Jay Gatsby, I-heart-you!

As a precocious 15 year old, I’d already started to challenge the much-vaunted concept of finding a boyfriend who would turn out to be “The One”. My main occupation at the time was writing long letters to the editor of Jackie magazine ranting about just how unrealistic, misleading and limiting the prospect was - and this was before I’d even experienced my first kiss. The editor never replied. F Scott Fitzgerald, however, spoke my language.

I came across The Great Gatsby in the library while searching for Interview with a Vampire. Somehow, FSG had got himself mixed up with Anne Rice; an unlikely partnership perhaps, but one that turned my head away from mythical creatures of the night and towards unobtainable, difficult men of a different nature forever.

I took the book home with me because of one sentence on the first page: “And as I walked on, I was lonely no longer” - so much melodrama expressed in so few words. And right there, a love affair began. But it was not the story’s narrator Nicholas Carraway that stole my heart - oooh no, that would have been far too easy. Anyway, Nick was just too simpering, too fawning, too downright obvious for my affections. Jay Gatsby, however, made my heart go pitter-pat: a mysterious millionaire at the epicentre of a glamorous, chic clique of hedonists - swoon!

To those who didn’t read him the way I did, Gatz was a boorish, egocentric, misogynistic thug. But  I figured that he only needed the love of a good woman - a strong, independent character far removed from the flighty, shallow, wimpy women with whom he chose to foxtrot through the early 1920s - to complete the final step of his reinvention and become the perfect boyfriend. And I, of course, was the woman for him.

On one level, the fact that my first love was fictitious made him a problematic paramour. But Jay’s other-worldly presence made for a perfect playmate who, over those turbulent teenage years, helped me deal with the inevitable slurry of heartache, heartbreak and downright disheartening youthful flings. Jay was always there for me, patiently waiting to dry my tears and rekindle a sense of optimism; he was The One who never let me down, The One who no other man could ever live up to - The One who never actually existed in the first place (now there’s a twist that the Jackie magazine editor never considered). Eventually (and, perhaps, inevitably), Jay become yesterday’s One, as all first loves tend to do. But still, decades on, I occasionally indulge my inner teenager and take an imaginary road trip with Gatz in his iconic, daffodil-yellow Rolls Royce for old times’ sake, careful never to reveal what the future actually held for either of us.

The Great Gatsby has become, for me, the literary version of a sip from the fountain of youth, today safely stored in the mysterious depths of a sliver of sleek technology far removed from the nicotine-stained hardback book where we first met. Jay’s format may have changed, but to this day, him and I beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The Most Unsatisfactory Meal I've Ever Eaten

The chef at the restaurant I reviewed below had a serious fight with me after this review was published - he just didn't get that my pretentious flim-flammery was a carefully-written homage to his. Or maybe he did, hence the anger. Whatever; it's all history now (and I eventually managed to get the red wine stain out of my jacket). But still, I've XXX-ed his name out - if he's still around (he's certainly no longer in Bath), I wouldn't want to start another tiff in case he decides to throw the actual glass as well.

April 2007
Molecular gastronomy: the application of science to culinary practice, the search for foodie perfection ... or a case of the emperor's new clothes? Whatever your opinion, it's a food fad that's unlikely to have the same impact on your favourite neighbourhood bistro than the gastropub revolution had on your local boozer. But then again, it seemed unlikely that "chef extraordinaire" XXX would revolutionise one of Bath's longest established, traditional 'fine dining' hotspots with a menu that's far from tralatitious - but that's exactly what he's gone and done. The MG world, it seems, revolves around contradiction, controversy ... and confidence.



The ambience of the elegant dining room totally impugns the theme of XXX's menu (3/£55), which details a riot of cobnut infusions, bubbles of physalis and sour cherry snow. At first glance, it's far more literary than literal: laminates, compositions, emulsions, collages and various foams proliferate, while egg spume, aromas of tonka and even virtual mushrooms make appearances. Buoyed by pink champagne and canapes in the drawing room, we eventually selected starters of 'summer isles scallops with gelled apple balm and smoked cauliflower', and 'pigeon, minneola and roast barley', followed by 'chorizo roast monkfish, green leaf pulp, sesame potato puree with a spot of orange' and 'belly pork, fennel in various forms with a stroke of sweet paprika and quince sorbet' mains ... phew! Just relaying the detail here is a meal in itself, but the full-on frolics are yet to come. 



My courageous cohort's pigeon was unrecognisable as game: thinly pressed and rolled around the roast barley (or possibly the minneola) to create tight little tubes, alongside which the minneola (or possibly the roast barley) writhed in an excited flourish. My plump, tender scallops were complemented by an unpredictably oleaginous slick of apple-flavoured stickiness, and even though the cauliflower proved to be more of a suggestion than a reality (three tiny florets, a centimetre each in diameter, offering little in the way of smokiness), this self-confessed gastroporn junkie was, while not exactly smitten, definitely mesmerised.

 Next up, my monkfish, though deeply infused with a subtly sexy chorizo undertones, just didn't - well, just didn't do anything, all told. The silky waft of potato puree was surely the most elegant incarnation of spud ever, but unfortunately the 'spot of orange' seemed to have been lost somewhere along the kitchen physics superhighway. Meanwhile, CC's pork reclined on one of the 'various forms' of fennel (here cleverly disguised as what appeared to be half an onion), and the accompanying cubes of quince sorbet were umami personified. Both dishes came topped with a spindly finger of pork crackling, and both confounded, delighted and excited in equal measure. But it wasn't until the third course that I really experienced the complexities of XXX's personality. My rather timid choice of 'cheese our way', (a superb selection displayed on a rather intimidating trolley and served with huge savoury wafers, a dreamy cheese souffle and a little mouse fashioned
from half a quail's egg) was completely upstaged by CC's 'burnt creams of our garden flora, including pumpkin', which turned out to be four dinky pots of creme brulee, one of which featured fresh rosemary - that most aromatic and complex of British herbs - infused in cream and topped with caramelised sugar. Okay, our finale was magnificent. But, throughout this dynamic metagrobolis of a supper, if it hadn't been for the guidance of a chorus of diligent, thoroughly charming staff who performed a perfectly choreographed dance of attendance at every turn, this voyage of discovery could well have ended in total disaster. 



When we got home, we were both starving. When I went to bed, I felt distinctly queasy. When I look back on this meal now, I feel somewhat angry... and a little bit conned. So, this 'ere molecular gastrowhatsit thingie, then: a brave new world or the ultimate performance art irony? Let's hope it's actually just a passing fad.

The Worst Meal I've Ever Eaten

I've been busy flicking through my saved-file memory bank on behalf of a Bath-based publisher who wants to publish a Top Ten selection of my best/worst reviews (hoorah!). And, when I came across this one (below), I just couldn't help, y'know, remind us of all of what restaurant reviewing could be like before the advertising sales team became our editors and we mere critics were allowed to say it like it is - or rather, in this case, was (the review was published in Venue in 2008). The restaurant is still open for business. I have, however, blanked out its name here 'cos hey-ho, karma, y'know...

The Worst Meal I've Ever Eaten
Life’s a journey, not a destination; to travel hopefully is better than to arrive; I would do anything for love but I won’t do that – such are the quotes, homilies and platitudes that inspire me when the (free range) chickens come home to roost. But I’ve yet to find a really good cliché to pacify me when huge disappointment sets in.

I’ve been walking past XXX for years, and always thought that the cute little caff at the epicentre of Bath at its most picturesque looked rather inviting. I’d perused the daytime menu – sarnies, omelettes, afternoon tea, etc – and promised myself that one day, I’d pop in and check it out. But I never did. Until, that is, I came upon the restaurant's website (as you do), and found myself seduced by an unexpected emphasis on Moroccan cuisine. That little café turns into a ‘Casablancan Bistro’ by night! White tablecloths are flung over the tables, the candles come out, and dishes such as kemroon m’shermal, kefta m’kaoura, briouats b’kofta are b’writ v’large. Wa-hey! Could this be an alternative destination for the Monday evening curry club that kick starts my social life for the week ahead?

