IF Percy French’s venerable sparring partners Abdul Abulbul Amir and Ivan Skavinsky Skavar still get together for a Christmas jaw-wag, to talk about old, old times when men were men, “when that son of the desert, in battle aroused, could spit 20 men on his spear”, it’s hard to think that those noble cuirassiers would go anywhere other than a proper, belt-stretching steakhouse.