In the light of uproar over food critic Jay Rayner’s comments on Cardiff’s food scene, I pick the highlights of my recent visit to the Welsh capital. If there’s one thing to be learned from the recent saga of Jay Rayner vs. the City of Cardiff, it’s that some words are better left unsaid. Little…
Category: Feature
Blog: DRY BABY – January: Ground Zero Percent
An Actor Consumes struggles through the first month of his self-imposed sobriety… Ground Zero Percent So here we are at the end of January, twenty-two days since my last drink. I lie. It was my birthday two weeks ago, and under the terms of our agreement I was allowed a glass…
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Blog: DRY BABY – Why I’m going sober for my wife’s pregnancy.
An Actor Consumes decides to go sober in solidarity as his wife is expecting their second child with unexpected reactions. Babies, booze and Billy Joel My friend looks me straight in the eye, all expression drained from his face. There’s a beat. No scratch that, a pause. A Pinter pause, a protracted silence that’s brimming…
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Travel: The Glutton’s Guide to South Africa, Part 2 – Franschhoek and Stellenbosch
Franschhoek If Cape Town is laid back, Franschhoek is a fully reclined open air sun lounger (aside from the enormous mountains that make up the nerve-janglingly bendy Franschhoek Pass). It’s also breathtakingly beautiful. The town itself, originally a French settlement (Fransch, oui?) is quite touristy in a sort of quaint, Lake District village kind of a way,…
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Travel: The Glutton’s Guide to South Africa, Part 1 – Cape Town
I love South Africa. She took me by surprise and swept me off my feet, and now I don’t know how we can ever be apart. She is undoubtedly the most beautiful country on Earth, and the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. I should state for the record that…
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Feature: Wilderness 2016 Part 4 – The End
Sunday And so we get to Sunday morning, the beginning of the end, always a melancholy moment of any festival with its back to school feeling and two day suspended hangover. This one begins with the confirmation of what I knew was coming all weekend but didn’t want to admit; all of the girls are…
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Feature: Wilderness 2016 Part 3 – Virgilio Martinez and the Tough Act to Follow
The Banquet With the rest of the line-up sorely lacking in big draw acts it’s left to the chefs to set Wilderness apart from the crowd, and this year they’ve pulled out all the stops. Years ago at university a friend and I practically expired with laughter when we came up with the notion of chefs headlining…
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Feature: Wilderness 2016 Part 2 – Friday Night/Saturday Morning
Arrival Like all good festivals, there’s absolutely zero sign of Wilderness until suddenly it’s taking up your entire field of vision, and there’s no denying it looks glorious with leaves in bloom and sun blazing down on the hillside. Anticipating late arrival we stumped up for a pre-allocated plot with its own car park, but to begin…
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Feature: Wilderness 2016 Part 1 – Confessions of a Sceptic
It’s 12:05 on a sunny Friday afternoon in Stockwell and I’m on edge. I’m loading up a car that doesn’t belong to me with hastily packed bags from an upstairs flat in the gated mews I’ve gained access to, and it’s attracting the attention of staff working in the office below, which happens to be a…
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Feature – Pitt Cue: “arguably the most exciting restaurant in London right now”
A Big Ode… This article has taken a little longer than expected. What started out as a straightforward review, a slightly late to the party account of a recent meal at the newly reopened Pitt Cue in East London, has morphed into something else entirely. As time went by and I delved into the ethos of the…