Unfortunately, XXX is more likely to launch the next series of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares than appease our fevered exotic dreams. You can see the opening sequences now: Gordon sitting at an overdressed table – a cluttered riot of vast, vinyl-backed menus, sugar bowls stacked high with cubes and 65 items of cutlery all wedged between those poor, overlooked flowers and potential fire hazard candles. He has his head in his hands, an untouched plate of baby back ribs (‘The Best In Town!’) beside him and a dessert menu that includes ‘full cream tea’ and ‘toast with jam’ under his feet. His lamb tagine – meat tasting like it’s been boiled with Oxo cubes, the cous cous woefully under-seasoned - sits undigested in his stomach. “What the **** are they doing?”, he mutters to two confused tourists (the only other diners in the room). He picks up his notes, which include a printout from the website information: ‘evocative, colourful, and sophisticated, full of romance and rich with flavours’, it says. “Mexican fajitas! Pizzas! Ribs!”, he wails. “Where’s the passion? Where’s the …”

We know he’s going to find the Moroccan word for balls eventually. But on the night we visited, our chef’s were clearly big enough to give him the audacity to serve three portions of that lamb tagine alongside a weak, sad seafood version, a sea bass incarnation (which was actually okay-ish) and Moroccan brochettes that turned out to be a lamb kebab (“which needed a steak knife to cut”, according to my cute little guinea pig), a chicken kebab and a burger. Before that, we’d shared two platters – sorry, two ‘beautiful selections’ – of unidentifiable Moroccan mezze, which were just about passable … if you’re very, very hungry. With wine, our bill came to £25 a head. With hindsight, we should have gone for a curry.

Ah well; life is, I guess, either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Grub up!

The Problem
The latest UK food crisis started back in January, when Tesco own label beefburgers and Findus lasagnes were found to contain horse meat. Since then, countless other ready meals and takeaways processed by leading manufacturers (including supermarket own-label brands) have tested positive for similar levels of contamination ranging from traces of equine DNA to a full-blown meat content of 100% horse. The corporate response has gone into overdrive, with nearly all food manufacturers expressing outrage and sombre apologies, promising further investigations and renewing vows regarding impeccable, trusted sourcing of ingredients. The national response, meanwhile, varied from shock/horror to nonchalance/unsurprised, but the nation largely voted with their wallets; by the end of February, sales of frozen burgers, ready meals and takeaways were down by 60%.

The Solution?
Without wanting to sound like one of those worthy wannabe Nigella types, homemade really does seem to be the way forward for sourcing-aware folk in need of speedy midweek sustenance. As an added bonus, you might be able to save some pennies, too.

The Challenge
So: is it really possible to beat off-the-shelf prices by making your own? Could I make a lasagne (the ready meal that started the rumpus) cheaper than the cheapest off-the-shelf version (Iceland, 500g/1.5k, £1/£3)? Read on...

Ingredients (makes a 3k/10-serving lasagne)
900g minced beef
1 tin tomatoes
1 bottle passata
1 red pepper, sliced
2 carrots, diced
2 onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
375g box of dried pasta sheets
1 pint semi-skimmed milk
4ozs butter
400g cheddar cheese
Handful of grated mozzarella

From the store cupboard: salt and pepper, plain flour, dried oregano, dried thyme, 2 bay leaves, nutmeg. glug of red wine (optional, but we opened the Chianti Classico we intended to eat with dinner anyway and sacrificed a small glass)

Method
Use the first seven ingredients to create a rich meat sauce, seasoned with oregano, thyme, bay leaves and wine (if using); simmer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, make a thick cheese sauce seasoned with a grating of nutmeg, saving the mozzarella to sprinkle over the end result before baking. Assemble the lasagne in layers (meat sauce; pasta sheets; meat sauce; pasta sheets; cheese sauce; grated mozzarella) in a suitably sized baking dish. Bake in a hot oven for 35-40 minutes, until golden and bubbling on top.

The Result
With supermarket minced beef averaging at around £5.33 kilo at the time of writing and my preferred meaty matter (organic minced steak, eek!) coming in at almost double that price, the cost of my experiment would, of course, depend on the ingredients I used. For my beefy lasagne base in this instance, I used 900g of top-notch minced beef from Bartlett’s Butchers in Bath (£5.60 a kilo). Everything else on my list brought the total price for a whopping great 3 kilo/10 portion lasagne to just under £12 - only a fraction more than the Iceland version (which by comparison tasted of nothing much at all). For a nutritious vegetarian option, substitute roast vegetables (peppers, courgettes and butternut squash are all good) for the beef and bring the price down by at least 1/3.

The Pros
I knew exactly what ingredients were in my super-tasty, value-for-money supper. It’s a simple recipe and it tasted seriously, properly good. Portions froze well too.

The Cons
Best made on a day off: it took almost an hour to rustle up followed by 40 minutes in the oven, and benefited from being left to cool down and ‘settle’ for a couple of hours after assembling and before baking

The at-home takeaway: fast, fabulous, frugal quick fix food at a fraction of the high street price

• Squidge 500g lean minced beef, a splat of Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and a generous glug of beer together in a big bowl. Shape into patties and fry in a hot pan for four minutes on each side. The result? Four juicy beefburgers for less than £3

• Coat 2 x 75g dab fillets in a dusting of plain flour and fry in hot butter for two minutes each side. Meanwhile, line a white floury bap with a blob of tartare sauce, a squirt of tomato ketchup and a lettuce leaf, and you’ve got yourself a luscious fish ‘burger’ for less than £2

• Scrunch 400g lamb mince with 1tsp garam masala, 25g shelled, chopped pistachios and a drizzle of honey. Shape into ‘sausages’, grill or fry for around 8 minutes and stuff into pitta parcels with salad - that’s  4 x lamb kofta kebabs ready to go for approx. £6

• Make a dough with one and a half mugs of self raising flour, half a mug of warm water, a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Tip onto a floured surface, knead lightly to combine and roll into a 1cm thick circle of a suitable size to transfer to a hot, oiled frying pan. Cook on the hob for around four minutes until base crisps up. Meanwhile, heat the grill to a hot setting, and blend half a tin of chopped tomatoes with chopped garlic, torn basil leaves and a pinch of sugar. Spread tomato mixture over dough base and top with mozzarella, olives, parmesan cheese and whatever else takes your fancy (anchovies, salami and Parma ham all work well). Place under hot grill (not too close to heat source!) for around five minutes until cheese is bubbling and the edges of the dough turning crispy, et voila: cheats pizza, pronto, for around a pound (depending on how lavish your choice of toppings).

• Mix 400g minced pork with approx. 40g breadcrumbs, 1tsp chopped sage, salt, pepper, a glug of vegetable oil and around 2tbs water together in a bowl. Unroll 1 x 320g sheet of ready made puff pastry and fill with the pork mixture to create four large sausage rolls or eight small ones. Bake in a hot oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown - total cost: approx. £4.20 for the whole batch.

-ends-

Write on?

It’s a still, frosty Sunday morning in November, and most of the world around me hasn’t woken up yet apart from the bright sunshine and my cat, who has found a patch of golden warmth to sunbathe in on the window sill. I don’t have any deadlines to chase; that kind of pressure won’t hit me until tomorrow. I don’t have anywhere to be until at least 1 o’clock, and that’s just a Sunday lunch that somebody else is very kindly cooking, so I don’t even have a menu to think about. I have, however, got a project to start: that chick lit novel that’s been bubbling away on a back burner in my overheated imagination needs writing, and it needs writing now. So why am I spending valuable time pottering around at the Animal Disco? I’ve either forgotten or haven’t had time for procrastination of late, but that old familiar foe is keen to remind me just what it feels like. But like all professional procrastinators, I have my excuses to fall back on.

