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The world’s most competitive man, my dad. Wouldn’t let us win at Monopoly… he wouldn’t cut any slack for his children.

Giles Coren

I come from a country where there’s a reputation for bad press.
GILES COREN

Bad Come Country Press Reputation
There is nothing wrong with getting a bus. Nothing in any way demeaning about boarding a huge smelly communal vehicle that will rumble noisily and very slowly in the vague direction of the place you need to get to and then dump you half a mile away in the freezing wind and rain.
GILES COREN

Bus Getting Nothing With Wrong
I used to be a very angry person, I used to throw things and break them. Then I had five years of constant psycho-analysis, and I don’t get angry any more.
GILES COREN

Analysis Angry Break Constant Five Person Physio Thing Use Year
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
I always feel quite Jewish but I used to deny it until I was in my twenties.
GILES COREN

Always Quite Deny Jewish Twenties Use
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
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
Being a success in the world, having total control of one’s life, is about being able to take or leave things.
GILES COREN

Being Control Have Leave Life One Success Take Thing Word
I always say what I think to be amusing.
GILES COREN

Always Anything Say Thing
You can get a decent mouthful of food in Warsaw or Chad if you look hard enough. It’s just I wouldn’t actually go there looking for the food.
GILES COREN

Actual Decent Enough Food Hard Lok Mouthful Wound
I tried to leave the city once, for one of those other places. And, my God, the silence. I could hear myself think, and found that I wasn’t. I am not designed to be lonely as a cloud.
GILES COREN

City Cloud Design Ear God Leve Lonely Myself Place Try
Instant gratification is bringing this planet to its knees.
GILES COREN

Bring Gratification Instant Knee Planet
I would go swaggering into restaurants in some ridiculous tramp disguise, challenging them to mistreat me, order the things I was least likely to enjoy, then hurl my plate aside in a fury and demand to see the manager.
GILES COREN

Challenge Demand Disguise Hurt Likely Manager Mistreat Order Plate Restaurant Ridiculous Swagger Think Tramp
Not since Ancient Greece have cities been thought of as the ideal living environment for humans. And that was so long ago it predates the invention of trousers.
GILES COREN

Ancient City Country Environmental Human Idea Invention Live Long Not Predate Since Trouser
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
I’m not a mad, crazy foodie. But I have strong opinions and I know a lot about food.
GILES COREN

Crazy Food Foodie Mad Opinion Strong
I’m just a bit frustrated that in London we make such an effort to ape the New York restaurant scene. I have good friends who ape the New York restaurant scene and do it brilliantly. None of them would claim that the primary reason for going to their restaurant was the food.
GILES COREN

Ape Country Effort Frustrated Line Restaurant Scene
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
Where my dad taught me everything about writing, Graham Paterson, who gave me my first job at The Times, taught me everything about journalism, which is that it’s no big deal, and it’s more important to have a glass of wine.
GILES COREN

Dad Everything First Job Laugh Person Taught Time
I have Gordon Ramsay to thank for my TV career because Channel 4 spent a long time trying to find him a sidekick for ‘The F Word’, then he suggested me, knowing I’d stand up to him.
GILES COREN

Career Channel Know People Sidekick Spent Stand Suggest
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
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
When I was 16 my dad taught me to drive too. Furiously. Unable to understand why I couldn’t already do it – for driving, to him, was innate in the human. It was what separated us from the apes. And from the French, who weren’t much good at it either.
GILES COREN

Country Drive Either Furious Good Innate Separate Taught Unable Understand
People think you get paid millions by the BBC if you’re famous, but me? Me, I’m in the Premier Inn in Gillingham.
GILES COREN

Bbc Country Million Paid People Premier Think
The world’s most competitive man, my dad. Wouldn’t let us win at Monopoly… he wouldn’t cut any slack for his children.
GILES COREN

Children Competetive Cut Dad Monopoly Stack World
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
In the beginning, we huddled in cities for our own protection.
GILES COREN

Beginning City Huddle Own Protection

The world’s most competitive man, my dad. Wouldn’t let us win at Monopoly… he wouldn’t cut any slack for his children.

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The world’s most competitive man, my dad. Wouldn’t let us win at Monopoly… he wouldn’t cut any slack for his children.

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