This is Joe Collier's famous QPR stew. It is not known whether King Alfred famously burnt his cakes whilst listening out for match reports of his football team (Winchester Albion) but this is Joe's explanation for how he charred the beef, and accidentally added a certain je ne sais quoi to the dish! The stew is best accompanied by baked potatoes…
Time traveller
The other day my mind played a trick on me. While fully conscious, I suddenly saw myself standing staring at a poster on a wall in a Paris street in 1944. The experience was most odd and, because of the poster, very moving. The feeling was quite different from the experience I get when my…
Friends reunited
It is a simple truth that relationships change with age. For my part, over the years I have become closer both to other human beings and to some of my possessions. In this particular story, the possession was a bone china mug. It all started when I went downstairs to make an early-morning cup of…
Spring in Paris
The seasons reflect one of nature's most spectacular rhythms. We are lucky that they differ greatly one from the other, each with its own particularities and its own advocates. As I see it, the best of them all is spring, which according to astronomers, started this year on March 20th. Spring is the season in which…
Food escapology
After a late start, I gradually learnt to cook and for years now I have shared the culinary responsibilities with my wife, herself an excellent cook in the French tradition. In our cooking we have always tried to follow that tradition, so get almost as much pleasure from choosing the menu, buying the ingredients and preparing and cooking…
On Church Road
Our lunch on the first Sunday of February was very special. Just five of us were around the table - my wife Rohan, myself, our two sons and my sister - and for the occasion the number was exactly right. Only a few days before, Rohan had been discharged from hospital and this feast was…
Strapped for cash
Members of the Greyhares' generation have lived through two seismic monetary advances. In 1993 it was the introduction of the free movement of goods and capital across Europe's Common Market. Six years later we witnessed the introduction of the Euro-Zone's common currency - the euro. Now we are facing a third and, for the individual,…
Spread a little happiness
Maybe it’s a generation thing but I am not, nor never have been, a natty dresser. Quality yes, fashion no. Indeed, for many years I aspired to the anonymous dress style of a deputy bank manager. Nowadays, if I do wear something fashionable, it is almost certainly a gift from someone in touch - usually my…
The uncommon reader
We, that is people in general, seem to have a compelling desire to label. I am talking specifically about the way we give nicknames to things, nicknames that are adopted by the people, rather than created by some official. I am sure the British are in no way unique, but here naming relates to anything from a building - in…
A Morris man
For me there is something ominous about the catwalk season. Within weeks of shows in Paris, London or Milan a new wave of designs for clothing or accessories will adorn high street shop windows and with the help of articles in newspaper and ubiquitous promotion the next round of frenzied fashion buying will begin. Heels,…
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