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I have a tailor now, I have a doctor, a wine merchant, a jeweller, a gardener, a cleaner, and a nanny. It was clearly ridiculous that I did not have a hairdresser. So I got one.

Giles Coren

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
I always say what I think to be amusing.
GILES COREN

Always Anything Say Thing
Have you ever been to the countryside? It’s so small. And there’s nothing to do.
GILES COREN

Been Countryside Do Nothing Small
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
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
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 know more than most journalists. I know more than most columnists on big, important newspapers.
GILES COREN

Communist Important Journalist Know More Most Newspaper
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
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
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
People like me make modern life intolerable.
GILES COREN

Intolerable Life Mark Modern People
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
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
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
We’ve got rid of subeditors because we don’t need them. Because they were never necessary. They were just fetchers and gophers. They had a job, which has been superannuated by technology.
GILES COREN

Fetch Gopher Job Need Subeditor Supernatural Technology
I have a tailor now, I have a doctor, a wine merchant, a jeweller, a gardener, a cleaner, and a nanny. It was clearly ridiculous that I did not have a hairdresser. So I got one.
GILES COREN

Clearly Doctor Gardner Hairdresser Many Merchant Ridiculous Tailor
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
It doesn’t matter how much of a hurry you think you are in. Be one of the people for whom ten minutes does not make a difference.
GILES COREN

Difference Hurry Matter Minute Much One Ten Think
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
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
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
In the beginning, we huddled in cities for our own protection.
GILES COREN

Beginning City Huddle Own Protection
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 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
My time in Paris was an education in both the grimness of a relentless, grinding day job and the joys of nights in glittering restaurants.
GILES COREN

Both Day Education Glitter Grimness Grind Job Joy Relentless Restaurant Time
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
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

I have a tailor now, I have a doctor, a wine merchant, a jeweller, a gardener, a cleaner, and a nanny. It was clearly ridiculous that I did not have a hairdresser. So I got one.

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I have a tailor now, I have a doctor, a wine merchant, a jeweller, a gardener, a cleaner, and a nanny. It was clearly ridiculous that I did not have a hairdresser. So I got one.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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