‘Of COURSE your piss is pickled! But no one else cares- she has great rack and sultry eyes! You’re just jealous cos you’re not purdey’.

I’m not you know. Jealous. Or for that matter,  pretty.

I’m sad. Actually sad, depressed, disillusioned and royally ticked off…… Because I want my own TV show? Not entirely. But, well, yes- of course I do- let’s be honest here- would you rather sweat your knackers off, cooking for people who don’t care, earning not much more than an hourly minimum wage, or prance around on telly earning some big bucks, with a book deal tied in? It’s a no brainer. Don’t judge me- ask yourself the same question. It’s so English not to admit what you want. I want a telly show- primetime telly. I want all the cash and an adoring public. I want a book deal that bears absolutely no correlation to the quality of my knowledge and writing ability.  And I don’t want to get up at 6.30 any more to start lunch prep. Oh. It turns out I am jealous. Who knew.

But I don’t have perky tits, a (mildly) famous father and ABSOLUTELY no moral qualms. In short I am not the fragrant Laura Zilli.

Here is the article that I read yesterday http://goo.gl/INoKX . Have a look. But do come back, I’m just warming up.

Have you read it? How do you feel? Do you have a tingling fury in your very marrow? I do.  About every crapulous sentence. The NAME for Christ’s sake. ‘High Class Cooker!’  Really? REALLY? You are going on telly promoting yourself as a whore. A slut. A prostitute. That’s nice. What a lovely message for the kids. What is she going to cook? Slag Aloo? Who is advising the poor girl? Her famously media savvy ‘celebrity chef’ father Aldo Zilli perhaps?

 HIYA everyone!!!! I’m a High Class Hooker! An Expensive Slut! A Pricey Whore! It is mind boggling. Isn’t it? Am I being priggish? I’m not usually.

Is it her fault? Probably not. She’s just another fame hungry wannabe of the X factor generation. She has already appeared on the laughably awful Channel 4 ‘documentary’ ‘Seven Days’. Her Biography for that programme states thus:

 ’Laura is pursuing a music career and is as (sic) a singer songwriter With a large circle of friends, she loves to socialise in London and is often seen at exclusive events. Laura’s a country girl at heart and spends most of her weekends riding her horses. She is currently in a long distance relationship. Her father is renowned celebrity chef Aldo Zilli’

How’s the music career going Laura?

No?

Oh well. I mean you only had prime time advertising on Channel 4 and your father’s connections. It’s tough out there and you wouldn’t want to lower yourself to being Cowell fodder or, you know, gig.

I know! Do some food telly!

Look. I’m sorry, this is just turning into a mean spirited attack on Miss Zilli and I have never met the girl. I’m sure she is quite charming. But why is she getting a food programme? Why? Because her father has a chain of mediocre to awful restaurants and plays the ‘celebrity’ card at every opportunity? Or because she is quite nice looking?

Both?

I’ll tell you some reasons that weren’t discussed in that particular commissioning meeting. Has she ever trained as a chef? Has she done double shift after double shift shucking oysters until her fingers bled? Has the energy of a professional kitchen caused her to succumb to drug abuse, depression or insomnia? Is she engaging on television? Likeable? Humble? Can she write an informative, fascinating and ground breaking book? Does she really CARE about food? Could she hold her own in an in-depth debate, with chefs about seasonality and provenance? Does she have a single recorded opinion about food or things culinary that is not contained in that Mail article?

Or is she a failed singer/songwriter with a pretty face and a Dad who once upon a time cooked average, overpriced food in Soho.

It’s a joke. A bad one. And it REALLY, really matters. And it’s not fair.

I feel sorry for people like Lorraine Pascale and Gizzie Erskine, who will get tarred with the same brush as Miss Zilli. Did they get on TV because they are beautiful? Well yes, that  probably helped. But they went to catering college; they have both worked in top restaurants. They both live and breathe FOOD. You can just tell. Laura Zilli just wants to be famous and you shouldn’t let her get away with it.

The average chef in this country earns £19,000 and works harder than you could possibly imagine. Depression and suicide is rife within the profession and Miss Zilli’s message to the lowly plebs is that it is OK to cook in Louboutins.

 This isn’t about misogyny (though calling yourself a ‘high class cooker’ surely opens oneself to certain lines of criticism); it’s about modern life and everything I abhor about it. Hugh’s ‘Three Hungry Boys’ nonsense upset me greatly. And don’t get me started on those bloody Baker Boys. This isn’t about Laura Zilli being a woman. This is about Laura Zilli having no qualifications whatsoever and demeaning the profession that I so love with a tawdry piece of tabloid twattery that should never ever have seen the light of day.