Being paid to write is a luxury that I never take for granted. But as much as I am entirely grateful for being lucky enough to earn my keep (albeit a minimum wage that a 17 year old living at home probably couldn’t survive on) doing something that I really, really love, it’s sometimes easy to forget why I signed up for the freelance life in the first place. The plan was that earning money from selling words would buy me the time to write what I really want to write. I’m not saying that I don’t want to write about the restaurants, plays and shops that people apparently want to read about - I do, and I want to continue to do it for a long time yet, even when The Big Plan finally comes together. But doing such an activity on a freelance basis is a double-edged sword: I’m either madly busy meeting deadlines or so devoid of commissions that panic, self-doubt and paranoia about the future (and in this instance I mean real, tangible paranoia, such as the rent payment due in five days time) that I can barely eat, sleep or even talk coherently - as you’d expect, such a state is hardly conducive to confident inspiration.

Today, though, I can’t complain about being in either of those tricky situations. Forthcoming deadlines are manageable. Commissions are healthy. Heck, even the flat doesn’t particularly need tidying (although you might argue that point were you sitting in the middle of the detritus rubble-mountain that is my kitchen). So here’s the real reason that I’m allowing procrastination to set in: writing something that isn’t already commissioned, that hasn’t already been sanctioned by an editor, that is utterly, completely, totally currently existing only in my own head, is darn scary - terrifying, in fact. I’m about to embark on a project that’s likely to take up all of my free time for the foreseeable future, without any kind of safety net at all. I’m going to have to be very selective about social commitments, consider turning my phone off and learn how to say no to that fifth glass of wine at midnight on a Tuesday evening (the horror!). I’ll need to relearn the kind of blind confidence in my own ability that I must have had as a baby, when I took my first steps. And trust me when I tell you that even writing the phrase “confidence in my own ability” resulted in at least five minutes of frozen screen-staring, but I’m going to leave those five little words there anyway, because I’m pretty much also going to have to act as my own cheer leader; while I’m lucky that my friends and loved ones are wholly supportive of my, erm, creative ventures, they can’t write my best-selling novel for me - and it sure isn’t going to write itself.

If you’ve read this self-indulgent ramble so far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. But really, the sole purpose of this post is to get myself into the swing of what I’m about to do: write something that isn’t just to pay the rent, that makes me (and, if I’m lucky, somebody else) think about what they really want to do, and rattle out those 700-odd words that most ‘real’ writers say is the bare minimum that ‘real’ writers should make themselves do every day.

A ‘real’ writer. Imagine that! Gotta dash now; there’s a Cheers rerun on TV - needless to say, I have to watch it.

Hot Dogs, Cupcakes, a 'hidden' microwave and cheap meat

Just to recap: Sunday 16 September
An excerpt from Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries ii is published in the Observer Food Magazine. I am beyond ecstatic (see previous post).

Saturday 22 September
I yearn for a hot dog. Not an English sausage-in-a-bun, nor a bratwurst on a Sheboygan or a chilli/corn dawg the like of which Gordon Ramsay is scraping the barrel to promote as the food of the Gods in his current TV series, but a slippery, salty, pink tube of mechanically recovered meat smothered in burnt onions and slipped between two rectangular pillows of long life, white hot dog bun, the like of which one used to be able to purchase from dodgy guys who used to push mobile braziers around the street (and who never - according to my mother - washed their hands after taking a pee break). Boo and I go to the Moscow State Circus in the park, where I expect my cravings to be satisfied. The ‘Refreshment’ stand is indeed selling hot dogs: the Babushka sausage ‘experience’, no less, for £3 a pop. That wasn’t really what I had in mind and anyway, they stop serving hot food after the interval because the girls behind the counter have to swap their aprons for silver leotards and dangle by their toes from a trapeze for most ot the second half of the show.

The following day, I buy a tin of six Ye Olde Oak American Style Giant Hot Dogs from the Co-op for 99p and an enormous packet of the prerequisite marshmallow buns at a similar price. Boo overcooks three onions to the point where the once sweet-smelling tangle is no longer identifiable as being even closely related to allium cepa and I boil the sausages (and yes, I use the term loosely) in their brine. We eat our hot dogs slavered with ketchup and mustard, and afterwards vow to never, ever give into one of my impromptu cravings again, but we both know that really, it was one of the best meals we’d ever eaten. The only thing that was missing from my original vision was the tang of je ne sais quoi that always came as standard from the mobile brazier version. Boo said that can easily be rectified; next time he makes us hot dogs, he won’t wash his hands after taking a pee.

Tuesday 18 September
In his new book, Nigel Slater claims he doesn’t have a microwave. I spend a whole afternoon making and erecting a stylish, unobtrusive curtain for mine to hide behind (which is what I suspect Nigel has done for his).

Wednesday 19 September
Yet another cupcake company has taken it upon themselves to send me a gratis box of four cupcakes in, I’m guessing, an attempt to bribe me into signing into Twitter immediately and declaring them to be the best cakes I’ve ever eaten in my life. But it ain’t gonna happen: what fashionable foodie in their right mind would be caught dead eating an afternoon tea ‘treat’ that’s so passé? Everybody knows that the macaroon has long since replaced the cupcake on the chic food chart; even Primark has consigned cupcake-emblazoned tea towels to the 50p bin, making way for ‘premium’ home accessories (ie, cake tins for £1) with the must-have macaroon print on the lid on the shelves. But both cupcakes and macaroons are, in actuality, nasty, over-sweet, vile little bullets of negative nutritional value. Cupcakes are fairy cakes badly dressed in the manner of Disney princesses, crooned over by folk who worship style over substance and women who slavishly purchase fake Cath Kidston kitchen accessories (Primark again, from 84p). Cupcakes are the emperor’s old clothes of the food world.

Sunday 30 September
There has been a fashion for “forgotten” cuts of meat of late: former ration book staples such as neck of lamb, beef brisket and offal have been gracing supper tables and dominating TV food shows across the land as the ongoing financial crisis cuts ever-deepening swathes of misery and despair through the household grocery budget. Yesterday I braised two kilos of oxtail in a deep broth of beef stock enriched with tamarind paste and Burgundy for six hours before serving the resulting sinewy gloop with tagliatelle at a supper party. The result was a sweet, sickly, super-fatty, unctuous melange that tasted of exactly what it was: cheap. Some cuts of meat have been forgotten for a very good reason and you really can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (despite what Fergus Henderson would attempt to have you believe).

To be continued....

The Disco Kitchen Diaries

Sunday 16 September
An excerpt from Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries ii is published in the Observer Food Magazine. I am beyond ecstatic.

Tuesday 18 September
I can’t be the only one breathing a sigh of relief that broad bean season is over. There’s something about those bitter, tough, kidney-shaped pale green beans that come enclosed in jackets reminiscent of a freshly dead caterpillar yet to lose its fur to the invasion of maggots that really gets my goat. They are the emperor’s new clothes of the fashionable food world.

Thursday 20 September
My father and I are in search of something hot, savoury and filling to munch before we go and drink too much house wine in the cheerful hostelry adjacent to the Theatre Royal. There’s a glorious French bakery on the lane opposite the Bath branch of Waitrose, where I enquire about the two fat, golden pasties lounging resplendent under a glass dome on the counter. They are, I’m told, wrought from Salt Marsh lamb, organic Maris Piper potatoes and fresh rosemary, and wrapped in all butter pastry made to an authentic Normandy recipe. They are £4.20 each but can’t be served hot, due to health and safety regulations. We go to Gregg’s instead and buy two jumbo sausage rolls - the sticky, salty, gristly, unctuous filling as hot as volcanic larva, the pastry so flaky it all but fails to do its job at all - for £1.20, and eat them sitting on a bench opposite the Disney Shop.

