The Price of Romance

Being a 'romantic' is incredibly hard nowadays.

'I want to spend the rest of my life with you!' has been replaced by 'Why don't we both live in my flat so that we can rent yours out?' And 'Let's go out for a really nice meal on Saturday' has been replaced with 'Shall we get a couple of grams of K for Saturday night, get shit-faced, and have a threeway?'

Romance may not be completely dead, but it's definitely choking on its own vomit, and seems only to live on in its purest form in the hearts of über-wrinkled, hand-holding, octogenarian couples, and the bulging wallets of Hallmark Card executives and florists.

The problem with being a romantic who is neither highly-paid nor 'pushing death' is that you are almost always going to be disappointed in a world where so many people think that leaving the room when you need to fart is a romantic gesture. We've been slowly re-educated, or brain-washed, into believing that 'romance' is something material which involves large amounts of money, happens at very specific times of the year appointed by retailers, and must come from a list of 'authorised' gestures. What's romantic about sending 12 frighteningly over-priced red roses on Valentine's Day? Most people don't have a vase for them, the heads wilt within 24 hours because they're exhausted after their 48-hour flight from Peru, and they were probably picked by under-paid, under-aged children who will almost certainly die from a lung disease caused by the pesticides and fungicides they have to breathe in.

The idea of romance peddled by companies like Hallmark has been horribly distorted into some kind of emotional version of Muzak. A company who create non-existent, but highly romantic occasions, and then cleverly convince us that we should be sending cards with messages like 'Happy Belated Rosh Hashanah To My Beloved Goy-friend', and 'Congratulations! You Got Your Period, Now We Can Have Un-protected Sex Again'.

That's not romance. That consumerism!

I know I'm starting to sound cynical or bitter (or, God forbid, anti-Hallmark!), but that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is that real romance is something that we should feel comfortable to demonstrate at any time of the day (or night), and every day of our lives (past and present). It shouldn't be something that is only available to 'couples' to demonstrate the fact that, even though they rarely have sex anymore, they still love the person they're with. We have all been shockingly robbed of the right to feel comfortable being romantic in our everyday lives. We have to go to the cinema and longingly watch it happening fictionally on-screen because, like the 'ginger-gene', it's gradually being bred out of existence.

I want that intimate, 'eyes-across-a-smokey-room' form of romance (even though, thankfully, smokey rooms are a thing of the past). Surely it must still be possible to lock eyes with a complete stranger, and find our hearts palpitating, our palms sweating, and a funny fluttering in our stomachs? Or are our romantic sides so dead that we just put it down to either a minor heart attack, or a bad curry? Despite Hallmark's attempt to turn romance into 'an occasion', and the efforts of the many non-romantics who try to convince me that romance and shagging are the same thing, I know what I want and still belive it's possible.

So come on boys, forget Gaydar, forget your Xbox, get on your white chargers and sweep me (all 80kg of me) off my feet!

Don't you ever let me get like that!

I went to see my grandmother on Saturday, after almost 6 months. I had been putting it off and off and off because my sister went and was really upset. Yes, this is my 'hard-as-nails', council-estate sister (the one who used to pierce her own ears when she was a teenager) ...................upset, yes, actually upset! She's a bit like me, we both disguise feelings with sarcastic humour, so for her to be visibly (and audibly) upset is a huge thing.

My mum and aunt made the decision to move my grandmother into sheltered accommodation towards the end of last year because she had the quite rapid onset of dementia (my grandmother, not my mum). As they were concerned that she wasn't safe being on her own, they found a very nice residential complex where she has her own flat with living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, but within a warden-controlled complex. This means that the carers check on her in the morning, evening, and several times during the day and deal with any issues or concerns. So, it was a good compromise between making sure she was safe, and not taking away ALL her privacy and independence.
I don't think anyone thought that her dementia would progress so rapidly and within six months she is probably about 5% of her old self.

Anyway, back to Saturday. My mum managed (as usual) to badger, blackmail, and cajole me into going over even though I said I didn't want to go. I had a really anxious feeling about the possibility of seeing my grandmother, but my mum chooses to hear what she wants to hear sometimes. Part of it is a competition she has with my aunt over whose children are the better grandchildren. My cousin is going to visit on Tuesday, so I think my mum was worried that she would be 'out-grandchilded' by my aunt (auntie Junie) because I hadn't been.

