there will always be a Bedfordshire Clanger, a sweet-savoury pasty having meat at one end and plum jam at the other. (Plums are much grown in the area to make dye to supply Luton’s thriving straw hat industry.) The Clanger has the advantage that it may be taken away and consumed in the evening if the table d’hote of one’s inn proves less than inviting.

Important note: as I may have said elsewhere, all ordinaries, taverns and places of public entertainment in Luton are obliged by law to close at curfew. This is normally at dusk except upon the frequent occasions when the magistrates impose a special curfew to suppress street riots.

Such a curfew may occur at any time during the day. Bailiffs and wardens will appear in the streets very suddenly, wearing red jesters’ caps and waving inflated pigs’ bladders on sticks. Strangers not carrying sufficient identity, or who cannot recite Psalm 51, may be arrested. However, a fine of two crowns or one angel usually secures one’s release upon the moment.

*I have listed separately on this site three Luton recipes for those who would like to try these delicacies at home. See Luton Recipes. If you cannot get llama, kangaroo, ostrich or giraffe neck, armadillo tail may be substituted. Or, at a pinch, stewing steak. All these exotic meats are available by mail order world wide - shipped in long-life foil cryovac pouches - from Whipsnade Zoo: 01582 872 171. Ask for its Afro-Asian HotPot Selection.

Luton Dining Out: Street Food

After a steamy day at the Luton Lido, there is nothing more refreshing than a slow amble down George Street at 4pm. This is the Courting Hour when local people stroll, in strict accordance with custom: the men proceeding eastwards upon the north pavement and the women westwards to the south.

Parasols are bobbed and top hats doffed and the old etiquette of the fan is still observed. If a lady taps her fan tremulously upon her left cheek, while smiling at a man, it means ‘advance at your own risk’; two sharp taps mean ‘come here at once’; but three taps in brisk succession plus a frown mean ‘beware’.

This may connote either ‘my husband is standing behind you’ or 'I am currently in my courses' or ‘your trousers have suddenly grown a third leg in a place that would surprise your tailor’. However, a tap upon the right cheek, plus a wink, will always indicate ‘Try again tomorrow’.

All this is my wicked preamble to keep you in suspense! For I now mean to tell you about the marvellous ‘street food’ arcade that stretches from the clock tower at the west of George Street to the famous town pissoir at the east, that gave Chevallier the inspiration for Clochemerle.

Proceeding from the pissoir end, you will see the Cockney Eel & Mash booth before you. Pick out your own live eel from the aquarium - it was probably caught just the day before from the river Lea! The smiling costermonger will stun, skin, chop and fry it for you while you wait. It is served on oiled papers and eaten with the fingers.

As you stroll up the street, licking your fingers, you will discover a sumptious array of buffet tables arrayed with mountain oysters, humble pies, galingale suckets, saffron sweetmeats, curried goat and llama nibbles - all garnished with local samphire.

Rising about them will be great tiers of sushi and dum sim micturated in Stum, Luton’s own fermented plum liquor, and served with wild rice from the Harpenden plantations.

Be sure to stop at the hogglers’ stalls under the town clock to buy a bag of ‘fidgets’, tiny crayfish pies no bigger than thimbles. You’ll want to munch on them later as you watch the Morris dancers perform gaily in your inn courtyard!

Note: if by chance you bump into a local passerby on the pavement who is walking in the opposite direction, it is essential that you step at once into the gutter and let the other person ‘take the wall’. Personally, I think the failure to observe this simple etiquette is wholly responsible for the bad reputation acquired of late by tourists from certain ethnic groups I dare not specify.

A little time invested in learning Luton’s ways, I say, would save them from so many misunderstandings, and good holiday time wasted in the stocks.

Luton Feuilletons (Newspapers)

Luton has three principal newspapers, feuilletons or 'corantos'. Each is helpfully printed in small palm-sized editions, upon soft soluble paper, for its greater utility in the privy.

By tradition, the corantos are read aloud daily from 10am in every tavern, by whosoever in the place should be literate, for the benefit of the illiterate.

As Luton is a town of great diversity, all editions are distributed in Urdu, Farsi, hip hop and braille. An English language version may be had, but only by private subscription.

An edible digest of the week's events, printed on rice paper, is given out at the sign of the Newt and Cucumber in King Street each Sunday for those on income relief.

