I don’t feel at all merry, or full of festive cheer. Admittedly, the lead up to Christmas has always felt excessive, noisy, disconnected from its roots and contrived. But this year, maybe because the world is in such a perilous state and this country on its knees, my mood is irretrievably dismal.
I am getting cross and fuming more than ever before about modern life, its trivialities and, more serious intrusions and amoral cultural values. So, I, thought, if I get it all off my chest now, a week before The Day, I might yet get to feel the joy and magic. So here is (just a short) list of all that is bugging me.
Cooking fads and snobbery first. I love cooking and just this Friday had friends scoffing butter chicken and meatballs in fennel and coconut sauce. Everything was made with what was in my spice tin and the freezer. No Aleppo chillies or Pure Pink Himalayan salt. Just good grub, made simply, a lost art, because food preparation has been made so damned precious, sacred even.
Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and Mary Berry were and are reliable guides. Nigella Lawson elevated herself to a sensual domestic goddess, but with some irony. In contrast, today’s top celeb cooks are seen as semi-divine.
Chef Yotam Ottolenghi, for example, induces in his devotees such songs of praise: “That you can find sumac and pomegranate molasses in a supermarket today, that you enjoy your broccoli charred or that your dining table looks ever more like a hundred-dish, multicultural picnic, is merely the resultant Ottolenghi Effect.’’
And this: “I think there is something about being given recipes that help you to create a sense of belonging, a sense of generosity and love around your own table, in your own home. There is something very powerful at work here.” Yes. And piles of washing up to be made.
These days, some trendy Indian and Middle East restaurants – less so Chinese joints – are imitating the faux-fancy trends above. A Mumbai chef in Soho restaurant told me he used “the best Aleppo chilli and special spices from a secret source”. Then he got offended when I said I didn’t believe in his concocted stories: “It’s not that different from food I make, or my mum made and her mum too.”
Adverts next. No, not the silly obsessions about which Christmas telly ads are the best, but the rich, talented and famous men and women selling goods and services for companies, for, presumably, vast fees. Why? How much more money or fame does Graham Norton need? Why does he choose to look like a twerp holding up a Waitrose cake? And what makes Judi Dench, one of our great, serious actors, appear in the MoneySuperSeven advert? What was the fee paid to Hollywood’s tough guy, Samuel L. Jackson, to tray and sell us Warburton’s bread loaves? As for that ad for Asda featuring Michael Bublé, the less said the better. They get plenty of cash, but how cheap and tawdry they look.
I’m on a roll now. Restaurant bookings next. In early December, we booked a table at a West End restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary and my birthday. We got a 6pm slot, the only one available. A day later, they cancelled the booking because they had a group coming. Two other places had been similarly indifferent and snooty.
Now I learn that some London restaurants and hotels, charging £600 per person (only £310 for kids!) for Christmas lunch are fully booked up. Millionaires and billionaires in our big cities have distorted the leisure and hospitality sectors. Most cafes and eateries are now overcharging us. That maddens me. And should madden you too.
Let’s go to that curse, internet shopping. Millions of us want to go into shops, try on stuff, examine goods, get help from assistants, take time. Instead we have to battle with websites and technology, which drives us crazy. Thus far, out of 12 items ordered for Christmas, six had to be repacked, taken to crowded Post Offices or picked up from home. One item never got back to the retailer so there will be no refund. I hate it all. And I really pity the deliverers, doing a crap job for little money.
Finally, the remorseless pleas for ratings. I don’t have time. I don’t care. I don’t want to become part of the Trust Pilot “community”. These ratings must, I reckon be used to punish workers, as if they don’t suffer enough already.
Lo! This has been cathartic. I can feel myself loosening up, filling up with the festive spirit. Try it. Share your grumps. And have a very happy Christmas.
£600 for a Christmas day dinner? Rip off Britain at its worst
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19.12.2023
I don’t feel at all merry, or full of festive cheer. Admittedly, the lead up to Christmas has always felt excessive, noisy, disconnected from its roots and contrived. But this year, maybe because the world is in such a perilous state and this country on its knees, my mood is irretrievably dismal.
I am getting cross and fuming more than ever before about modern life, its trivialities and, more serious intrusions and amoral cultural values. So, I, thought, if I get it all off my chest now, a week before The Day, I might yet get to feel the joy and magic. So here is (just a short) list of all that is bugging me.
Cooking fads and snobbery first. I love cooking and just this Friday had friends scoffing butter chicken and meatballs in fennel and coconut sauce. Everything was made with what was in my spice tin and the freezer. No Aleppo chillies or Pure Pink Himalayan salt. Just good grub, made simply, a lost art, because food preparation has been made so damned precious, sacred even.
Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and Mary Berry were and are reliable guides. Nigella Lawson........
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