Some enchanted evening. Lumbered alcove with plush plenitude of cushions, truncated table, pendulous lamp of self-variable radiance; overhead, a sonic-shaft for eavesdropping on neighbours. Preliminary "bar-snack": toasted gingko nuts, shells fractured for our convenience. Pleasantly acrid, although an unfortunate minority of errant nuts tasted of mussels and charcoal. Cold tofu, century egg and wakame salad, a quivering silken shape strewn with dark debris, encircled by fluttery greens wet with sesame oil and soya sauce (and maybe mirin?). Duck, breast of, smoked: more east than west, beautifully blushed. Chicken, thigh of, boneless, aromatically roasted; beef, grass-fed, steak of, medium-medium: both done to a turn.

Price of desserts has risen by a third. Boysenberry terrine in place of blueberry cheese tart. Baked tau-huay crowned with bread-crusts in place of bread-and-butter pudding. Erroneous taxonomy in menu cozens diner into expecting something fairly routine, then the surprise of the unannounced modification is sprung with full force. A dishonest tactic, but astonishingly effective. Poached pear too large and therefore disrespectful of hierarchy; ginger pudding with toffee sauce sublime as usual. A deliriously stupid person in the first alcove on the left loudly averred that nothing was easier than poaching a pear: "just boil it in water". Even a boiled egg, done to various stages of coalescence for various purposes, is notoriously difficult to perfect.

Shocking appearance of G, who came to dine with a person I only now retroactively recognise as D, his ex-conscript-colleague, from a year ago; before this glimpse of truth is allowed to me, we (persons at my table) had to hazard various hazy conjectures: might he be DL (the resemblance is more uncanny than usual, more than all those times when you drew a spurious connection just to impress your companions), whom L knows and did BMT with, although that G would know DL is unlikely even though he (DL) lived one floor up from G for close to three months. Ah, but might he not then be DL's brother? This is classed initially as fairly plausible. We thought ourselves vindicated when, eavesdropping helplessly on the adjoining chamber, we heard DL's first name mentioned. Surely this is the clincher then? It would be, had the-D-in-DL not, by a further sinister ripple of coincidence, also been the name (albeit a variant spelling) of G's and D's former department head, a phonetic-D-in-DL whom J also knows from his senior-class. However, only I am cognisant of all the discrete pieces of the puzzle, and have triumphantly solved the mystery.

Deformity to Anthropomorphology: An Introduction to Peanut Sculpture. Some of the most precious pieces in the collection have been damaged by damp, carelessly handled and dropped into water glasses, but the majority are still available for viewing at the Kacang Conservatory. All the installations are interactive, and alterations are encouraged, although the artists request that there be no carnal dealings or politically-inflammatory intercourse between person and peanut.

Brief exposition of exhibits:
Our star attraction, designed by Philippe Starck, is a writhing, disemboweled elver, freeze-framed and aged 1,000 years. Several pieces of Inuit art, imitation Easter Island statuettes, miniature Fabergé-style thrones and rollercoaster cars complete with shelled-peanut queen- or passenger-dolls, Wiener Werkstätte moccasins and clogs, delineations of sexual positions from the Kama Sutra, South Park action figures (the whole set was destroyed by a flood: only Kenny survived, as expected.)