Be sure to enjoy the famous Luton Singing Breakfast! For a service charge of just one dandiprat, your innkeeper will bring cold Stum and hot collops to your bedroom every morning and also sing the headlines from your favourite coranto outside your shower cubicle.

To request a free sample of each newspaper, without obligation, posted to you in advance of your visit, contact:

The Tavern Crier: 01582 700666
The Luton Challenger: 01582 700610
The News of the Week (edible): 01234 300888

Be sure to mention Secret Luton when you call!

Luton Guilds

Luton has 12 major guilds or ‘worshipful companies. They provide all the principal services of the city. I list here only those three guilds that a visitor is most likely to chance upon while on holiday.

Bawds, Gigolos and Apple-Johns

This Worshipful Company regulates a choice range of licensed bordellos catering to all religions. Most of the town’s major inns are ‘full service’ establishments in that they combine the services of a restaurant, hotel, Turkish bath, manicure salon and brothel.

Mobile bordellos also visit the outlying villages upon a regular schedule, which is a great convenience for the aged and disabled.

Details of visiting bordello services are displayed at most street corners and on church notice boards. Alternatively, they may be had from Luton Tourist office: 01582 471012. (Do mention Secret Luton when you call.)

Gongscourers, Jakesmen & Laystall Operatives

Theirs is the task of periodically removing the contents of privies, cesspits and garden middens.

It would be a mistake to feel that their work is in any way menial or ill-rewarded. Like as not, that grinning odiferous goblin who pops his head up from your hotel privy, dumb-well or dunnekin is a millionaire!

Fortunes can be made by sifting valuables out of the solid dross and distilling the liquid effluvia for saltpetre which can be sold to the firework companies. The dried residue is traded to the paddy farmers and hydroponic cucumber houses at Harpenden where it is beneficially recycled for culinary purposes.

Mendicants, Skelderers & Abraham Men

No Luton alley is considered properly dressed for visitors without its compliment of beggars. They are such wags! They will thrust into your path their suppurating limbs, push their pox-eaten noses into your face, or stifle you with their mephitic breath while they seek to inveigle you into the acceptance of an airline credit card or a no-risk endowment mortgage.

Never take offence. All is in fun. They rent their working clothes from the Luton Library Playhouse.

At the end of the day, they will typically call for their carriages and mistresses and repair to the TravelLodge penthouse to dine upon champagne and Lea River lobsters. As I have noted elsewhere, nothing in Luton is what it seems!

In my book Secret Luton, I have attempted to enumerate all of the town’s guilds, companies, cabals, sororities and secret societies. However, if I gave you all this information free, out of the goodness of my heart, you would neither trust it nor take me seriously, charity being so suspect in these times.

Do please reserve your own copy of my book now.

Luton Health Issues

No innoculations are currently required to visit Luton. The tertian ague (malaria) is unavoidable, given the proximity of the Hitchin marshes. Visitors are requested to be patient while the disease runs its course. Quinine-rich Jesuit bark may be obtained from apothecaries and it is usually efficacious.

Contrary to malicious rumour, cholera is now almost a thing of the past. However, if visiting the Liberties of the south bank, it is advisable to drink only bottled water with three drops of bleach added per litre.

Beer, ale and Stum (fermented plum liquor) are quite safe at all times. They are strongly recommended for small children, the aged and the infirm for whom bleach, even in dilution, might prove deleterious.

Plague is a fact of life, of course. Thankfully, Yersinia pestis can be forecast with precision. It occurs precisely every five years when the city’s black rat population peaks. The next outbreak will occur in April 2010.

Ebola outbreaks are less predictable. Any significant occurrence of ebola will be announced by the firing of a cannon and the raising of a red flag on the town hall roof.

In plague times, certain visitor attractions may be closed. However, hostelries will always then offer deep discounts. Plague years therefore provide a remarkable opportunity for the frugal visitor to enjoy Luton, undistracted by crowds, and on a budget.

Little risk is incurred. Plague infection cannot occur if a handkerchief is soaked in garlic and balsamic vinegar, and held tightly to the nose and mouth on all social occasions.

Nonetheless, in the event of infection, it is not advisable to present yourself at the Luton & Dunstable Hospital. (See Merry Tales.) Fortunately, there are many apothecary shops in Luton which - under the same roof - provide the services of barbers, surgeons, trepannists, geomancers, orthodontists, oculists, chiropodists, osteopaths, simplists and general medical factotums.