Note: If you would like to see Aldo Zilli a. forget my name on live telly and b. admit that he cooked frozen broccoli in his awful (now defunct) vegetarian restaurant then google our names together.

‘Being single in your thirties is a funny thing. Not funny ha ha. Or funny peculiar, particularly. Just funny in a ‘funny sort of fits’ lazy writing kind of way. I believe the kidz today are saying Meh..? Because right now, on this day, I am largely indifferent to being single. But last week I was desperate to be in a relationship. Today I am focused on the exciting new path my career has taken recently and the fact that tomorrow I am seeing most of my best friends for an old school day of fun and frolics. But on Monday I might well start working out how old I will be on my first child’s 18th birthday if I don’t have one in the next five years.

And thinking that it is a bit weird to be single when you are thirty three. I can’t quite see past that. It does mean that something hasn’t quite worked out. This might just be that you ‘haven’t met the right person yet’ but it might (might it?) allude to something more? something more difficult to accept or even admit? I am fairly sure that I am a difficult boyfriend in many ways and I suspect am becoming more so. I work funny hours, like reading the paper in peace and quiet and really hate doing things that I don’t want to do. Like going for lunch at your parents house when I have a hangover or going clubbing in Shoreditch for your idiot friends birthday.

I was the one in my late teens and early twenties who always had a girlfriend, pretty much constantly from 18-23. I thought at 23 that I was going to marry my girlfriend. We had a little garden flat, a cat and for a time an amazing thing. But she came home one Sunday night, said she wanted to break up and that was that, I never, ever saw her again, to this day. I think we still have a joint bank account somewhere. And I wonder sometimes if the brutality of that break up, the near insanity that I experienced over the next 6 months has affected my ability to be in a grown up relationship now.

Since then I have flitted in and out of various relationships, six months here, a year there. Had hundreds of blind dates, internet dates, one night stands and two week flings but never come remotely close to knowing beyond all doubt that this was the mythical one. And in that decade, that decade, Jesus, nearly all of my friends, cousins and peers have done it. Have found another person that they want to spend all of their time with. And the older I get, the more cantankerous and set in my ways that I become, the more unlikely it seems that I will even want to spend my time with any one.

But we repeat the single person’s mantra about not having met the ri…blah blah blah. And we get drunker at weddings than everyone else and we go home to mums and sleep in a single bed whilst our younger married siblings take the en-suites.’

It’s amazing. I had given up hope- I know that I wrote it, because it is saved in the ‘drafts’ section of my blog, but I don’t recognise that person, that ennui, bordering on despair. Thing is, I was right. There probably is something wrong if you are in your thirties and single. There is something wrong with you. There was something wrong with me. But that’s OK, because somewhere there is someone with something wrong with them too, but it’s your kind of wrong. And you make each other better. And that’s just fine. Three days after I wrote the above, I met Sara and last night we had dinner in Quo Vadis and laughed until we cried. She’s my kind of wrong and I’m hers.

10pm:

I sit on the warm mahogany toilet seat with my head between by knees and count to ten as a bead of sweat runs down the bridge of my nose and falls in slow motion before detonating on the heated terracotta tiles beneath my damp be-clogged feet. I must stand up. Take control. Ice-cold filtered water cascades into the solid granite Tarn basin and I submerge my face and the panic subsides and my resolve is hardened. It was the gelatine you see. The evil, stupid, temperamental gelatine.

That morning. Early:

My troubles seem so far away. I love Borough Market. This is work as play. I am shopping for food at my favourite place in the world, with other people’s money. My mind races with ideas, ingredients, flavours and textures. My client wants grouse. Of course she does. It is September in Holland Park and the evenings are drawing in. The children are back to school, the gaudy Puglian villa has been shuttered up for the Winter, and her thoughts have turned to indoor tennis, charity boards and entertaining.

I stroke the downy feathers of a hung pheasant and ask Jake, the butcher where and whence they were shot. The grouse are beautiful: speckled and plump. I pack eight into my rucksack and meander through the madding crowds. I feel a sense of superiority and self-importance. I am not like the tourists and the daters and the myriad other bewildered visitors. I am a professional! A Chef! I am here to work! In a karmic flash my rucksack begins to bleed and children point as I blush and stumble down an alleyway to fix. I am immediately stricken with humility and bathos.

