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I was 41 when I became a dad. I try to be as much fun as my father was, but I’m at home more – and less of a disciplinarian.

Giles Coren

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

Angry Back Blush Critic Day Early Late Think Use
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
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
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
The first thing I remember is that my dad had a big iron Olivetti typewriter and he worked all night.
GILES COREN

Big Dad First Iron Night Olivetti Remember Thing Typewriter Work
My sister’s also very, very competitive but she is more concerned than I am with being liked. So she hides it away. I try to make my competitiveness part of my charm.
GILES COREN

Being Charm Competitive Competitiveness Concern More Most Try World
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
Gentile smoked salmon is all… muscular and smells of smoke. It’s not very fatty. They don’t understand – smoked salmon should be almost spreadable! So you give them the real stuff and they can’t believe how delicious it is.
GILES COREN

Delicious Fatty Feel Muscular Real Smell Smoke Stuff Understand
So what on Earth there isn’t to like about New York? I don’t know. But what you do also have is a load of very ordinary restaurants which you make a terrible fuss about which are really only very average. Which is fine. One doesn’t go to New York for the food.
GILES COREN

Average Country Earth Fus Know Load Make Restuarant
Have you ever been to the countryside? It’s so small. And there’s nothing to do.
GILES COREN

Been Countryside Do Nothing Small
In the beginning, we huddled in cities for our own protection.
GILES COREN

Beginning City Huddle Own Protection
It was fine for my Polish Ashkenazi forebears to live on dumplings and potatoes, because they laboured in the fields. But that diet is unsuitable for an urban lifestyle.
GILES COREN

Country Dumpling Field Fine Forebear Labour Lifestyle People Polish Potato Unsuitable Urban
My dad was very successful as a journalist, so I didn’t want to be one. I wanted to be a novelist.
GILES COREN

Dad Journalist Novelist One Successful Want
The notion of getting pleasure from food has gone too far; we can also get pleasure from anticipating a meal, and from not being quite sated.
GILES COREN

Anticipate Being Far Food Gone Meal Motion Pleasure Quite
A man of strong opinions is one thing. But a man whose strong opinions depend entirely on how he is feeling in that instant is a disastrous thing in a city of 10 million people just trying to muddle through.
GILES COREN

City Depend Entire Instant Madden Men Million Opinion People Strong Try
Of course you can get a decent mouthful of food in New York. You can get a decent mouthful of food in Nairobi.
GILES COREN

Country Course Denied Food Mouthful Nairobi

I was 41 when I became a dad. I try to be as much fun as my father was, but I’m at home more – and less of a disciplinarian.

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I was 41 when I became a dad. I try to be as much fun as my father was, but I’m at home more – and less of a disciplinarian.

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