For most clinical emergencies, including plague, apothecaries are likely to recommend the Golden Balls of Hippocrates. These are a pleasing compound of laudanum and organic Free Trade sugar. They do no harm, refresh every organ, and are reliably helpful for ladies’ ailments.

Luton Lagoon & Boating

Since time immemorial, the fertile River Lea wound its way through the centre of what is now modern Luton (‘Lea-town’). The old river bed accounts for the remarkable width of what is now George Street.

However, in the 18th century, the townspeople complained bitterly of the ‘stink’ of the river. Apparently, it was a favourite dumping ground for dead dogs and other carrion, and more than one baby had been carried off by the red kites that scavenged there.

Capability Brown was hired in 1778 to redirect the river underground, shortly after he had finished supervising the construction of the amazing Walled Garden at Luton Hoo. The tunnel was completed in 1819, financed by the 2nd Marquess of Bute, a great developer of docks and waterways. (His name is still gratefully remembered in Luton’s Bute Street.)

So, for nearly two centuries, the ‘lost’ Lea lapsed into myth and memory.

Then, thanks to the enterprise of the City Fathers, the subterranean passage of the river was opened in 1998 and the tunnel made fully navigable as a magical lagoon!

Many thanks must be given to volunteers from LADFAS (Luton Area Decorative & Fine Arts Society) who tirelessly excavated centuries of broken go carts, clay pipe stems and pewter ale pots from the thick silt. Some are now displayed in a small museum at the Leagrave entrance to the tunnel.

The open gondolas sail at hourly intervals until 5pm in summer and 3pm in winter, so that all voyagers may be returned in good time before curfew. It is better, however, to take one of the larger ‘tilt’ boats. They have awnings to protect one from the incessant ceiling drips and not least from the street urchins who pee down the ventilation shafts.

By arrangement, an excellent repast of Luton delicacies will be served as the journey proceeds.

Flaming torches light the tunnel adequately from end to end. Nor need there be a shortage of chilled ale! Jovial tapsters in little wherries can be relied upon to skim about your boat like water flies.

The stout of heart might also wish to brave the Ghost Ship. It ventures into many spooky side tunnels. Gibbering skeletons and ghastly witches will leap out upon your boat, to everyone’s terrified delight! Also, the luminous bones of authentic saints may be seen tastefully arranged in alcoves. The decaying bones glow naturally with organic phosphorous.

It is simply not true, of course, that blind shrimp, water snakes and alligators abound in the Lost Lea - to cite just some of the foolish legends. People can be very gullible. However, there is a thriving family of coypu at the eastern end, as I saw with my own eyes, and the albino beaver introduced last year as a tourist attraction should be well established by the time of your visit.

Luton Merry Tales

I will do the reader an ill service if I failed to relate the following true anecdotes. They give a faithful picture of the unique Luton world-view or weltanschaung (although, as was once observed of the Kaiser, a little German goes a long way).

The Jolly Surgeons

I was myself in the Romping Donkey tavern adjacent to the Luton & Dunstable Hospital when I overheard this amiable exchange:

Surgeon 1: 'How is your patient, sir?'

Surgeon 2: 'Oh, I cut him, sir!'

Surgeon 1: 'How deep did you cut him?'

Surgeon 2: 'I cut him, sir, for four guineas and two shillings!'

Surgeon 1: 'Ho, ho, ho!'

From this, it may be inferred that it might be unwise to present yourself at the L & D Hospital.

The Foolish Fop

This merry tale was imparted to me by a gentleman friend, a newspaper reporter, and therefore a man of the highest integrity. It seems there was a tall fop walking down George Street, Luton. He wore a great hat and feather, red and orange holiday hose, and a turquoise madrillon or half-cape on his shoulder.

This was presumably in case he should, by popular acclaim, be thrust suddenly into Luton's bull ring but inexplicably deprived of picadors.

A hobbledehoy (the local term for a young lad) saw him and darted into a carnival shop. The lad emerged wearing bells on his legs, a fool's cap on his head, and waving a fribblestick. He danced manically around the fop.

The fop roared: 'What, rascal, are you mad?'

'I cry you mercy, sir,' the urchin apologised 'but I took you for a maypole.'

In Luton, this jest is considered to be very funny.