7pm:

I arrive. Georgian pillars bestride the coal-black door. I will pop out later and steal some bay leaves from the pristine trees atop the steps. The house keeper lets me in; She is Filipino and the very arc-angel incarnate. My box of food is hoisted shoulder-ward and she trots down the stairs, her five foot frame bearing the weight that had buckled me, not two minutes previously. I am agog at the kitchen. It glows like burnished silver under moonlight. If a kitchen can be gorgeous, then that is what this must surely be. 

The Hostess descends. She is fifty and stunning. An aura of control, spirit and class exudes from every pampered pore. She kisses my cheeks and I am heady. I break eye contact and show her the grouse. She is pleased. 

8pm:

My waitress arrives. She is twenty-two, a trainee surgeon and smarter than I could ever hope to be. She sees me only as old. Such is the decade between your twenties and thirties. Strangely, The Husband chooses this moment to appear. He was going to be a surgeon once. Oh yes. But some chaps in the City made him an offer that he could simply not refuse. He is less interested in my grouse and me. My surgeon/waitress polishes cutlery and bats him away with a charm and tact bequeathed to only the most beautiful and talented.

8.30pm:

A terrine of Poulet de Bresse, foie gras and morels looks wonderful on the plate. A final shine with some truffle oil, a pinch of sea salt and away. I am pleased. The mostarda that I sourced specifically for this dish will, I know cut through the richness of the foie gras and offset beautifully the earthiness of the mushrooms. I cook the grouse well. Maybe a touch too pink? Too late. Confidence, Luke. The bones come back clean. I up end my rhubarb jelly moulds and take my poppy seed and honey parfait from the freezer. The jelly collapses. I adjourn to the downstairs wet room.

10.03pm:

Think. I heat the jellies in a pan and add some mulled wine spices that I find in a drawer. The Surgeon finds me some shot glasses and thus a new dessert is born. I am summoned to the dining room. The contrast between hot, sharp, spicy rhubarb and cold sweet parfait is the highlight of the meal. They are in raptures and I sidle out sheepishly. Such is the life of a private chef. You make your mistakes, you splash filtered water over your face and you keep calm and carry on. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I have been to The Taste of London festival a lot over the years and in fact went to the first one ever with my friend Jo. Those were the days. For ONE  POUND , Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay would cook lobster in dragon’s breath and feed it to you with a runcible spoon whilst tossing each other off. And you always had change for a hap ’worth of chips and a Dandy on the way home. Those were the days my friends. Good times.

Now though. Now! It’s a joke. A cynical escapade in the art of corporate money making. A machine, a clinical humbuggerance designed to empty your pocket faster than The Artful Dodger on crack.

That it is sponsored by British Airways should be a clue, that Waitrose has the biggest stand another. This isn’t a celebration of British food, or even British restaurants. It’s a shopping mall. Without a roof. In London. In June. So what you have essentially is a flooded shopping mall. It is Westfields with pissing rain and mud. Joy of heavenly joys.

Oh wait though! Give us £26 quid for the pleasure! So a dank, wet shopping mall with no parking, surly security guards, ridiculous currency and an exorbitant entry charge. How wonderful. Can I get a ticket for next year please?

‘But it’s a celebration of British restaurants you miserable git!’ Is it bollocks. It’s an opportunity for celebrity chefs to unleash their commis chefs from their basement manacles to slop tepid pork belly onto a polystyrene plate. Oh and charge you 14 crowns.

Ah yes. Crowns. They sound nice don’t they? Sort of medieval and quaint. You can imagine a troupe of travelling jesters doing their weekly shop with Crowns in Dribblecock-under-Wold or similar as they pass verily and merrily through.

Well think again friend. Crowns are not quaint and cute and dripping with historical chutzpah, they are yet another cynical and manipulative way for The Taste Corporation to extract their pound of flesh. For should you ever be daft enough to exhibit your product at one of their festivals you can expect to pay thousands of pounds for a tiny stand next to the loos AND, then at the end of each trading day you MUST hand all of your crowns in. These will be counted and you will then be sent a cheque months later. Less ten percent. Yes that’s right. They charge you for your pitch and then skim off your profit margin for good measure. Of course if Taste  just used cash the evil exhibitors might slip a few un-taxed quids out in their knickers. Oh, and if you, the punter, happen to have a couple of crowns left at the end of the day? Bad luck! Take them home and wipe your arse with them for all the value they have. Cha-ching! Bless Taste and their joyful ‘celebration’.