Friday 21 September
Autumn is softly creeping into our tiny third floor flat, which can only mean one thing: the central heating still doesn’t work properly. In the search for supper, I take a stroll around the larder in the corner of the spare room and stumble across a Fray Bentos pie, bought on a whim several months ago. The tin is dusty, but I’m confident that the contents are nowhere near the end of their seasonal best yet; the pie can happily sit amongst the bottles of mouthwash, boxes of Paxo stuffing and packets of Haribo that thrive in our makeshift store cupboard, waiting for their time to come as they relax in the gentle darkness of a makeshift cupboard next to the cat litter tray. Back in the kitchen, the fridge reveals the remains of last night’s speedy chicken curry (chicken, frozen peas and a jar of Co-op low fat Korma sauce) and two eggs. While the eggs are scrambling, I heat the curry up in the microwave to the exact point where the sauce around the edges of the bowl have turned a crusty dark brown. I serve my eggs on top of two pieces of toast spread with Dairylea cheese. Boo devours the curry with one hand while stroking the cat with the other. He has 4 Cadbury’s Roses for dessert. Later on that evening, he will eat slices of Cathedral City Cheddar with a double whisky.

To be continued...

Your love was King?

A review of the King William in Bath (below), circa 2006-ish. I came across it while writing another review of the same glorious eaterie a couple of weeks ago, and decided to give the original another airing ‘cos it sort of reads like a diary entry... and what’s wrong with a bit of nostalgia?

The King William, Bath
Until the zeroes really started to get underway, describing an eating out experience as “like going round to a friend’s house for supper” was an insult (and if anyone were to liken such an experience to supper at my house at the time, it would have been). These days, though, it’s likely to be the formal starch’n’snoot philosophy that brings on the disparaging sneers (“They still do white linen? You’re kidding!”). A decade of global unrest and the constant threat of recession has killed the £400 dinner date stone dead; chefs who cling to Novelli aspirations in the hope of hearing the squeal of the Michelin man’s tyres on the (raked, herbaceous-bordered, floodlit) driveway end up in AA, dress codes (along with which-fork-should-I-be-using paranoia) have been consigned to the ‘fine dining’ compost heap and the gastro-bistro is the new pub. A handful of smart, local, down-home diners with major foodie appeal flourish on every neighbourhood corner, and the King William – situated on a none-too-glamorous London Road junction – is vying to wear the Bath crown.

Once a really grim, grotty pub, now a smart little bar with a cosy snug in the basement and a gorgeously pretty supper room upstairs, the King Billy is the epitome of right-now chic. Yes, the upstairs experience is indeed a bit like going round to a friend’s house for supper – if, that is, you have friends who have a tastefully decorated, airy dining room that seats 40 and a couple of mates who happen to be kitchen gods. The furniture is artfully mismatched, the staff look really happy, the welcome is natural rather than rehearsed. Within seconds, even the traffic that thunders by below the window starts to feel like a whole world away.

From a beautifully understated, thoughtfully balanced set menu that further bolsters the zeitgeist theme (local organics, seasonality and impeccable sourcing skip lightly around the otherwise plain descriptions), we went for potted English lop and crab risotto starters, followed by red mullet and roast sirloin mains. Our wine arrived with a saucer-sized taster treat (you can’t say amuse bouche in a place like this) of Serrano ham and something figgy, swiftly followed by a basket of chunky home-made bread; ah yes, the yum-yum ball was rolling. The lop (it’s a sort of rustic pork pate, you plebs) was a totally flavoursome babe, served with succulent pickles and yet more fresh crusty slices, while the risotto was a perfectly gooey plate of sweet, sumptuous grains emboldened in all the right places by very fresh lozenges of crabmeat. The starters brought on a personality about-turn at our table: he began to wax gushingly lyrical while I was lost for words; suddenly I knew how it felt to go out for dinner with me (god, how do those ‘guests’ stand it?).

Next up, my roast sirloin was absolutely massive: a wholly carnivorous, juice-oozing, boldly fatty slab of beef, topped with fresh horseradish and teamed with a real, proper Yorkshire pud. It was a big man mountain of a meal that put a whole new spin on the notion of a roast – and further shut me up. He, meanwhile, was moved to prose now, uttering some sort of sonnet in praise of his mullet – apparently a juicy, plump oceanic goddess with shell-on prawns and mussels lounging against her lascivious flanks and spinach providing a bed on which the whole, moving experience took place. Crikey! That old adage about the way to a man’s heart, etc, must be true. While he continued to articulate his delight, I quietly ordered myself an English cheese platter that, even though it was a perfectly fitting doll’s house selection of top faves, I couldn’t finish, and instead just gazed on in awe as his rhubarb fool turned him into the bard of the King Billy supper room. I’ve never seen him so animated, so excited, so inspired – god damn it, I've never seen him so sexy*! If only I'd known, months ago, that all I had to do was fix him up with a lop and a mullet, the course of my personal history could have been rewritten. All hail the King Billy. It rules.

*Update: the King William is stil very, very good but the dinner date man turned out to be the very opposite of sexy.

Most definitely not a single regret!

And so it came to pass that Venue magazine – my main outlet for outpourings of words – went to good old fashioned press (remember that?) for the last time this month. Much has already been said on the matter, most notably by golden wordsmith (and Venue stalwart) Eugene Byrne and the magazine’s last editor Tom Wainwright (who, weirdly enough, I’ve yet to meet). Really, I need not add anymore – it’s all been said, done and dusted; all that remains is the send-off party, at once an event to look forward to and one to wear the waterproof mascara for. So, all that’s left for me to add to the eulogy is a massive thank you to Venue for having me: if it hadn’t been for their faith in me, I’m not sure if I’d have ever found the courage to mouth off in public, establish myself as a ‘real’ Bathonian (the local doors that the Venue key opened were truly amazing) nor meet a group of unique people who influenced – and, I hope, will continue to influence - my life in a variety of ways. And I certainly wouldn’t have been gifted with the opportunity to discover just how much I love to write about food! But hey, this apparently cheerless discord is far from any sort of swansong. In freelance writer terms, I’m well aware that I’m definitely one of the lucky ones; I’m proud to say that I will continue to write for Bristol and Bath’s utterly gorgeous Folio magazine, and our food supplement (Eating Out West, don’cha know) continues to go from strength to strength. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of other stuff partying in the pipeline too... and I’ve made a vow to myself to blog more when the devil (that’s the word-spewing devil, natch, not the nasty, fire breathing one with the goatee and the goat’s legs) drives – a bit of time on one’s hand isn’t always a bad thing, particularly if you’re a girl who just can’t keep her mouth shut... Onwards and upwards? Indeed! But before we get on with that, let's have a little bit of this

...

Be careful what you ask for this Valentine's Day...

“Every breath you take, every move you make, every step you take, I'll be watching you”. “You’d better run for your life, little girl; I’d rather see you dead than with another man”. “Whatever you do, I’ll be two steps behind you”. Eek! Is this a transcript from the diary of a deranged psychopath? Well yes and no; we are in fact plundering lyrics from the Great Love Songs playlist in the name of Valentine’s Day. Lurking close to the surface amidst the inevitable tide of bland, saccharine-sweet ballads that a Google search for ‘love songs’ vomits back at you, the macabre melodies just keep on coming, in this instance courtesy of the Police, the Beatles and, erm, Def Leppard. But then again, even the less sinister chart toppers have a distinctly – well, sinister theme going on. I can’t help falling in love with you. Hopelessly devoted to you. I will always love you. Crazy in love? I’ll say! Are we a nation of romantics...or a barmy army of obsessives?

