Last night I went to a dinner at which Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (I just love how that name rolls off the tongue after a little while) was giving a keynote address. I can’t say I’ve been to too many dinners with presidents or prime ministers. Erroneously, it turns out, I assumed that it would be a bit like a wedding: we’d eat and then between mains and dessert he’d have a little chat with us.
After a hectic day — already running to this hotel twice for earlier addresses during the day and just making it in time through horrid traffic (probably made worse because the president himself had shut down half the roads in the city to get there) — we were seated at 7pm with a bread roll each. Everyone at my table nibbled and finished theirs within about five minutes. At 8:30pm the president was still talking.
I couldn’t concentrate any longer and seriously thought about asking one of the people at the next table who hadn’t eaten their bread roll if perhaps I could have it instead. Then I spied a tray left on the table by the waiter with a napkin covering it. I peeked. And in full view of the seven others seated around me I shamelessly took the last one underneath and gobbled it down.
We started eating at 9 and three courses or 20 minutes later most everyone was out the door.