Half an under seasoned Scotch egg cost Four Pounds at the Quo Vadis stand. Half a Scotch egg. That means (keep up) that a SCOTCH EGG costs EIGHT POUNDS That’s essentially an egg, a slice of white bread and a few chipolata sausages. For eight quid. It’s not even a Golden Eagle egg. I’d pay eight quid for a lovely Golden Eagle Egg. And wash it down with dolphin tears and a fat cigar. But eight, new shiny pound coins for a stupid chicken egg in sausage meat makes me want to suck out my own eyeballs and Scotch them.

It gets me down, it really does. It’s not really the restaurants fault, God only knows how much they are paying for one of the premium stands, but why do it? I genuinely don’t understand what benefit for example Le Gavroche or similar get from being there? The food cannot be anything like as good as that served in their restaurants and the public are alienated by what looks from the outside as extreme stinginess.

But what do I know.

I know that I am a consumer, that I eat for pure joy. That I book every holiday I ever go on because of the food. I cook for people and make a living from it and dream of the perfect Scotch egg. And I know, most pertinently of all,  that I trudged out of The Taste of London with a heavy heart and an empty pocket and said to myself that never again would I support this corporate behemoth, posing as something, somehow wholesome and something, somehow good.

See. What I’ve done there is find an online translator tool and typed in fantastic (could probably have done that one by myself….) and loud. Clamoroso means riotous which is actually much better than loud so I have been intellectually  outdone by the power of t’internet on several levels there.

I think that my point is that it is very easy to look clever/qualified/funny online. You can even buy dissertations.

Not mine you can’t. Although why anyone would want to plagiarise ‘Roddy Doyle and the ethics of male feminism’ is beyond me. How desperate was I to get laid at University? The Ethics of Male Feminism….. yup, sure, and what Doyle of course fails to deliver is a solid de-construction of post feminist male doctrine… now grab yer coat treacle and hop on the fun bus.

Everyone cheats and steals and fabricates and the walls come tumbling down. Except they don’t. Because the world tolerates creative manipulation of the facts. And thank God. On my CV right now (I have it open on screen)- are seven small lies, three quite big ones and one whopper that probably makes my CV an illegal document. But if I hadn’t done them I wouldn’t be making a living out of food. Shuddup. That’s a GOOD thing.

So I found myself in Antibes with no cooking experience, no money and no idea. But I did have an illicit CV and the gift of the gab. And to cut a long story short I talked my way onto the largest single sloop luxury yacht in the Mediterranean. As the Head Chef! I look back now and wonder in disbelief at my youthful temerity. And after a week the Captain said, unfortunately we are going to have to let you go when we get to Malta because you are clearly not a Chef.

You didn’t see that coming did you…..I have to say, at the time, I did.  But Skip liked me personally and I got him a bit drunk and agreed with his bonkers socialist conspiracy-theory nonsense and he gave me another chance. He also told me that the guests loved my food- my cooking was great. But I was supposed to be a Chef and that’s not just about cooking. I couldn’t get my head round the cleaning…? Stock rotation….? Staff food…..? Budgets…..? Accounts….? Sharing a miniscule cabin with a repugnant kiwi called Mal….? It was a learning curve. Apart from seven days off, I worked non stop from six in the morning until midnight every single day for seven months. And then in bed, I read Larousse Gastronomique until the small hours to ensure that I could knock up a decent brioche the next day, like an old pro.

It was by far the hardest I have ever worked, the furthest I have ever been out of my comfort zone. I wept quite a bit and despised it and myself at various times along the way. But it changed my life for ever and on my last day on board, the Captain asked me to come back the following Summer and in that instant I was vindicated, my lies didn’t matter because I had walked the talk. I sat on an Easy Jet flight from Nice to London and started laughing and genuinely punched the air as the most total and utter feeling of pride and achievement flowed through my veins. Never to return, as I could not readjust to polite society and was a homeless crack addict for ten years. This is my story..

See that’s a lie! I wasn’t homeless or a crack addict- but I bet I could get away with it and knock out a book about my time on the street…. Street Chef, 12 ways with rat and bin juice.

So, don’t believe everything you read, and always, always make ‘chefs’ cook for you before you give them a job….

I might be alone, I might be with people. But I know it when it comes because it warms me up, gives me a tingle of optimism, hope and joy. It is a smile. Only a smile. But an involuntary one, a REAL one. I don’t do pointless smiles. I am default, de-mob, grumpy. My face is set in a Neanderthal frown and I rarely expose my teeth because they are gappy and it’s a hangover from self-conscious puberty time. But I have this tiny, enigmatic (I think-it isn’t really) smile that I can’t predict or control that means more than the rictus grins of multitudinous others.

And it mainly happens when I put something nice in my mouth.