The residential home is actually very nice, especially when you look at some residential homes which are just glorified chapels of rest, full of barely-breathing human fossils in various states of decomposition.
But I was actually shocked when I saw my grandmother. To start with she didn't have a clue who I was, even when mum prompted (and prodded) her. I know that her sight and hearing are both going, but she didn't know who I was, even with my mum hollering at 80 decibels in her ear "Do you know who it is? It's Andrew.........Andrew mum! Andrew, your grandson. Do you remember him? Mum? Mum! It's Andrew". But the reality was that she just looked even more dazed and confused as she trued to manoeuvre her walking frame from the bedroom.
She was like a picture of one of the survivors from Bergen-Belsen, tiny, shrunken, stick-thin limbs, with a face that had almost caved in completely. Dark circles under her eyes, and the vacant expression of someone who isn't somewhere else, they just aren't anything or anywhere. It was truly shocking and upsetting and I knew that I shouldn't have gone.

I stayed for about an hour, and during that time, she was lucid for barely a couple of minutes. It's incredibly hard to have a conversation with someone who has no reaction, I felt like an old, gay Sally Field in Steel Magnolias. But instead of talking to a lifeless, but still stunningly beautiful, Shelby, I had a total stranger who used to be my bright, chatty grandmother. She had always been so fastidious about her appearance, her hair was done every week, fingernails manicured, hands moisturised, make-up applied, and smartly-dressed. I've forgotten how many times she ranted about the old people she saw on the street who had 'let 'em selves go'. She used to say 'Don't you ever let me get like that, will ya, you bang me over the 'ed wiv a lump a' wood if I ever lose me marbles'.


And that's just what I could hear in my head as I was sitting there looking at this complete stranger whose only contribution to the conversation was to beg to be taken to the bathroom. 'I wanna go to the toilet, I want to go to the toilet', like a tiny child. That wasn't the woman I'd been looking up to and loving and being loved by for over 40 years, it was someone different, someone I didn't know. And the only recognition for me was something I felt in my heart, somewhere between love and pity.

"Don't you ever let me get like that!"

I can't imagine how hard this is for my mum and my aunt. I spent an hour there, but they spend every Tuesday, most Thursdays, and alternate Saturdays, cleaning, washing, tidying, and chatting to someone who probably only exists in their hearts as well.

China's Penis Restaurant, a perfect analogy!

Thinking of the choice of who to vote for in the up-coming General Election, this old news article from The Times came to mind. A restaurant with a menu where you only have a choice between one type of penis or another.............................a perfect analogy. You look at the menu, and there's just nothing that makes your mouth water, or even sounds remotely palatable. So you pick the least-offensive thing on the menu, and force yourself to eat it.

China's Penis Restaurant
There are several varieties of steamed, roasted and boiled penis at Beijing’s quirkiest diner.

I'm visiting the Guo-li-zhuang restaurant, a specialist penis and testicle emporium that caters mainly to wealthy businessmen and Communist party officials (who, truth be told, are often one and the same).

It offers every conceivable John Thomas you could ever want, which probably isn’t very many. Nonetheless, the menu is both extensive and impressive.
The place looks like a smart kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine) formal restaurant, complete with underfloor stream, separate secluded dining rooms and hushed, discreet staff. I have come determined to avoid euphemisms - we’re making a current-affairs programme for the BBC - but I’ll admit the temptation is strong.

I ask a chef to show us the preparation of a penis first, so that I can get a feel for the process. He enters holding aloft an eye-wateringly large yak’s knob. It’s about 45cm long, but thin, so thin. It’s been boiled gently and - I can’t believe I’m writing this - peeled, except for a hunk of foreskin still clinging on to the end. He cuts the thing in half lengthways with a pair of scissors.
As he chops through the very tip of this impressive member, I feel an undeniable empathy twitch in my own penis and a bizarre feeling of nausea in my groin. (I didn’t think groins could experience nausea.) I can’t help yelping in sympathy.

He then uses a knife to make hundreds of little snips along the side of the penis and chops the strips into 5cm pieces. When these are dropped into boiling stock, they curl up into little flower shapes that are so incongruous, I can barely believe my eyes.
I ask the chef if he thinks it strange to deal exclusively in genitalia, but he shrugs and doesn’t know what to say. He’s just happy to have a good job, really. His friends don’t take the mickey, his parents are proud of him and he does what he’s told. Okay.