At this time of year, I actually feel a bit sorry for all the healthy, balanced, genuinely nice guys (and despite the vile, murderous activities of the not-so-sane ‘brotherhood’ who have dominated the headlines of late, there are plenty of them around) who are attempting to quit the single life this V-Day. What’s a guy to do? Buy her flowers, and you’re old fashioned; pay for dinner and she’ll accuse you of attempting to buy time in bed; send her a Valentine’s Day card and you’re a cliché; turn up to meet her unexpectedly and you’re a stalker; play hard to get and you’re an egomaniac bastard – seriously, guys, you just can’t win. So how does New Millennium Man woo a Thoroughly Modern Miss without being accused of misogyny? Ha! Even quantum cosmologist Stephen Hawking can’t shed a light on this particular conundrum; the nation’s favourite geek recently declared that even he thinks women are “a complete mystery” – and I don’t blame him for such confusion.

When it comes to the dating game, the contemporary sisterhood bends the rules faster than you can say Chardonnay. Flowers? We all love them. Pay for dinner? At last! A Valentine’s Day card? How charming! He turns up to meet you unexpectedly? Thank goodness for touché eclait! He plays hard to get? Oh swoon, he’s Mr Darcy! So unless we have firm proof that the wooer in question has a reputation for ominously creepy behaviour, why all the accusations of him offering anything other than a brave attempt at attention-grabbing? Because to politely accept his advances would be to suggest that we need a man to flatter us, feed us or generally lighten up our lives – Emily Pankhurst would surely turn in her grave! So ‘Mr Perfect’ gets the heave-ho, and obsession on both sides starts to fill the inevitable void. Men – battered by rejection and challenged by the threat of obsoletion – turn into Patrick Bateman, while women – confused by unrealistic expectations and images of perfection perpetuated in the media alongside those vile, cautionary tales that grab the headlines – turn into Bridget Jones; the result is hardly a marriage made in heaven. Considering almost 2000 years have passed since the original St Valentine(s) bit the dust, we haven’t come very far, have we?

And yet, the ritual that marks the anniversary of the death of numerous early Christian martyrs continues to thrive. Creepy love songs will dominate dance floors across the land as restaurateurs curse all those tables-for-two, Clinton’s Cards prepare to have their dwindling profits bolstered and cheap confectionery in heart-shaped boxes ensures that lovesick behaviour comes with a side order of quease. Meanwhile, men and women across the land prepare to get their Mars/Venus passports renewed in readiness to take flight as crushes, flirtations and unrequited love turn into very unhealthy pastimes indeed.

'tis (almost) the season to be jolly...

Freelancers, teleworkers and remote employees; part-time contracts, multiple employers and, of course, the global financial climate: just some of the long list of factors that have conspired to create a very different image for the World of Work (or lack thereof) in general. But amidst the flurry of changes, one tradition has endured against all odds: the Christmas office party, it seems, refuses to die a dignified death.

At their worst (or best, depending on your point of view), the COP is an infamous breeding ground for bad behaviour. Got an urge to make a pass at a co-worker, tell your boss what a tosser he/she is or spill the beans on an inappropriate crush/liaison? After three pints of lukewarm wine-in-a-box glugged in an awkward environment, your moment has arrived. At their best (or worst, ditto previous parenthesis), the COP exists to remind us that the season of goodwill to all men (yup, even those you secretly despise) is upon us once again, in which case you put a bit of glitter in your hair, dump a fiver’s worth of destined-for-the-charity-shop novelty gift in the secret santa sack and leave before the inevitable chaos sets in; whichever way you look at it, the scene is set for yet another rerun of a farcical sitcom wearied by endless multi-media/gossip mill analysis every December. But those armchair social commentators should make hay while the winter sun shines; as the 9-to-5, Mon-Fri schedule is fast becoming obsolete, this year’s corporate Christmas shebang might well be the last.

Like most of my immediate contemporaries, I’m a self-employed freelancer who spends the vast majority of my working hours glued to a keyboard in front of a computer screen in the corner of my living room at home; as a result, the terms ‘team building exercise’, ‘lunch hour’, ‘contract of employment’, ‘paid annual leave’ and ‘appraisal’ just aren’t in my working life lexicon - and neither are seasonal team building get-togethers. So for me, any COP I’m invited to is a freelance contract too, either making it a far more enjoyable proposition than it might be for those who are obligated to attend...or making me feel like a complete outsider if I do. But let’s spare a thought for the record-breaking 56% of workers in ‘traditional’ employment that have undertaken countless hours of unpaid overtime this year in an attempt to guarantee job security (source: YouGov), and the millions more who have accepted part-time/job share agreements in order to avoid total redundancy. Millions more again, meanwhile, have embarked on short-term contracts, work three part-time jobs or have no option but to accept ‘total job insecurity’ as an unwritten part of any contract they’re lucky enough to have, while a whole raft of sad souls know already that they’re facing redundancy in 2012. Given such circumstances, is it really possible to party like there’s no appointment at the Job Centre waiting in January’s cruel wings... and should the office really be blowing budgets that could be put to much better use (for example, paying those unpaid overtimers, perhaps?) on flaccid mini-sausages and cheap Chardonnay? The ghost of Christmas future predicts that the office mum might not be visiting Iceland at all next year.

But perhaps Scrooge isn’t ready to gatecrash yet another Great British Tradition just yet. As long as there are inappropriate liaisons to be had, cleavages to be photocopied, grievances to air and bitter sorrows that need to be drowned, the COP will live on. As for me, I’ll be decorating my monitor with tinsel, putting a plate of cold mini-quiches on my desk and raising a plastic beaker of warm wine to myself on the last working day of December; here’s hoping I behave myself - after all, I’ve got a great boss.

Adam and Me

Summer 1979: John Wayne dies, McDonalds sell their first Happy Meal in the UK and a song about rabbits dying of myxamotoses dominates the airwaves. Meanwhile, an exhilaratingly gaudy, tastefully vulgar, brazenly flamboyant role model was about to change my life forever.

To a geeky, plump kid completely devoid of any of the qualities that offer membership to a network of peer support, Adam Ant symbolised escapism in the true sense of the word. As the tumultuous, hormonal storms of adolescence blighted my path across the bridge between childhood and the brave new world beyond, he literally represented the new royal family and wild nobility of which he sang. More accessible than David Bowie, not as whimsical as Marc Bolan and infinitely less challenging than the New York Dolls, here at last was a pinup that I could directly relate to.

At the very start, Adam and the Ants were more punk than pantomime in their inspirations, as their debut album ‘Dirk Wears White Sox’ (1979) - a jagged, wiry collection of angry, angst-ridden nursery rhymes set against a raw, discomfiting backdrop of mismatched beats - will attest to. Ugly, rough and deliberately stupid, punk was never really my thing, but in Adam, I saw a diamond sparkling in the rough. That diamond eventually attracted the attention of the now-legendary impresario (and arch manipulator) Malcolm McLaren, who introduced the Ants to the Burundi drums of Africa: qua qua diddly qua qua! A whole new musical concept was born. At around the same time, clothes designer (and Malc’s then-beloved) Vivienne Westwood gave Adam a brand new dressing up box to plunder. Having already made her mark by styling the Sex Pistols (as Dolly Parton once said, “looking cheap ain’t that cheap”), Vivienne dragged Adam out of bondage and into a wardrobe of lavish costumes that blended 18th century fop regalia with North American Indian and pirate-inspired flourishes; already a massive fan of the original romantics (I’m talking Shelley, Keats and Coleridge here), that was a look that I could understand. It was also a look that would eventually define the burgeoning New Romantic movement, but while bands such as Visage, Culture Club and Spandau Ballet were starting to make their mark on the independent charts by offering a faux-glamorous, studiously capricious alternative to the aggressive, spiteful brutality of punk, the Ants remained to exist in an alternative microclimate of their own; having developed into a restless, unruly misfit of a 16 year old, escaping my own confusing, uncomfortable nest to hitch a ride on the tail of Adam’s ascending star made perfect sense. 