There are other times when it happens. Like when I am on a bus after a good meeting and I look around and hear the voices of my city. I think about  a bit of new business, a piece of paid writing and I see the river and smile. Almost inwardly, but my body feels like bursting because I am exactly where I want to be, the right age, the right place, it is all just right for those few seconds. Not for long mind, the walls of optimism come crashing down sharpish, but those lovely moments are mine to keep.

Or when I hear the right song. The one that is missing from my head at that particular moment, the one that makes me remember something that I wish I hadn’t forgotten. Then I smile.

But mainly it is when I put something in my mouth.

And when somebody that you love buys you dinner at the best restaurant in London on the eve of your birthday, you end up smiling more than you ordinarily would. Which is what happened on Wednesday when I was taken by SV to The Ledbury in Notting Hill.

I did the smile a bit earlier though- in The Lonsdale where I was just waiting. I had an hour to kill before our meeting time so I went to the smartest place I could think of, near to The Ledbury. A tall beautiful woman ushered me in to the dark empty space and I just sat at the bar, like an American man. It was empty and there was loud music that I didn’t know. It was nice. And I ordered the perfect drink for me, at that time, in that place- A whisky sour. If I’d ordered something fruity, long or even with loads of crushed ice I would have looked like a dick. Alone in that bar. So I drank my delicious whisky sour and half way down did a smile.

And she arrived, so beautiful I smiled again and then we went to The Ledbury.

And ironically the first thing I had to do was a massive fake smile because the nice French waitress smashed a wine glass all over my place setting and lap. God bless her, she was utterly mortified. She couldn’t have looked more appalled if I had caught her doing unspeakable things to a myopic donkey in front of my nephew in a convent. So I had to do the DON’T WORRY SMILE followed by ‘its fine!  It was probably my fault actually-Shall WE leave?  Are YOU ok? I really couldn’t give a tinkers cuss about such things but, being all English had to KNOW that she knew that.

But that was the last fake one. From then on in, only genuine. You probably want to see pictures now, don’t you, of all the lovely food and listen to  how  ”the apple counter balanced the foie with a tart acidity that one thought could only come from the genus Granny Smith”. But I haven’t taken a photograph for 25 years and there are myriad better food blogs than mine, where you can read about the food at The Ledbury. Here is how the food at The Ledbury made me FEEL. You don’t need to see pictures, they can never truly represent what is on the plate anyway*.

A plate of raw scallops, cut thinly and placed in a circle. Green oil and white ice crystals. It was essentially the best sushi roll ever. So simple- raw fish, seaweed oil and frozen hoerseradish- the seaweed and horseradish, northern European versions of nori and wasabi. And when I made that connection, seconds in, I laughed a litte and it made absolute sense.

Then the most beautiful and delicious of all sea creatures, the mackerel. Charred black skin, cold cucumber, a little raw flesh and shiso- more Asian influence, more deftness of touch and superlative control. I wanted more of this so badly I nearly cried as I dragged my finger across the remaining meagre juices.

Plump foie gras, crispy seared on both sides, melting voluptuous mess within. And the first little glimpse of actual genius. Something new, something wonderful. Christmas pudding puree. OF FUCKING COURSE. Its sweet fruit and spices. Of course it matches foie gras like a glove. But that thought had never popped into my head. Staggering. Beautiful. A new combination making my mind swim.

Then another sense. Smell. Truffle, shaved and pureed. I smelt it coming from behind my head. And it turns you on. Doesn’t it? It smells like animalistic sex on a forest floor and you know that’s what you want. But you eat your moist skate wing and cauliflower and banish such thoughts from your mind and. Smile.

Some post coital Pyrenean milk fed lamb for the Gentleman? Why thank you, don’t mind if I do. Can it be the softest, most intensively flavoured lamb that I have ever tasted please? With sticky reduced braising liquor that is the essence of every lamb that has ever gambolled. Nutty artichokes and crisp skin? Wonderful and I smile again.

Pudding was rubbish.

Cheese was good.

The wine tasting menu was perfect .

The company was breathtaking.

And just writing about the whole thing, this entirely hedonistic experience makes me happy. But I’m not smiling. One day in years to come, I will be driving and I will remember that food, how it felt in my mouth and there and then a smile will break across my face and only I will know the real reason why.

*if you really do want to see pictures of the food then check www.thehappinessprojectlondon.wordpress.com next week.

I say boy. I am thirty four on Thursday and I now spend longer shaving my ear lobes than I do funking up my hair. Such is my life. My shopping lists now invariably consist of Gaviscon and Marks and Spencer’s pants and I have to get up twice in the night to pee.

