Divine bovine dinner at Gaucho Piccadilly

Last week was a poetic affair. Not only did we have Burns Night, where drams of whisky were clinked in celebration of the works of Scottish bard Robert Burns, but at Gaucho Piccadilly, proceedings also got a little lyrical. R&R Teamwork's inimitable Rupert Ponsonby turned bard for the night, at the restaurant's Divine Bovine dinner; a paean to beef. Dressed in a gaucho guise finished off with a red felt fedora fashionably tipped forward, Ponsonby swaggered to the stage and recited his self-penned Ode to a Cow (below) with passionate conviction.

Whilst watching the bovophile in action, the journalist opposite me, Financial Times columnist and published poet Harry Eyres regaled me with stories of unrequited love, and suggested I look up the poems of Horace, Sappho, Elizabeth Bishop and Thomas Wyatt, who wrote on how to live life in the face of mortality. And that's the beauty of poetry. There's a sense of urgency about it - a sense of time's fleeting nature being valued, and every second enjoyed.

Ode to a Cow

I love you cow, your rump, your tongue, I love the fact you’re so well hung. I love it when you touch my lips, especially when you come with chips.

I love your liver, crave your heart, in sausages you play your part. I love the shimmering of your skin, and pinkish succulence within.

I love the juices in your tail, that rich dark meat, my Holy Grail. I love your sirloin, yearn for fillet - with preferably someone else to grillit.

I love you blue, or in the raw, your rippling muscles I adore. And chopped up fine in steak tartare, I crave for more, like Oliver

I dream of beef, yes, fantasize, far more of cows than women’s thighs, but chicken, pig or boudin noir, will find no place in my boudoir.