On May 24 1980, I paid a sweet transvestite a fiver to help me bunk on a fan club coach trip to Manchester to see my hero strut his stuff. The following day, I was one of around 20 adamant Adam fans to hide in various loos of a British Rail train to Birmingham before we crawled through the badly-lit service corridors backstage at the Top Rank club to be in his company yet again. Acknowledging that a dodgy, perilous precedent was being set, my dad - not known for his skills as a parental outlaw - forbade me from following the rest of the tour. And so it came to pass that, when a fleet of police vans arrived at the Sheffield gig a few days later (hitchhiked; made it!), I was convinced that they’d come for me - as it turned out, they hadn’t (my dad had, erm, other things to think about by that time), but the boys in blue still had the good grace - or, perhaps, the sense of humour? - to escort me safely home after the gig had ended. Six months later, I didn’t have to make such difficult travel arrangements to meet Adam again (which is just as well; frills, flounces, ruffles, corsets, fishnets, thigh boots and fake beauty spots don’t do public transport, with or without a ticket). The Ants Invasion tour invaded my home town in November; by that time, it was a case of stand and deliver! The Kings of the Wild Frontier had gone mainstream, and I was forced to share my personal Prince Charming with the world. But hey, I could handle it; I was, by this time, not-so-sweet sixteen...but I still hadn’t been kissed, not by Adam or anybody else.

Despite an infatuation that drove me to beg, steal or borrow my way into Adam’s limelight, it wasn’t lust that motivated my ‘go get him’ thrust. While he was indeed indisputably beautiful, Adam represented something far more significant than the possibility of a tumble in the New Romantic heyday. He was the ultimate fabulous Frankenstein: androgynous angel, smutty slut and camp pantomime dame in equal measure - a heady cocktail indeed. But what girl wants to smudge their makeup on a boy prettier than herself? And anyway, seedy sex was, to me at least, a distinctly underclass pastime; if my beau couldn’t quote Byron, he wasn’t worth the price of a Red Witch (the de rigeur New Romantic cocktail of choice). Goody two shoes? In one way, yes. But despite such a flimsily-constructed, pseudo-aspirational, absurdly snooty philosophy,  the surprisingly straight-laced ethos at the heart of a movement that was fast becoming a fully-formed subculture (and one which I, at last, was on the guest list for) gave me the confidence to believe that, despite my limitations, I could be whatever wonderful creature I chose to turn myself into without wasting my time and efforts on having my already confused, fragile ego battered by broken promises made by dull inadequates. For any teenage girl (and indeed, adult woman), that’s not a bad principle to uphold...and it was Adam who waved that magic wand of enlightenment over my carefully coiffeured, jet black pompadour wig.

Decades have passed since Stuart Goddard (oh come on, you didn’t think he was really called Adam Ant, did you?) and I grew up and grew apart, but he never quite left my field of vision for good. Like many of his peers, he’s endured an eclectic career mapped out by a turbulent journey across many peaks and troughs. But at the very start of that epic adventure, Adam Ant was the icon that this former Cinderella used as a blueprint to turn herself into the somebody else that she eventually became. Uniquely captivating, brazenly audacious and apparently totally unafraid of ridicule, he’ll always be Prince Charming to me.

Festivals? Arf Arf!

At last, the nation is calming down again in the aftermath of Willy Wales’ marriage to Kate Middleclass. So, did you have a street party - or was it a festival? Because these days, if it ain’t a festival, it ain’t nothing to celebrate at all. Come summertime, nightmares about leaving the house without a pair of flowery wellies, a packet of Wet Wipes and a fair-trade cotton tote bag bearing the faded logo of WOMAD 1999 replace classic anxiety dreams about shopping in Asda naked. Talking of which: right now, a TesMorrBurys TV ad is suggesting that you ‘have a food festival at home this summer’: cue soft-focus scenes of mythological happy families chowing down on cut-price burgers to a Snow Patrol-inspired anthem while daddy dude strums a battered guitar and yummy mummy gazes fondly at a corn-fed tween wearing an over-sized t-shirt bearing the faded logo of the (I presume fictional) Festival Daze 1999 shebang.

Back in the good old days, ‘festival’ was a cover-all term for a not-for-profit, free-for-all, often spontaneous get-together organised by culturally/politically subversive types to celebrate all-things-non-corporate (and therefore good) in the world; today, the F-word represents an event as mundane, sanitised and corporate as that bloody awful TV advert, sponsored by global conglomerates, promoted by a barrage of robotic PRs - and fully endorsed by the ‘rents. In a recent posting on the Guardian’s online Family Forum, a worried mother bemoaned the fact that her son balked at the idea of being given a ticket to the Glastonbury Festival for his 18th birthday “even though it’s just been announced that U2 are headlining!”. Rather than running a “Teenager proves he has a Mind of his Own” news item in the newspaper the next day, the forum published advice from concerned parents ranging from ponderings regarding depression to a suggestion that the boy might be showing signs of autism - all because he has the audacity to not want to waste three days of his youth (and wads of his parents hard-earned cash) bored out of his mind and scoffing really bad, over-priced food in totally unacceptable discomfort while waiting for Bono to deliver yet another lecture on how great the world would be if he was president (or something).

Meanwhile, the non-music based festivals are equally pernicious money spinners, designed to snatch cash from well-heeled middle class folk who need to be seen being cultured - in other words, the mummies and daddies with the good grace to realise that their days of being stoned off their faces in a muddy field are long gone, but want to prove they can still pa-a-a-a-rty (with, erm, Kazuo Ishiguro and Robert Winston; good luck with that one!). But please, ageing parents: don’t foist your frustrations on your kids. Even though Brian (the scientist who looks like he could have been the bass player in Blur, appearing in this year’s Cheltenham Science Festival) Cox’s TV superstar status may temporarily encourage Generation Text to consider the universe around them, it’s going to take a lot more than a live appearance by a man with floppy hair, a toothy grin and puppy dog enthusiasm for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to get most under-23’s to consider not squandering their student loans on an event that doesn’t involve cheap lager, counterfeit E and the possibility of a muddy fumble in a stranger’s damp tent.

Festival Fever is putting us all in danger of forgetting that it’s still possible to enjoy music, books, family life, food, local traders, politics, scientific theories, country villages, town centres and even bloody Jane Austen without being obliged to spend a fortune publicly proving your allegiance by mingling with a herd of self-conscious lemmings in a location that really doesn’t cope well with crowds. Meanwhile, if a contemporary festival totally free of a dictatorial/egocentric/profiteering motive exists today, then ma-a-a-a-n, I’ll eat a TesMorrBurys Festive Falafel-flavoured kebab.

No really, it's all about Me...

This monologue features a combination of the words ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘I’ll’ 8 times; ah, if only everybody issued such a disclaimer before embarking on the kind of one-sided jaw-workout that I’m regularly subjected to over the course of an average day.

Casually throw a ‘how are you?’ in the direction of someone you haven’t seen for a week and you’re likely to glean one of two responses: either the standard, apathetic “yeahgood” grunt (usually delivered with a gaze firmly fixed on anything other than you), or a detailed account of how a tickly cough turned into a phlegm fest while a suspected bout of athlete’s foot actually turned out to be a rancid verruca. Hear this, people: just because Dr Christian has turned Embarrassing Bodies into a prime time TV career, we don’t all want to hear a warts and all account of your latest ailments. Similarly, recounting the results of your latest search on Genes Reunited is only interesting to other self-obsessives who have signed up for the same service, and as for the latest spiel from your regression therapist: oh come on, if you really were Lord Byron/a Parisian showgirl/the Queen of Sheba in your last incarnation, surely you might have morphed your way into a life less ordinary this time around? A reciprocal riposte in the form of an enquiry as to your own wellbeing, meanwhile, is unlikely to be forthcoming - because, you see, nobody cares how anybody else is (or what they think) anymore; The Sound of Your Own Voice is currently riding high in the social communication charts, and it’s apparently so catchy that it’s set to dominate the Number One slot for a very long time to come.