But, my flying monkeys, I’ve still got it. I can still turn my attention to a session, still rock the party.

No one says ‘rock the party’ do they?

Well I did and I will again Baby. At The Ship in Wandsworth last Saturday with my friends, and then tomorrow I am being taken to The Ledbury by my very beautiful, very out of my league, very much younger than me looking girlfriend.

So, The Ship. The Ship has always been part of the fabric of my London since I moved back here as an adult twelve years ago. I have three distinct Ship epochs. Number one, back in the day, it was a place to spend bank holiday weekends by the river before heading off to Embargos, Crazy Larry’s, Infernos or The Grand. It was more about the location then than about anything else. And that was just fine for me and my sex pest pals. Load up on Lager at The Ship And fill your boots with paralytic totty in the Clapham Grand. Wizard. HELLOOOOO DR GLITZ!

Number two was the mid noughties when we used to book the private room every year without fail for a big all day Christmas Lunch. This was when technically we were more mature. The Ship then was bog standard in terms of food- perfectly functional Christmas Dinner, loads of average wine and indifferent service. One year I wrapped up a raw chicken as a secret Santa present. It was funnier in theory than in execution. Another year my friend Nick met his now wife Tori by swimming across the floor of the bar and doing a Lion impression in her face. It was love at first sight. Those days were characterized by burning out by 8pm with tears, tantrums, puking and not having sex. Good times.

And NOW! It is the third coming of The Ship. I hadn’t been for a couple of years because my ex-girlfriend got custody by dint of living next door, but now I’m back and this time The Ship is becoming something of a phenomena. I don’t want to tread on anyone’s toes because I don’t know the history or inner workings, but I suspect that Oisin Rogers, The Boss, has his sticky finger prints all over its current success. Quicker than most, they have realised the power of social media and particularly Twitter to push their product. And they do it superlatively- at once accessible, informative and professional but with an underlying sense of mischief. They have also realised the importance of the food blogging community and without patronising or sucking up have won almost unanimous favour. This is quite a trick to pull.

My birthday started with an exploratory tweet to @shipwandsworth with the date and the number of people. And then everything just happened- Emma, Oisin and Phil between them were proactive and patient, barely raising an eyebrow with menu requests and fluctuating numbers. The night itself was wonderful. I was hammered. I don’t remember anything after my main course so as usual this is a terrible restaurant review. BUT! The Foie Gras and pistachio terrine was exceptional- smooth foie, contrasting crusty pistachios and tart cherries with a perfectly toasted slice of brioche. Special. Other people raved about the scallops and rosti and my, they looked pearly from where I was slumped.

I had to order the calves liver (I can’t not order calves liver) and it was dense, pink, meaty and flavourful- with wonderful bubble and squeak and gravy. I think I had something with chocolate after that. But by this stage I was being passed shot after shot of tequila with Tabasco. I’m sure it was just swell. And BY THE WAY, £20 a head for three courses! For dinner! Best value in London, friends.

So there you have it, over a decade of being ‘Shipped’, and I love it now more than I ever did. Go there eaters and drinkers of London. I’ll be in the corner, rosy of nose and ruddy of cheek- possibly being held up by Oisin and Dave A and the rest of the merry gang.

My name is Luke Mackay and I am thirty three years old. And yesterday I bought my first ever tool. And my second. Should you be kind enough to be interested, my purchased tools of choice were a hammer and a screwdriver (Phillips).

That is at first glance, by most definitions of manliness a pretty shameful admission. I don’t have a tool kit/belt/box or anything tool related. I have never dreamt of owning a power tool and wouldn’t have the first clue what to use it on if I did.

I just spent £250 getting my bike fixed. I did not attempt to fix it myself.

I didn’t learn to drive until my late twenties and could no more fix a car than I could remove a spleen.

I have never put up a shelf, re-wired a room, plastered a wall or stripped an engine.

And I know, I KNOW, that women find this incredibly unattractive- You want Diet Coke guy, stripped to the waist, brandishing his tool willy nilly and building houses and wot not. But do you know what. You can all whistle for it.

Because do you know the last time a girlfriend of mine cooked me an amazing meal? It was never. Do you know the last time a woman ironed my shirt? Never. Darned my socks? Sewed on a button? Arranged some flowers? Never, never, never. When women start caring about historically ‘feminine stuff’. then I’ll start giving a monkeys that I don’t know how to grout a carburettor or whatever it is you do.

