Theresa May's minimum price for alcohol wouldn't have slowed Reginald Bosanquet one jot
✒ Great to hear Anna Ford on Desert Island Discs, talking about Reggie Bosanquet, her fellow newsreader. I recalled working in Northern Ireland, when it was a popular pastime among army officers to see just how drunk he was while reading the News at Ten. Their admiration was for the way that, in spite of his clear and obvious inebriation, he somehow managed to keep going without missing a word.
When ITN was based near Oxford Circus, he used to spend most of his time between bulletins in a wine bar diagonally opposite the studio. I met him once. It was 5.55pm. He walked out of the green room carrying two enormous goblets of red wine. They must have contained almost a bottle between them.
I asked where he was going, and someone said, in mild surprise, "he's going to read the news, of course." He kept the glasses on a shelf under the desk and glugged them during the film reports.
I don't think Theresa May's minimum price for alcohol would have slowed him down one bit.
✒Someone else I met briefly was Barry Humphries, who is now, very sadly, retiring Dame Edna Everage. On this occasion he was at the old Punch lunch, and he was doing a sort of comedy jam session with Alan Coren and Keith Waterhouse, meaning that three of the funniest people in Britain were cooking together. Naturally I can't remember a single joke, but I do recall a piece of very useful advice which might help if you're ever in the front row at a comedy gig.
"Never pick on the person who is signalling wildly that they really want to be up on stage with you. They think they'll be hilarious, but they won't. You must always go for the person who is shrinking back in their seat, praying you won't pick on them …" So if you're very shy, you must climb on to your seat shouting "me, me, me!"
✒Gyles Brandreth revealed this week that John Major, with whom as an MP he worked closely, used to go to charity events with strips of raffle tickets in different colours in his pocket. So when the raffle ticket sellers approached him he could wave them and claim he was already well supplied.
It sounds heartless, but I sympathised. For one thing, raffles are boring. The prizes are usually things you don't want: a hair appointment at The Kindest Cut. A plastic basket of cheese from Asda. An hour's gardening by someone who doesn't know much about gardening. And you have to wait till the end in order to discover that you haven't won. I'd rather stuff a tenner into the collecting tin or buy some more overpriced wine.
And we all avoid paying extra to charity – or rather we hate being dragooned into paying more. I can't bear hectic, hectoring, self-regarding events like Red Nose Day and Sport Relief. But I always give a quid to those shy ladies with collecting buckets whom Barry Humphries would pick on, and who look as if they would rather be anywhere other than in the street, outside Gregg's.
✒I love Masterchef on BBC1. There is something hypnotic about all those desperate people who really imagine that success will change their lives. With a couple of shouty presenters, Gregg Wallace and John Torode, they resemble people attacked by muggers who want only to placate them, in this case with more lavender jus, or crispy pancetta and lemon rind, or squid rings and guinea fowl with a jasmine coulis.
Nobody could possibly want to eat any of the winning dishes: they are far too bitty, packed with unnecessary fripperies and furbelows. And they look as if they have been assembled at the last minute by people sweating in terror. And it doesn't help that we all know now that, by the time the cameras have set up, the food is stone cold.
Now Gregg Wallace has his own restaurant in East London, called Gregg's Table, and it's got the most appalling reviews I think I have ever seen. Metro, the freesheet, calls it a "travesty". The chips are "pallid and greasy as a bedroom-bound teenager".
The reviewer, Marina O'Loughlin, says that she had "one of the worst meals I've eaten since I was forced to eat leathery custard by a variety of particularly sadistic nun." And then she describes every dish in such detail that you want to throw up your breakfast. Restaurant reviewing doesn't get any tougher than this.
Well, the fact that he presents a cooking show doesn't mean he has to be a good restaurateur. We don't expect a theatre critic to be a great actor. But you do expect them to know that they can't act, and not try.Good food can be simple, even foolproof. Take the restaurant favourite, frozen berries in white chocolate sauce. Freeze the small berries – raspberries and blueberries are best – then add the sauce, 100g of white chocolate melted over warm water, stirred with 100g double cream. "Nah, that is cooking!" as Gregg would say.
✒Labels etc. Nick du Quesne Bird takes issue with me over those notices on supermarket flowers saying, "not for consumption". He consumes – often cooked or crystallised – all kinds of flora, including carnations, daffodils, roses, violets and maidenhair ferns, in "anything from omelettes to wedding cakes". He adds, "if I see something nice on display I buy enough for me, and phone my friends. The florist says, 'oh God, not you lot again'."
Sheila Bennett bought a bottle of still water from Asda, marked helpfully "Good for hydration". Katharine Dicks received a letter from Santander. It contained two sheets of paper. One was a letter giving information about her account. The other contained a single line: "Please find enclosed a letter providing you with information about your Santander account."
And this kind of nonsense isn't new. Marjorie Hardwick recalls, from 60 years ago, her mother seeing on a bottle of tonic wine, "If after taking, you feel slightly worse, you know it is doing you good." A perfect slogan, I felt, for George Osborne's budget.