I recently had to shelve a travel plan because I’m currently in the middle of dealing with a funding crisis affecting a project I’ve been involved with for several years. I didn’t want to leave the situation hanging in midair, and the cut also meant that I’m left struggling with a personal cashflow crisis; in other words, times are hard. I duly emailed the person whom I was supposed to be visiting to explain my situation. Did she respond with, perhaps, her commiserations, a few kindly words of support or an enquiry as to how things might turn out? Of course not! Instead, she emailed me back to reassure me that she’d made alternative plans for the cancellation period so I wasn’t to worry about her (and don’t worry, I won’t - not ever again). At a recent dinner party, a traveller’s tale from a guest who’d just returned from a stint driving across France swiftly turned into a bland volley of one-upmanship across the table: someone else once drove across America, but a friend of somebody’s friend had trekked across the Sahara desert. Everybody talked across each other and the white noise of egomania filled the room for hours on end, until taxis were called from mobile phones that themselves provided yet more one-sided conversations with no thought for others at all.

Cultural trend-spotters may blame the current (anti)social climate on the rise of Facebook and Twitter, both of which offer an accessible soapbox for the ‘Me, Me, Me!’-ers to waffle on from. But the MMM’s were thriving long before issuing acquaintances with an update on our lives was restricted to a bulletin of 140 characters or less, telling people at bus stops about the dream they had last night (can there be a duller subject than somebody else’s dream?), blathering on about needing ‘me’ time and spending a fortune on ‘pampering sessions’, ‘treats’ and increasingly expensive, ever-more-complicated accessories in a (literally) vain attempt to make themselves interesting.

An over-developed, inflated, misplaced sense of self is, in my opinion, a singularly repulsive character trait. If I can get a word in next time I encounter someone suffering with the ego mania virus, I’ll tell them why I’m right.

Read On?

As soon as the Bath Literature Festival publishes its programme I snap up tickets for events until I’ve drained my overdraft facility dry. This year I’ll once again be all over the whole shebang, from the Love-in at the Bath Poetry Cafe on opening day to Rumpole of the Bailey with Timothy West in the final hours. I’ll be clinging on to every word uttered, snapping up signed editions and developing fleeting, inappropriate crushes on cultural icons on a daily basis; yup, the BLF is my version of Glastonbury (without, of course, the loutish crowd, the uncivilised accommodation and the vulgar weather). But this year more than ever before, I know my annual arty indulgence represents little more than a tourist excursion to a cotton-wool wrapped satellite orbiting the culturally-depressed, cash-strapped real world where libraries are living on borrowed time, 9% of boys (and 6% of girls) begin secondary school with a reading age barely above that expected of a seven year old and Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals, George Bush’s autobiography and The Secret (don’t ask!) top the UK’s best-selling books charts; given such a climate, I’m acutely aware that a lit fest is a chocolate teapot sitting on the fringes of the surreal Mad Hatter’s tea party that Britain is swiftly turning into.

Given this depressing reality, it would be easy to write off lit fest fans as a drooling flock of head-in-the-sand sycophants who slavishly read everything on the Man Booker shortlist so they know which author’s names to drop at their next dinner party, but to do so would only serve to highlight my own confused, contradictory state: after all, I’ve already outed myself as being firmly ensconced in their swooning, star-struck ranks. But oh, how I wish the BLF would, for once, relieve me of the guilt that nibbles away at the corners of my temporary pleasuredome and mash things up a bit in order to address the state of the (increasingly non-bookish) nation.

Although I’m ridiculously excited at the prospect of attending an audience with Howard Jacobson, wouldn’t it be ace if he was in conversation with, say, Dave Eggers - a writer whose work with disadvantaged, vulnerable, illiterate American kids really is a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - about how to raise support for similar projects in the UK? As well as chairing the debate I’m most eagerly anticipating (Does Feminism have to start all over again? March 5, the Guildhall), I’d love to see Kate ‘Labyrinth’ Mosse - co-founder and Honorary Director of the Orange Prize for Fiction - involved in a prime time, rabble-rousing call to arms to Get Girls Writing rather than heading up what’s likely to be a polite, genteel chat attended by well-meaning lady lunchers killing time between the two Jane Austen-related events taking place at the Guildhall on the same day. And although there will indeed be a debate billed as an opportunity “to explore how educators are rising to the challenge of delivering high-quality, creative education in a time of budget cuts and an unpredictable future,” (Tuesday 1 March), I wish this crucial subject had been allocated a bit longer than the 60-minute time slot scheduled to take place when most of the people who’d benefit from (and input to) such a discussion are at work (or actually, maybe they’re not any more - in which case, the ‘no concessions’ edict on the ticket price is a farce too). And imagine if, instead of supporting the 5-day, non-stop God-book binge that is the ‘Bath Bible Challenge’, the BLF’s Great and Good embarked on a tour of Somerset to protest against the proposed closure of 20 of the 34 libraries in the county. But hey, at least there are still a few tickets left for Jonathan Bate’s introduction to the romantic imagination; at every lit fest, the most one can hope for is an opportunity to dream on.

Dream on?

Love is in the air as “the most romantic date of the year” takes centre-stage spotlight halfway through February. But while many of us busy ourselves booking intimate tables-for-two, hassling Interflora and urging Cupid’s to programme his GMS properly, many more have an entirely different interpretation on the meaning of content coupledom...and the verses that put their feelings into words ain’t gonna be found on a Clinton’s card.

If you Google the term “advice on sharing fantasies”, you’ll be presented with a list over 5m sites focusing on the subject. The first 30-40 hits largely constitute beginner’s guides, translations of what particular fantasies mean and confessionals from people who claim that turning their dream life into reality has spiced up their love life no end - hats (and everything else) everybody involved; after all, nobody wants the words “sadly, he never did get his wife to wear stockings while she did the housework” included in their obituary.

Keep on clicking, however, and you’ll soon be cruising deeper and deeper into far murkier waters infested with bottom-feeders offering easy access to real life, “discrete” encounters with like-minded people, contact details for pay-as-you-go escorts who claim they can “make your wildest dreams come true”, horror stories that started with a kiss (albeit often on a studded leather gimp mask worn by a man who insisted he be called ‘Master’) and - sadly but perhaps inevitably - direct links to child pornography; within a matter of seconds, your back-of-the-mind idea about recreating “that” scene from An Officer and a Gentleman this Valentine’s Day could be likened to taking your loved one for a curry and ordering a korma when what you really want is a phal.

Now I’m not for one moment suggesting that harbouring a personal amorous fantasy is the first step of a journey into far more sinister zone; imagination is widely acknowledged as the most powerfully erotic outfit in our sexy dress-up box and makes a very interesting bedfellow indeed. But unlike Quality Street, fantasies aren’t necessarily made for sharing (who wants to be bullied into biting into the Toffee Penny when they’ve always been happy with the Vanilla Fudge?) and that weary old platitude involving being careful what you ask for never has more resonance than when it’s used within the context of a love life debate. The self esteem of all parties involved in your little bout of selfish indulgence is subject to severe threat: if your partner urges you to consider taking on an entirely different image, attitude and personality in the bedroom, might he/she actually be subliminally wishing you out of their life altogether? And what if the “new role” simply doesn’t wear well? A woman who believes that “sugar!” is a suitably expressive expletive when riled probably isn’t going to be comfortable telling you exactly what kind of dirty whore she is next time you’re in bed, a 21-stone, rugby playing macho man isn’t, in reality, going to look all that fetching wearing a nappy and few people have the emotional largesse to accommodate three in a bed for long; whoops, it looks like we’ve suddenly got a nightmare on our hands.