Less taciturn is the female manager of the place, who says that Chinese history is one of famine, poverty, drought and disaster, which is why the Chinese have become used to eating every part of the animal - they have to extract every edible morsel from the food they have.
I ask if this is good communist food, and she proudly says that most of her customers are male Communist party members. Their meal costs an average of two months’ wages for a dumpling-factory worker, and I ask how a conscientious Communist can be seen here (paying up to £250 for the rarer penises) when the average peasant is on the poverty line.
She holds her hands up in the air and tells me that they come for the virility benefits genital-eating offers. Apparently, you can go for hours after eating a good portion of penis.

We try the water-buffalo penis first, in thin shavings. It started long and thin, but someone has shredded this noble old chap on a mandolin. It has the texture of squid and tastes of the mild chilli stock it’s been poached in.

We are given three sauces to dip it into - lemon and soy, chilli and soy, and a sesame-seed paste. It’s good, and the penile nature of the meat lends an undeniable frisson of excitement to the meal. I tell the boss that “it’s the first time I’ve had penis in my mouth, but I like it and I’m going to do more of it”. Well, someone had to say it.

She seems pleased, and pours me some deer-penis juice, which I’m delighted to say is the vilest concoction I’ve ever had the privilege to imbibe. It’s as sour as a smacked lemon and as bitter as neat quinine. My face freezes in an agonising spasm, and Lord knows how I manage to keep from throwing up. Mr Hoo, the driver, asks if I want any more, and when I shake my spasming head, he grins and downs it in one. I pity Mrs Hoo - she’s going to have a busy night.

We try goat’s penis, chicken feet, bull’s penis tip (that’ll keep you up all night too, the boss warns), terrapin leg and all manner of radishes. I’m offered dog’s penis (“The only one with a bone in it”, and served with a glacé cherry placed pointlessly on the tip), but decline.

All the knobs have intriguing, delicate and bizarre textures, although the flavour is mainly of pork braised in hot stock. My favourite dish of all is undoubtedly bull’s perineum – a delicate piece of flesh, the size of a chicken oyster, which has been poached, then slow-fried.
It’s sweet and crispy, with a deep taste of soy and honey.

Yan Yan, my guide, isn’t too keen on penis, but she’s adventurous in the face of adversity, and tries most things with a curled lip. Just before we go, I ask why the girls get off lightly. Why don’t they serve any female genitalia?

The boss bursts into giggly, embarrassed laughter. “That’s a crazy idea - why would anyone want to do that?”
“Well, because it’s protein and you Chinese are renowned for eating everything.”
“Don’t be insane,” she says. Then she remembers that she’s heard of a dish of donkey vulva, but she’s not sure where. She thinks it’s a disgusting idea.

Extracted from 'In the Danger Zone' by Stefan Gates

I'm a receptionist.........................

I'm planning a really relaxing weekend doing absolutely nothing. I've had the most incredibly busy and stressful week, and I'm mentally tired.

You wouldn't imagine that being a receptionist could be stressful, it's not a word people normally associate with reception work. But in my organisation, expectations (and workloads) are extremely high.

Most people's idea of receptionists is that you just sit at a desk in a Miss Selfridge skirt and jacket, smiling, and wondering what colour to paint your nails at lunchtime, Tuscan Sunset, or Cheeky Blush? Do you want to look like a sophisticated slut ? Or just simply like a slut?

You answer the telephone occasionally in a bored, monotone, vacant-sounding sing-songy voice.................'Helloooooooooo, Smith, Smith, and Smith Chartered Accoooooooooooontants how may I help yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooou?'.

Then, after quickly connecting your caller to the wrong number (the ONLY quick thing you do all day), you go back to nail colours and wondering how far the small hand needs to move before you can go to lunch with Cordelia from Jones & Jones Financial Wideboys, and Shazzer from the Royal Bank of Total Wankers (where your colleague Nadira's fiance works). At lunchtime, you meet other well-groomed, 'Fembot-esque' receptionists (or sometimes Admin Assistants or Secretaries) and shuffle around the shopping mall looking at shoes, clothes, and you guessed it.........................make-up!

Sometimes, you invite 'fat' Rachel (pronounced Rashelle because apparently her great-grandfather was French or black or something) who used to work there until she got the job as PA to an old American guy whose wife refused to let him have 'some young dolly' as his PA. So, he employed her because 'nobody in their right mind would fancy her' (except that he actually does because she gives him 'these fucking awesome blow-jobs under the desk after work - and swallows - and let's him pee over her tits in the exec washroom').

