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I used to be so angry. I think back to my early days as a critic in the late 1990s, and I blush.

Giles Coren

I had become mean and stupid and deliberately hurtful because that is what is expected of restaurant critics. Of critics in general.
GILES COREN

Critic Deliberate Expect General Hurtful Mean Restaurant Stupid
I come from a country where there’s a reputation for bad press.
GILES COREN

Bad Come Country Press Reputation
The good fortune of my life, which has been to turn those glittering nights into my job, all came from there.
GILES COREN

Came Fortune Glitter Good Job Life Night There Tyrn
My dad never really wrote what he thought. None of his inner rage and darkness and problems, which we all have, made it on to the page. For him, writing was a process of making everything appear funny.
GILES COREN

All Appear Dad Darkness Everything Funny Inner Made Make Page Problem Rage Really Though Wrote
Gradually, I developed opinions about food, and my French friends taught me that you have to complain in a restaurant.
GILES COREN

Complain Country Develop Food Friend Gradually Restaurant Taught
He was a staffer at Punch but in the evening he wrote columns for the Evening Standard and The Times.
GILES COREN

Column Evening Punch Staffer Standard Time Wrote
How clever am I? I’m really quite clever. I mean, look, I’ve got a first-class degree from Oxford.
GILES COREN

Class Clever Country Degree First Look Mean
At home, we have fish and greens, fish and greens – maybe salmon steak with curried lentils. No poncy cooking goes on, we don’t have dinner parties, we don’t entertain.
GILES COREN

Curried Fish Green Home Lentis Salmon Steak
All I care about is that people who like me think I’m funny. I get on with writing pretty straight-down the line, old-fashioned stuff.
GILES COREN

All Care Fashion Funny Old People Pretty Straight Stuff Write
World cross-fertilization is fantastic. Immigration across the world has led to all kinds of fantastic new and exciting kinds of food being available. And there’s all kinds of different kinds of restaurants.
GILES COREN

Country Cross Different Effort Fantastic Fertilization Line Restaurant Word
But still I can never shake the feeling that buses are somehow beneath me. Which is why I have a rule regarding their use: I never, ever run for one. And nor should you.
GILES COREN

Beneath Bus Feel Regard Rule Run Shake Somehow Still
Personally I ride a bicycle, travel by train and bus and campaign tirelessly for a car taxation system that will hammer ignorant, selfish, petty, fat, spoilt, stupid car abusers into giving up their addiction and walking.
GILES COREN

Abuse Campaign Car Hammer Ignorant Pretty Ride Selfish System Talk Taxation Tirelessly Travel Walk
My dad Alan loved Westerns and we watched them together when there wasn’t much else on TV. I had toy cowboys I’d call Richard Widmark or Gregory Peck and we’d restage the Battle of the Alamo.
GILES COREN

Battle Call Country Cowboy Dad Else Love Much My Restage Together Watch
Instant gratification is bringing this planet to its knees.
GILES COREN

Bring Gratification Instant Knee Planet
I let the other reviewers eat the bad meals, so that I didn’t have to, and my wife and I went out only for the good stuff. And I wrote mostly positive reviews. Not only. But mostly. And, ooooh, it felt an awful lot better.
GILES COREN

Awful Better Feel Felt Good Mostly Review Stuff Wife Wrote
Mineral water is a preposterous vanity, either bottled in glass which is stupidly heavy to freight, or in plastic that ends up in one of the plastic patches the size of Texas occupying our oceans.
GILES COREN

Bottle Freight Glass heavy Mineral Occupy Ocean Patch Plastic Preposterous Stupidity Water

I used to be so angry. I think back to my early days as a critic in the late 1990s, and I blush.

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I used to be so angry. I think back to my early days as a critic in the late 1990s, and I blush.

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Popular Authors

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