In a pub in the Surrey Hills doing a review for the DT; smart gastro-ish but still pretty impressive, good beer from local brewery, excellent bar snacks (herring roe on anchovy buttered toast, scotch quail eggs), friendly — as ever sit there listening to conversations. Couple of women on adjoining table, smart, middle class, but not overtly posh (anyone wanting an outbreak of Brownite class warfare can go elsewhere); one of them, the organiser, you know the sort, ‘what are you eating dear’ she goes to her friend. Guy on next table asks if he can borrow their menu. Organiser asks if he is local (why? Is she trying to assert some sort of local territorialism?), he says he works in village; she then says ‘have you noshed here?’ Noshed? Great use of the colloquial, for which I wholeheartedly commend her, though say it a few times and it starts to resemble a nonsense word — anyhow, noshed is my pub word of the week.