'Don't get me wrong babe, she's a really, really nice girl and I love her to bits, but she eats tons of carbs and she's probably a size 14...................and she sort of smells funny' (Yup, that's because she can't get the smell of piss out of her delicates!).

You wile away the afternoon looking at recruitment websites which advertise jobs that you aren't remotely qualified for but that sound like you'd be really good at. Exotic Futures Analyst (that must be about fruit or something), Strategic Offshore Economist EMEA (that one has loads of foreign travel, probably France or maybe America or even New York), Integrated Retail Planning Consultant (well, that's all about shops, isn't it!).

You break up the monotony of the day with a bit of pointless photocopying, usually something personal. But you never use the nearest copier because it's right next to the Legal Department and the Legal Secretaries are 'such a bunch of total bitches who look down their noses at everyone, even Karen and she's got 4 GCSE's! But they're only normal secretaries ............ .................... right?

Instead, you go all the way up to the photocopier on the third floor next to the IT Department where they're pretty much all buff young guys in T.M.Lewin shirts and Armani Exchange jeans. Then you hang around the copier huffing and puffing and looking helpless until Darren, or Terry, or Max (the one you shagged in the spastic toilet at All Bar One after the Christmas party last year) slither over and ask if you need a hand. The conversation is always pretty much the same:

- Awright Sasha, you need a hand?
- Oh I dunno, this stupid copier's not working again! I keep pressing the button but it won't copy and there's no lights on.
- Yeh, we switch it off sometimes because it gets too hot.
- Oh no, oh God, I'm SUCH a total blonde! (true) You must think I'm really thick (true).
- Nah, course not (lie). Do you just want normal copies?
- No, can you get it bigger for me? (you say, innocently raising your 'recently-threaded' eyebrows)
- (Darren raises his eyebrows) Well, never had any complaints so far (lie).

(you both laugh for 2 seconds)

- .....................oh my God, you're so filthy, I can't believe you just said that!
- What? What?? That's just your dirty mind Sasha (true).
- I've got to get back downstairs, the phones are just manic this afternoon (lie) and I left Nadira on her own.
- Is that the Asian girl with the scarf?
- Yes, but she's really nice though (lie - you think she's stuck-up). She's getting married next month, but it's like a normal marriage. It's not arranged or anything (lie - their families arranged it). Her fiance works at the same place as my mate Shazzer and she said he's really nice (lie - Shazzer calls him 'the wacky-paki' behind his back and thinks he a total perv who spends his time staring at her tits even though he's engaged).

- Are you going out for Ellie's leaving drinks on Friday?

- Might do. Are you going?
-Dunno, are you going?
-Probably.
- Awright, I've got to go, Nadira gets really stressed when she's on her own (lie - she's actually really relieved that she doesn't have to listen to your incessant twittering about shoes and make-up and can concentrate on planning her wedding instead).

You get back downstairs just in time to take your afternoon break, which you spend outside on your (pink) mobile phone smoking and telling Shazzer (and then Cordelia) what a perv Darren is and how much you fancy him (whilst Darren is leaning back on his chair upstairs telling Max what a fucking 'bike' you are). Then you tell Shazzer (and then Cordelia) what a bitch Nadira is, and how she never does anything except talk about how much money her fiance earns. At the same time, whilst you and Nadira smile synthetically at each other through the window, she's on the phone to her fiance telling him what a slut you look in the Cheeky Blush nail varnish that you put on at lunchtime while you were with that other awful slut who works at the same place as him, the one whose tits are too big for the small top she wears.

Will it even make the front page?

So, we've got our General Election date, Thursday 6th May.

And once again, there really isn't much of a choice. It's like that Monty Python song, Spam.

Spam, spam, spam. Spam and egg, spam and chips, spam, egg and chips.

The Conservative Party, the 'opposition' party in what's always been a two-horse race, will promise absolutely anything to win more votes. They always say that they're a new, modernised party, but like the apparently newly-respectable BNP (far-right, nationalist party), you know that underneath, they are the same right-wing, watered-down fascists that they've always been. They've just changed their ties, and re-phrased their tired old promises. The

Conservative Party and the Labour Party both walk that same line of trying to look as if they're doing something, whilst actually doing very little. They try to draw in minority voters whilst not alienating the majority. We saw that demonstrated by David Cameron's sad attempt, during his interview with Gay Times, at being 'right-on' and 'gay-friendly'. He thought he was putting out a new image of the Conservative Party by being interviewed by the 'Queer Press', and fell flat on his face at the first hurdle when they asked him why his party-representatives in the European Parliament had supported Lithuania's implementation of a new 'anti-gay' law. Anyone who thinks that the Conservative Party isn't still the party of the middle to far-right needs to look under the surface.