I am a manly man, make no mistake- I have a hairy chest and a strong rugby pedigree, I can pick you up, throw you around and defend your honour with my mighty fists of steel, should the occasion arise. But all that practical crap bores the bejesus out of me. I get no satisfaction from it, consider it a total waste of my time and energy and would much rather throw money at the problem and get it done properly. There is nothing more pathetic than a man who refuses to accept that a task is beyond him. I can do all this stuff, anyone can- you just watch the video on you tube or read a book and do it. But it BORES me and I hate it.

I have started writing a book and to do this I need an office, or at the very least a desk. So I bought one on eBay and yesterday it arrived in a very heavy, very flat, very un-desk shaped box. There were three pages of diagrammatic instructions and a little table of things, in picture form  that you would need to assemble said desk. The things were as follows: One man, one hammer, one screwdriver, four square metres and forty minutes.

It took this one man four and a half hours not including finding a hardware shop and buying tools. I hated every single minute of it. The instructions were shit, the bits of wood were heavy and unwieldy and I ended up sweating, bleeding, shouting and swearing and now, to show for my labours have only a crappy broken desk and an immoveable splinter.

You should have heard the disappointment in my new girlfriend’s (We’ll call her SV)  voice…. ‘Oh don’t tell me that’ she said as if I had punched her nephew and slapped her Mum. And that my friends has prompted this post. That barely disguised dissappointment.

YOU CAN’T HAVE IT ALL LADIES!  You can either have my Grandfather who could whittle you a boiler out of one piece of oak but who had the emotional intelligence of Goebbels or you can have me and my kind who will tell you that we love you, be great Dads, knock up a dinner party for your friends. But who, in return will pay a Polish bloke to plaster the nursery. I don’t expect all the feminine crap- I want a strong women with a great career, who earns their own money and can change a plug. I couldn’t give a fig if you can’t cook, knit or crochet.  But lets make a deal. I’ll iron my own shirts and say you look beautiful if you don’t treat me with contempt when I don’t want to spend my Sunday afternoon with a chisel in my hand and splinters up my bum.

A few months ago I saw something horrible. A girl of about my age, climbed up onto the wall of Putney Bridge and she jumped off. Through the mist and the rain into the swirling dark water below. How do you get there? How do you get to that place, that juncture in your tragic life? What pain must she have felt? What despair? How did her London differ so monstrously from mine?

Because my London is vital, alive and in the main optimistic. Hers was dead and empty, a dry husk that offered no protection, no joy and no comfort. Her London killed her.

I am like the Christians who say that earthquakes, cancer and tsunami are all part of God’s plan. You have to take the rough with the smooth in London- the joy and exhilaration with the sheer terror and despair. One begets the other. Without both, London falls, is nothing. So I don’t blame my London for killing that girl, I can’t because if I lose my London faith, I become that dry empty husk. Where you might have God in your heart, I have my city- it is my inheritance, my playground and my life.

You know all the places. Borough Market, Waterloo Bridge at balmy dusk, Richmond Park on a cold, crisp Sunday morning- Soho with its inherent wondrous weirdness. We all know by now about the food scene, so improved, so vibrant and exciting. We have known for centuries about the art, the opera, the theatre and the ballet, but these are not the things that make my London mine. You can read a million blogs about London, about what to do, where to eat and what to see and of course you should. But for me it is something else, something intangible that I can only try to explain with my mere words.

It is a shiver. A tremor of joy that happens infrequently, but is born of security and experience, of knowing that you belong somewhere. And it’s not about St Paul’s or Big Ben, it can hit you on a tube platform or piss-stinking underpass. It is when you catch a glimpse of a cab light at 2 am or proffer directions to a Japanese student. It is enjoying the clichés- embracing the braying sloanes and the be-hijabbed Muslim women, banker wankers and the barrow boy geezers. It’s the kebab shops and the markets, the graffiti, the buskers on the tubes, the evening light and the driving rain. I love the grumpiness and I love the warmth. I love the windows and the lives behind them- a grimy bed sit or a Boltons town house. The stories are what I love. How did they get there? What twists and turns of fate in some far flung country led to that guy, living right there at this moment. Who does he call? Where does he go? And why the hell did that girl jump off that bridge.

Why did she not aspire? Why did she not hope? What happened in her childhood to prevent her from forming the kind of relationships that should have saved her life? We are meat and water in a bag of skin but some of us walk, some of us run and some of us. Just. Stop. Some of us achieve, some of us get by. And then there are those who don’t suck the marrow from this city, who cry in pain, confusion, panic and angst. And my London blocks out the noise and I go on my merry way. And poor young girls who have nothing left to give or take, jump off Putney Bridge because their London hurt them, hated them and ultimately ended them. Right in front of my own very sheltered and very pampered eyes.