Luton Poetry

In many of the public toilets (‘loos’) in Luton’s inns you will find a blackboard affixed to the wall along with convenient chalks of many colours. You can discover which ward of the town you are in merely by the graffiti on these boards, I am told.

So you will find that the loos adjacent to the celebrated university are typically adorned with clever Latin epigrams. For example:

‘If cogitum ergo sum,
This really is quite rum.
For (sweet reader) I have never thought of you.’

Note: cogitum ergo sum is a witty critique, of course, of Descartes' dictum cogito ergo sum. It means: ‘I am thought therefore I am’. It’s why so many people post blogs.

Further afield, the poetry lapses into the vulgate. Thus:

‘There was a young lady of Luton
Who could no longer get her best suit on.
She said "diets are grim, but I have to grow slim.
I shall dine on a defrosted crouton".’

In the unregulated Liberties of Luton’s south bank, the verse degrades entirely. Viz:

‘Do not read this!
Or your shoes you won’t miss
While you’re taking a piss.
Pish! Told you so.’

Of course, I have no knowledge of the graffiti that might be found in the gentlemen’s loos. I report only that which I have personally found in the ladies’.

Luton Recipes

Here are just three of the delightful traditional recipes that you will find, year round, on the menu of every Luton inn or ‘ordinary’ (restaurant). I include many more recipes, fully tested, in my book Secret Luton and I urge you to reserve your own copy at once!

Luton Llama Neck Soup

The llama neck in this traditional Luton dish can be replaced by kangaroo tail or - in season - by ostrich, armadillo or alligator. (Of course, you could always cheat and use buffalo. It's still delicious!)

2kg/4lb 8oz ostrich neck, cut into joints
½ cup butter
½ cup oil
3 onions
3 carrots
3 turnips
3 parsnips
2 celery sticks chopped, leaves added loose
2 sprigs thyme
A few peppercorns
Cloves, bay leaves and salt
½ cup sherry, port or madeira
½ cup soy sauce (optional)
3¼ pints water

Brown the meat in the butter and oil in a large pot. Add the vegetables (chopped), flavourants, sherry and water. Put lid on pot. Bring to the boil. Simmer for 2-3 hours in a low oven, or until the meat is tender, adding water if necessary.

Remove the meat. Pick the meat from the bones and return the meat to the broth. Cool and refrigerate to solidify the fat. Scrape off and discard the fat.Reheat the soup. Serve with crusty bread.

Luton Lea River Crayfish in Lavender

This delicately flavoured steamed dish based on lavender is unusual because most recipes that involve flowers use them largely as a garnish. Here, the lavender is intrinsic to the dish. You can also adapt this fragrant recipe for any firm white fish, duck, swan, bittern or bustard, adjusting the steaming times.

A few sprigs of flowering lavender
A very large handful of fresh Lea River crayfish
2 tbls butter
1 tbls flour
salt & pepper

Put a few sprigs of flowering lavender at the base of a steamer and place the crayfish in the top. Steam for 5-8 minutes or until the fish is tender and juicy. Keep warm.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Pour in enough of the lavender-flavoured water from the steamer to give a sauce, boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste.

Cover the crayfish with the lavender sauce. Decorate with sprigs of flowering lavender. Serve with broccoli and wild rice.

The blossoms from many flowering herbs could be used in place of lavender.

Chickweed Soup With Yogurt

Did you know that the common weed chickweed equals water cress in its vitamin and mineral content? And the leaves are sweetly delightful, chopped in salads, sandwich fillings or briefly steamed with spring onions, nutmeg and lemon juice - as a bed for poultry?

This simple soup is just one of countless ways to eat chickweed. Luton folk find it very useful during the three winter months when the great watercress beds at Harpenden are turned into ice rinks for the village children. Chickweed can be found beside one’s own kitchen door, year round!

1 pint vegetable stock
2 chopped sauteed onions
1 cup of chickweed, steamed for 10 minutes and pureed, or finely chopped
1 tbsp fast-cook rice
1 tsp fresh chopped herbs of your choice

Add all the above to a saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes. Pour into individual bowls and lace with yogurt.

Variations: add chickweed to any salad dish which you might garnish with cress or to any cooked dish that calls for chopped green leaves eg. minestrone soup or vegetable casseroles.