He's just another grey politician (apart from his high-vis cyclists stripe) who 'didn't inhale'. Just a shame that they all don't all stop inhaling completely and save all a lot of money.

Of course they are going to win, but the question is but what majority.

And of course I'm going to vote. I'm a great believer that we shouldn't waste a right that people died to get. But who am I going to vote for? Well, I'm a socialist, and I've voted Labour all my life. But the problem I have is that the current Labour Party bare deserve the title 'socialists' any more. They've moved so far towards the centre (or further), that they're hardly recognisable as a socialist party. And they seem to have been far too busy in the last couple of years trying to work out whose turn it is to 'be in charge' to actually worry about doing what they said on the tin. I would feel more positive about voting Labour if they promised a new party leader at least.

Gordon Brown was a brilliant finance minister (and I'm sure he's a very nice man who loved his mother), but he's been a total disaster as a party leader and Prime Minister. If ever a party were guilty of 'gross disappoint', then it is the current Labour Party.

And as for the other minor parties. I suppose it sends a message to the main parties when marginal parties receive votes, but apart from that, it's a pointless vote and has no impact on the way the country is governed. They have no voice (or seats) in Parliament.

I would feel more positive about voting Labour if they promised a new party leader. Gordon Brown was a brilliant finance minister, but he's been a disaster of a party leader and Prime Minister.

Fucking hell! Will someone please re-invent politics in this country and actually do what they say they'll do. Or just do SOMETHING! It's boring me to tears..................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Phew! It Was Hot In That Closet!

An old friend of mine just emailed telling me how, after an 8-year relationship, the 58 year-old (divorced with grandchildren) boyfriend of an old (female) friend of his has just come out of the closet. Are you still following? I know, it's more complicated than rocket science, isn't it!

Part of me (the sympathetic, politically-correct part of me) wants to jump up and cheer him, for being brave enough to face up to who he really is (or at least thinks he is) and making such a fundamental change so late in life. But only part of me..................a very small part of me.

Imagine a woman (or man), spending their whole life perfectly satisfied with their nice brown hair, and then reaching the age of fifty and suddenly rushing to a hair salon and asking to be turned into a blonde (or blond for those of you familiar enough with grammar to notice the difference). Then, as way of explanation to their bemused spouse, they say that it's because they never really wanted brown hair in the first place, they were always really a blonde inside but were too afraid to try it.

Okay, we all need a change of image once in a while (like Dawn Cox, the school slut, who went on to become a charity-worker in Bangladesh), but in the words of Emma Bunton (no, not the 18th Century social reformer, the ex-Spice Girl), What Took You So (fucking) Long? I can get my mind around changing hair colour, having breast implants, taking out an expensive gym membership, having triplets at 40, even a change of career. But sexuality isn't some kind of club that you just join because you suddenly fancy trying a bit of same-sex bum (or muff) action. Thanks to all those brave pioneers of the gay rights movement, it hasn't been illegal for years, and the consequences of being open about your sexual preferences (in western society at least) are minimal. Joining the 'I'm Gay' club so late in life just doesn't work, it leaves you way behind the rest of the class who have been working hard at it all term, and also (homo)sexually-retarded.

It's like deciding to become a landscape gardener at the age of 50 and landing a contract to landscape France when you have absolutely no experience and can't tell a blade of grass from a combine-harvestor. But for some strange reason, you expect everyone to be patient while you churn up acres of beautiful parkland and plant turnips.

I could go on with the analogies, but the bottom line is that being gay isn't something you can sign up for like a six-week beginners pottery class, because you just end up hurting a lot of people with your indecision and confused messages. You leave one person feeling hurt and bemused and wondering why you were with them in the first place, and, in a bid to catch up for lost time, you make desperate promises to other people because you feel lost. You play with people's feelings, and then suddenly decide that 'Hey, guess what? I'm not gay after all. I was just confused'.

