In more irresponsible days when I worked on a sleepy magazine a friend and I would sometimes race out of work on the dot
(In more irresponsible days, when I worked on a sleepy magazine, a friend and I would sometimes race out of work on the dot of 1pm and compete to see how far from Trafalgar Square – and back – we could get in the next 90 minutes My record was Richmond Deer Park Hers was Farnham Air Show. Now that’s what I call going out for lunch.)Whether we eat More Than Mozzarella sandwiches or Moroccan lamb stew isn’t really the point any more, as sandwich fillings become more adventurous, and subsidised canteens become worse. What’s important is going out and recharging the self in the middle of the day, so that morning and afternoon don’t blend into one horrible, sad, amorphous lump and start to resemble the rest of your life. For too long, we’ve been afraid of asserting our right to roam away from work, until being “out to lunch” is a euphemism for being deranged It’s time we took it back.
See you, salami ciabatta in hand, in Kensington Garden.j.walsh independent.co.uk
More from John Walsh. Andruw Jones yesterday won his appeal to the salary arbitration panel in Phoenix – a decision that forces the Atlanta Braves to give him a £1.3m-a-year pay rise. Andruw Jones yesterday won his appeal to the salary arbitration panel in Phoenix – a decision that forces the Atlanta Braves to give him a £1.3m-a-year pay rise.
Jones asked the panel to award him an $8.2m (£5.7m) salary for this year – the highest salary ever paid to a player who went to arbitration – instead of the Braves’ $6.4m offer.His new salary eclipses the $7.25m the New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera received last year – when he lost his case. Rivera, who sought $9.25m last year, avoided arbitration this season when he agreed to a $39.99m four-year contract on Friday.Jones made $3.7m last season, and he does not become eligible for free agency until after the 2002 season. The centre fielder had his best year in 2000, hitting .303 with 36 home runs, 104 RBIs and 21 steals. He also won his third straight Gold Glove.The Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood, who returned from reconstructive elbow surgery to go 8-7 with a 4.03 ERA last season, settled his case on Monday, agreeing to a $1.94m one-year contract.
Wood, the 1998 NL Rookie of the Year, made $690,000 in each of the last two seasons. In 1998, he was 13-6 with a 3.40 ERA and 233 strike-outs in 166 2-3 innings.He tied Roger Clemens’ major league record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game by fanning 20 during a one-hitter against Houston on 6 May 1998.Like Jones, Baltimore right-hander Jose Mercedes went to a hearing on Monday, asking to be awarded $3.8m instead of the team’s $2.75m offer.Mercedes made $800,000 last year, going 14-7 with a 4.02 ERA in 20 starts and 16 relief appearances.Just three players remain in arbitration, and they are all pitchers: Boston’s Rich Garces, Cincinnati’s Osvaldo Fernandez, and Oakland’s Jim Mecir.The Minnesota pitcher LaTroy Hawkins, who had been scheduled for a hearing yesterday, has agreed to a new two-year contract. Players and owners have each won six of the 12 cases decided so far.. The figure-hugging suit that Olympic 400 metre gold medallist Cathy Freeman wore when she ignited the cauldron at the opening ceremony of Sydney 2000 was reportedly stolen soon after she changed out of it Now she wants it back as a keepsake. The figure-hugging suit that Olympic 400 metre gold medallist Cathy Freeman wore when she ignited the cauldron at the opening ceremony of Sydney 2000 was reportedly stolen soon after she changed out of it.