Chef’s tip: Luton folk often substitute sunflower seed ferment for yogurt. This is easily made. Simply grind up dried sunflower seeds and blend them with water into a thick paste. Add a dollop of fresh yogurt as a starter. Put in a warm place overnight, just as if you were making yogurt.

The result is a delightfully tart and very nutritious ‘curd’ that you can use exactly like yogurt, and you don’t need a cow!

Important note: strip the chickweed leaves first from the more fibrous stems. And take care not to confuse chickweed with spurge. It appears somewhat similar, especially when young, but it has larger shiny leaves. Spurge soup (I can personally attest) has devastating laxative properties.

Luton Religions

Over the centuries, the City Fathers have not been slow to create a delicious choice of religions, cults, creeds and colourful systems of belief and non-belief to suit every purse and taste in recreation.

Atheism is the official religion, the strongest belief system and the most heavily subscribed. Its principal chapel is at Luton Town Football Club where non-believers in a variety of atheistic sects go every Saturday to worship each other and to crucify the opposing sect of the moment.

Next to atheism in popularity is agnosticism. Its followers are required to remain in a state of perpetual doubt, as to whether they believe in atheism or fideism, or in anything whatsoever. They habitually gather outside Luton Town Football Club to shame the atheists into a state of incredulity by flagellating themselves, piercing their own tongues and cutting their foreheads with broken glass.

At such festivals, Luton’s always friendly police (or ‘bobbies’) can be observed to wear razor blades in their hats. These are called ‘sharp’ hats. The bobbies cry ‘chapeau!’ with great esprit whenever they hurl their hats into the crowd to keep it up to its work.

All this merriment makes a most photogenic spectacle. Bring your camera!

The third principal religious sect is the Pyrrhonists. They are radical sceptics. They assert that all belief systems are absurd. As this assertion is itself a belief system, Pyrrhonists are very confused and they sit all day in taverns reading The Guardian.

They may also be detected by their absolute refusal, under any circumstances, to climb a ladder. They can never be sure that the ground will still be there when they step off the bottom rung.

The fourth major cult is the fideists. They believe that true knowledge can only proceed from faith. Every fideist believes in a different thing so, collectively, the world fellowship of fideists comprises all true knowledge.

If you are ever lost in Luton - and you need directions to God or the public toilet (‘loo’) - it is always safe to ask a fideist. They can be recognised by the tokens of their faith which they wear at all times, such as a cross, burkah, kippah, biretta, laboratory clipboard, etc.

All the town’s religions come together for the annual street carnival in May. A boy bishop is elected to conduct the ceremony with an air guitar. The high priests of every sect are mounted backward on donkeys and jovially kettled through George Street by naked women banging pots, saucepans and fire tongs.

The town’s cony catchers (rogues), who comprise most of the population, are licensed for the day to rob, cozen, rape and assault the delighted spectators in a spirit of madcap revelry. However, the carnival has been criticised in recent years for its vulgarity. So the City Fathers, always sensitive to modern sensibilities, usually arrange for it to be rained off.

Visitors to Luton can purchase, at the Tourist Office, helpful books of tickets. These grant a temporary membership of all the 21 recognised town religions. The appropriate ticket gives entry to any one of Luton’s principal churches, bordellos and nightclubs. Any surplus tickets can be exchanged locally for ale or sold on E-Bay.

Luton Sexual Customs

Almost all romantic relationships in Luton begin at 4pm, the official Courting Hour, and in George Street, the city’s heart. (I have touched upon certain courting rites peculiar to George Street in my notes elsewhere on Street Food.)

If a man wishes to propose to a lady, he will formally pass her a bag of tiny crayfish pies called ‘fidgets’. If she eats a fidget from his fingers, she accepts his offer of betrothal. Once this has been witnessed by a third party - and small boys are always on hand to give witness upon payment of one dandiprat - the engagement is binding.

Much rejoicing will then take place, the banns will be called by the Town Crier, and a suitable nightclub or other place of worship will be procured for the wedding. The happy couple will then steal off for their prenuptial tryst in Wardown Park, tossing fidgets into the crowd en route. Unwed maidens always scramble to catch them.

Oh, many a tryst has been consummated with a fidget! I remember them from my youth with great affection. They are said to be aphrodisiac. Of course, I cannot comment upon that. Suffice to say that the local birth rate plummeted some nine months after the notorious fidget vendors’ strike of August 1951.