Having had a relationship with a man who peeked out of his closet late in life, I can tell you that it doesn't make for an easy experience. They are totally fucked up and feel like they have to try to catch up on all the things they missed. My advice to my friend's friend is to shove him back in that closet and lock the fucking door securely to protect the rest of us from yet another 'born a-gay-n' greenhorn.
"Oooh, threesomes? What's that? Should I try it?".
No you shouldn't, go back to your fucking girlfriend, there isn't enough cock as it it at the moment for those of us who have put in years of hard work at being gay. It's a bit like caviar. If we all wanted to eat it every day, we would soon run out. Some people have to eat tuna..................and some men have to eat muff!

I'm not saying that you can't like poontang AND bhatti, of course you can. Being bisexual isn't the same as being indecisive, bisexuality is a simple admission that you're a greedy bastard who wants it all. But as long as you're clear and honest with the people you meet from the start, nobody gets hurt.

But as far as I'm concerned, sexual indecision breaks hearts, so pick a hole and stick with it.

And then Along Came The Aubergine

Without doubt, growing up in the 70's and early 80's in Britain wasn't the culinary odyssey that it is today. On my semi-provincial Essex housing estate, we were blissfully unaware of the existence of anything more exotic than a beetroot, and most people still thought a butternut squash was something you got from sitting on cold surfaces.

Complex techniques for chilling, freeze-drying, genetically-modifying, and transporting fresh fruit and vegetables thousands of miles from Bangladesh to Basildon and from Israel to Grays in a matter of seconds were a decade away. So, if a product needed anymore than three consecutive days of lukewarm British sunshine to ripen, we just didn't have it. It was as simple as that. In the summer, you found 'summer things', and in the winter....................well, in the winter you found a selection of wizened root vegetables and tired-looking apples. Exotic fruit like papaya and mango could only occasionally be found in larger supermarkets (larger by the standard of the day) in tins, and even then were met with curious stares and comments like "Oooh, I wonder what you do with it?". Or that other 1970's classic "My friend Jean had that at a ruby-wedding and they were all on the toilet for days!" The few encounters we had with unusual 'foreign' foods were met with suspicion rather than curiosity or excitement. Without the gastronomic wisdom of today's 'celebrity chefs', people just didn't know what to do with a shallot, a butternut squash, or an aubergine.

Variety in our diets was provided by a huge range of processed and chemically-enhanced foods, which were pretty cheap, and most importantly, freezable. Bearing in mind that these were the days when we still considered defrosting to be a 'cooking technique' and deep-frying in animal fat to be excellent at 'sealing in the flavour', we had no real need of additional 'fresh' ingredients. The foods that we packed our cupboards and chest-freezers with probably did have some exotic ingredients like bell peppers or garlic, but they'd been processed and dehydrated beyond recognition. Small flecks of red pepper or coriander could be found hiding in packet soup mixes and pot noodles like the desiccated human fragments which littered the sands of plundered burial sites in the Egyptian desert, but we had absolutely no idea what they looked like in their original form. It was like looking at Cher, and trying to imagine what she looked like before she'd been preserved and medically-enhanced.

People weren't 'hungry for adventure', and foreign travel was still relatively rare (and normally limited to locations which were close, cheap, and not too different). People had heard of Spain, or maybe even knew someone who had been there, so 'Spanish-style' rice made some sense to them. It was yellow, it was savoury, and you just had to add water. Nobody had actually been to Provence, Mexico, or Thailand, and hence hadn't a clue what 'Mexican-style' or 'Oriental' was supposed to include. The taste was described using a range of simple terms like spicy, creamy, sweet, and savoury (or my sister's favourite term 'funny'), and anything unfamiliar was grouped together under equally simple headings. If you liked it, it was 'International Cuisine', and if you didn't like it, it was 'Foreign Muck'. It either tasted nice or it didn't, and when talking about food, the words familiar and edible meant more or less the same thing. Char-grilled chicken would have been described in horror as burnt, and al dente vegetables would have been considered raw. In my house, in order to constitute a successful meal, it needed to be hot, well-cooked, capable of being cut with a blunt table-knife, and above all, plentiful.

When it came to food, life in the 70's may not have been as delicious or varied as it is today, and describing our eating habits as sophisticated would be like describing China as the 'home of democracy'. But, like everything else in life, it was relatively simple. We were happy with what we had and didn't waste time worrying about what we didn't have. Life followed a few very simple rules; if you didn't like someone, you didn't talk to them, if it smelt 'funny' you didn't eat it, and if you couldn't afford something, you didn't buy it. Credit cards were for millionaires, queues were to make sure the person who'd waited the longest got on the bus first, and knives were for cutting food (or lino tiles!).

................and then along came the aubergine and everything in life changed.