Like last night when I took a girl out for dinner.

I dressed up all smart (Jeans and a suit jacket, like Mr Jeremy Clarkson, ladies- HELLO!) and had a shave- (tsk), put my nice shiny brown wedding shoes on and even a bit of that new deodorant stuff . Hot to trot and ready for action.

I know what you’re thinking. You are thinking, ‘Oooh that lucky cow!’ That’s what. And you’d be right. Except that she could do much better. And probably even pull someone who doesn’t hold up Jeremy Clarkson as the epitome of high fashion. But she had to make do with me, initially upbeat and uncharacteristically chipper, but then as the meal progressed becoming more and more quietly, middle classily, enraged. In an ‘Oh yes, yes, everything is quite lovely thank you so much for asking’, kind of way.

I should have known really. We went the ludicrously named ‘Four 0 Nine’ in Clapham. What do you think its address is? Go on. Have a guess. No? Ok. Well…… Its 409 (geddit!) Clapham Road! Isn’t that brilliant! Its ADDRESS is 409 Clapham Road. And they (the loony jokers) have CALLED IT, Four (in letters) 0 (the digit) Nine (in letters) Pfffftt. Terrific, that’s just terrific isn’t it?

It considers itself London’s best kept secret. Which is fine if you are Milk and Honey and are always packed but a bit stupid if you are always empty and have to whore yourself on the internet with desperate offers of eight courses for a pound and such like. And then when you arive you have to press a buzzer and someone says ‘yesssssss’ and you say ‘Um Hello’ and they say ‘Can I help you’ And you and your companion who might or might not be your girlfriend, because you have had lots of dates and are quite keen, but haven’t had that chat yet, so its slightly awkward to discuss any event that might be happening at any time in the near to medium future unless its taken in the wrong way and you are not sure if you should introduce then to your friends for similar reasons. But secretly you are quite excited by it and dress up like Jeremy Clarkson to impress them, are standing there in the cold saying Yes you can help me. Because this is supposed to be a restaurant and I am standing on the pavement outside having an embarrassing conversation with an electric box. And it’s really really cold because I didn’t wear an overcoat to show how tough I am, and if you don’t let me in I am going to punch you in the goolies.

Then they let you in and you get some truly revolting free canapés. Which is so unbearably depressing, because it is aspiring to pretention which is bad in the first place, but then carried out with such laziness, lack of skill and finesse that my heart sank at the thought of what I might have to actually pay for. A blissful grape something or other cocktail reminded me of that grenadine syrup you get in France, but undiluted so that it coats your mouth with unbearable teeth shuddering claggy sweetness. And the food was just average after that. The foie gras parfait was actually excellent, the mackerel under powered and dull. And we didn’t get any wine until I had nearly finished my starter. My main was hake and was fine, but weirdly citronella like. On the plus side it kept the mozzies away. And here’s when I got really annoyed. The not-quite girlfriend ordered the onglet steak- medium rare. She described it as beef sushi. It was slightly shy of bleu. So obviously, instead of sending it back we had to swap main courses. It just wasn’t very good at all. Every thing from the canapés, to the service, to the food and the cocktails was about thirty percent off target and conversely it is about 30 percent more expensive than it should be.

There were maybe 20 diners there whilst we ate. And there were 4 chefs in the kitchen and 4 front of house staff. How do these places survive? And how, when you are doing 20 covers between 4 chefs can you cook a steak so badly. It makes me furious beyond all belief. I did 40 covers and did all the washing up on Tuesday night because I have margins and labour costs to worry about. And each plate of food was better than the dreary fare that we got last night. And I’m sorry- that’s not meant to sound arrogant, it’s just to illustrate that you and I should get angrier with these mid-range local restaurants that are over-staffed, and thus over-priced. The meal for two with service automatically added (obviously) was a hundred quid. Which, I’m sorry, is a lot of money.For just 2 courses, a couple of cocktails and a bottle of wine. A hundred quid- even including the bloody pointless pimped out on the internet offer. Or to put it another way, more expensive than Polpo, Barrafina or any number of wonderful restaurants that don’t take the bleeding piss.

But we had the chat and, I am pleased to report, all is well.

If you would like to send fan mail or congratulatory cards, my address is three 9 three Upper Richmond Road*. Don’t try and let yourself in though. Or I’ll punch YOU in the goolies.

*this is not (quite) my address. I am not  mental. It is just a little joke upon which to wrap up proceedings.