But the “Me!” generation is used to being encouraged to “go for it” in all aspects of life, and instant, egocentric gratification is the order of the day. Almost every relationship pundit in almost every from of everyday media concur that our private, innermost fantasies must be outed, offering hints and tips on how to broach the subject (over an intimate supper; by sexy text message; by downloading a template of a ready-written letter/email - honestly!) and even suggestions for fantasies for those with no imagination at all to consider making their own; only the very best professionals in the bunch offer warnings about the emotional havoc that the multilayered pressure of attempting to recreate a fantasy can wreak. Do you dream in X-rated Technicolor? Lucky you! Now keep it to yourself and dream on.

A table for two? How tasteless!

If, as Twelfth Night head honcho Orsino mused, music be the food of love, why have we yet to ditch the idea of ‘a romantic meal for two’ instead of simply letting the band play on instead? If we’re totally, utterly honest about it, eating isn’t the ultimate sexy, aphrodisiacal pastime we’ve all been force-fed to believe it is. Yes, the women in the Cadbury’s Flake/Galaxy/Baileys adverts turn otherwise prosaic food and drink into soft porn fantasies, but that’s because they’ve been primped, preened, softly-lit, digitally enhanced and directed by an army of experts. Nigella Lawson? Ditto. Juliette Binoche in Chocolat, the oyster scene in Tampopo, the arty stuff in Eat Drink Man Woman? Ditto, ditto, ditto. And anybody who may be considering replicating ‘those’ scenes in 9 ½ Weeks this Valentine’s Day, take note: blindfolding your loved one and feeding them the detritus from the back of your fridge might well lead to scenes more akin to some of the more gruesome bits in The Wrestler - you have been warned.

First date dining, meanwhile, is strewn with anxiety attack-inducing potential. Too many women obsess over details such as how much make up/cleavage/perfume is too much/not enough, whether ordering anything but salad will/won’t make them look like they’ve got an eating disorder and whether pasta will make them fart, to the point where they’re so wound up by date time that all they can manage is three large glasses of wine for a starter (in itself, never a good look). Many men, on the other hand, don’t obsess over any subtle details at all, tending to focus entirely on their badly dressed, ill mannered, unselfconsciously greedy selves as those cringingly awkward hours drag by. Fancy ‘coming in for a coffee’ after negotiating that particular minefield? No thank you very much; I’d rather go home and put some music on.

January at The Disco

It’s January, and suddenly it feels as though the whole world has gone back to work at once. The weather in the UK - just a few short weeks ago, sharp, sparkly and properly winterish - has gone back to business as usual too: grey, dreary and bone-chillingly cold, some days it feels as though even the daylight can’t be bothered to do its thing. Some people have embarked on diets, others have given up drinking, more are attempting to give up smoking, and coughs, colds and other nasty, bitter bugs are rife; for me, the only light on the horizon is in the kitchen.

The Family Disco treated ourselves to both a bread maker and a slow cooker in the January sales; ah, what bliss! As I write, I’m eating a bread maker bread roll filled with slow cooker Seville orange chutney and a wedge of cheddar cheese while chicken and barley melt into each other in the electric pot in the kitchen (aided and abetted by a few sprigs of sage). Last night I made slow-cooked goulash and rosemary ciabatta; the day before, beef curry and flat breads (you don’t need a bread maker to make flat breads, but I couldn’t have done them without the help of a recipe from River Cottage Everyday, a Christmas present that I intend to have eaten my way through by the middle of February). Okay, I do know that neither a bread maker nor a slow cooker are absolute kitchen must-haves; both bread and stew have been around for longer than electric wall sockets, and I’ve been comfortable around both yeast and a traditional crock pot for years. But still, there’s something nice about convenience that doesn’t negate creativity. This weekend, I intend to slow cook either lamb shanks or oxtails until the bones are close to dissolving, and I’ll be adapting both sourdough and bagel recipes until I’m satisfied with the result. With the oven freed up for other projects, I’m going to make Nigel Slater’s coffee and walnut cake tomorrow (in the ‘traditional’ manner, natch) and there’s a lemon tart in the freezer that I rustled up yesterday ‘just because’ but haven’t been presented with an occasion on which to serve it.

The other bonus that the current blast of kitchen creativity is that it’s inspired me to get blogging again; Happy New Year to all.

Toot toot!

Feminist pundits have called it “an outrage against womankind” and warned of an increase in incidents of violence against women, campaign groups have accused the bosses of totally disregarding equal opportunities policies and Mumsnet are urging their members to boycott Marks and Spencer, condemning the company for “selling women and girls down the river in order to make a fast buck”. Toot toot! Hooters has come to town.

In case you’ve missed the storm in the DD-cup, Hooters is an American restaurant chain specialising in beer, burgers...and waitresses with big boobs (‘hooters’ is US slang for breasts). The chain has over 400 venues across the globe, and is aiming to establish a presence in 36 locations throughout the UK by 2012; the invasion of the (hot) body snatchers is underway - and Bristol (on a site owned by M&S) is its latest victim.

Personally speaking, I find the massive success of a company that promotes an ethos based solely around scantily-clad, curvy women serving cheap fast food to self-consciously ‘macho’ male saddoes yet another tragic indictment on the cultural state of the western world. But given the state we’re in, surely Hooters only symbolises what a tissue represents to a bout of flu: a mere accessory to address the symptoms (but most certainly not the cause) of a virus that we could have stopped becoming a pandemic decades ago.

If all the folk who have joined the anti-Hooters crusade had regularly lobbied magazine publishers, the Advertising Standards Authority and fashion designers asking them to desist from perpetuating unrealistic images of ‘the ideal woman’, would Hooters even exist? If they’d all put their energies into campaigning against sex trafficking or the sinister realities behind the ‘massage parlours’ that have crept into every city, might sex have been taken off the mercantile market? If everybody joined Women’s Aid (the national organisation aiming to stop domestic and sexual abuse of women by influencing policy change, raising awareness and supporting survivors), might giving men a license to treat sexual harassment as a leisure activity be off the menu? While supporting women’s rights is a lifelong mission, Hooters is merely a circus that provides a fleet of bandwagons for the chattering classes to leap on; if “Outraged from Clifton” had attempted to challenge the ringmasters when the company was established in 1983, the parade might never have come to town.

Meanwhile, what right has anybody got to dispute the free will that the original feminists fought for? Rather than being dragged off the street and forced to wear revealing outfits (unlike most of the women in the aforementioned massage parlours, many of whom have been brought to the UK by sex traffickers), Hooters staff voluntarily elect for the position knowing full well that the uniform is part of the job - and not too dissimilar from outfits they may choose to wear for a night on the town. Surely loudly expressing negative opinions about skimpy clothes - often laced with veiled threats about the consequences of choosing such attire, usually blatantly denouncing an individual’s moral standards and even IQ in the process - is almost akin to condoning the belief that, in order for women to protect themselves from apparently completely acceptable male deficiencies when it comes to ‘self control’ (a subject that few of the Hooters shooters address at all), burkas might be a good idea after all.

Hooters is, on one level, just another city centre sports bar aimed at gullible men: a version of TGI Fridays with Benny Hill as CEO and KFC doing the catering. Consider it as a direct result of not bothering to take action against the exploitation of women every day (and not just when ‘family life’ is threatened by dad’s instant access to women who look like the ones he brings out of hard drive storage when mum isn’t using the computer to corral a crusade against Marks and Spencer), however, and we’ve really only got ourselves to blame.