Friday 16th December

Though I live and always have in a world of unrelenting reality I also inhabit another realm altogether, that of fantasy.  From as early as I can remember I would dissolve myself into this world, much as one lets a cube of sugar on a teaspoon absorb as much tea as it can before collapsing in on itself as reality resumes control and tea becomes sugar and sugar tea.

One can never be sure of other’s thoughts and thought processes, but I suspect that we are all made of much the same stuff in the end, and so I hope that this is not a solitary pursuit but one we all partake of at some time or another.   However I seem to spend as much of my time in a world of my own choosing as the one I wake to find myself in.  As a child, maybe especially because I was on my own so much, I sought refuge in this nether world of fantasy, where I was a different Catherine completely.  I would always, for a start, have masses of friends; I who was diffidence personified would be surrounded by girls of my own age or slightly older, who would chatter and gossip and exchange compliments with the very beautiful Catherine who took the place of the very plain-Jane I undoubtedly was.  And this would be a world of stunning visual beauty, colours gleaming and sparkling while all around the grey skies and rain of drab London pressed down on me – inside I was walking through crystal halls with glittering chandeliers of pure ice lighting my way.  Maybe I read too much, up their locked in my cupboard of a room, maybe Grandma’s sensibilities were netting me down to earth too tightly, maybe my search for the memory of my father’s face in the folds of a napkin or the lines on a map of Cyprus had driven me just a bit crazy.  The need to behave, to observe decorum, to be  a good girl, to be perceived as proper at all times had created this other Catherine, this secret Catherine, who was alive while the shell I inhabited in reality was like a shroud blanketing out any of the secret world from view.

And so I have continued, outwardly a model of propriety and normality, never daring to disturb the contours of a settled existence, while inside I was a raging torrent of discovery, a splendid person altogether different from the Catherine you see before you.   Here I could soar, here I was a concert pianist, who unlike Sparky, really could play the piano, and oh with what subtlety I played, as I caressed and moulded the notes out for my very appreciative and knowing audience.  Or a painter I would be, yes me who could scarce draw stick figures, would create works full of sunshine and dark dark shadows, human emotions splendidly captured in oil and varnish, I could almost smell the turpentine as I cleaned my brushes while doing the dishes or tidying my bedroom.

And so, once again the person you see before you is not the real Catherine at all, another lurks just beneath the surface.  Only trouble is I get confused, and memories blur, and reality drifts into fantasy, and fantality becomes realasy and I find it difficult to know which is which.  Even when I am walking along a crowded street I sometimes slip from realasy into fantality, or even when talking to people I am miles away really – and the strange thing is that nobody seems to notice – maybe they are in between worlds too not sure if they are actually in fantality or realasy either.

Thursday 15th December

Since being on my own again I have hardly been out really, a couple of small dinner parties, but no real events.   It isn’t the meeting people I fear but the inevitable questions, that sympathetic look in their eyes, which I really do not know how to react to.  I know they are only being kind, but in a funny way I would rather they simply said nothing.  What can you say when they ask “How are you?  How are you coping?”   All you can say is “Not so bad thanks” or “I’m alright thanks”.  They do not really want to hear that you are unhappy, and likewise they would be appalled to think that you have gotten over it completely, so you cannot win either way.  Better to say nothing and let them make their own minds up.  They will anyway.

Last night though I went with a few fiends to a Charity Christmas Concert at St. John’s in Smith Square, Westminster.   And actually it was delightful.  I had almost forgotten how good live music is, and we had wonderful seats, three rows from the front; so close you could see the delicate fingering of the first violin and almost reach out and touch the cello’s.   The orchestra were in fine form and actually seemed to be enjoying themselves as they rattled through a wide selection of fairly short and varied pieces, a clever choice as many in the audience would not be great fans of classical music anyway I suspect.  They even slipped in some film music in the shape of The Magnificent Seven and The Dambusters Theme, so there was really something for everyone.

A children’s choir performed a few very prettily arranged pieces, their voices gentle and soft and harmonious,  and the whole evening was rounded off with the Twelve Days of Christmas – with the audience singing Five Gold Rings in ascending volume with each roundel.

It really cheered me up, and put me at last into a Christmas mood.   I had been struggling to get in any way even interested in Christmas for weeks, almost becoming irritated at all the commercialism in the shops, the tawdry street lights and the senseless rush and bustle of Christmas shoppers.  It made me realise that life can be sweet, if you just let it be.  I have re-read a few of my recent blogs and I do sound a bit of a moody cow, don’t I.  I could even put some of those Grumpy Old Women to shame.  So for a few days at least I will try to be more positive.  A bright and cheerful Catherine, if you will. I hope you appreciate what I am doing for you, dear readers – being cheerful does not come so easily to me I am afraid. My default mode is quiet reflection with a dash of pessimism, as I think you must know by now.

Hey ho!  Let’s try happy for a bit.

Wednesday 14th December

I am not really joking either, I am quite concerned about her.  I am not sure how I would cope if I had to have her living with me.  Maybe it’s just old age and her being forgetful – she was never the brightest of women, or if she was, she was pretty good at keeping it to herself over the years.  Or maybe it was more that Grandma always dominated, she had to be the star, the prima donna, the centre of attention, the one to always get the last word in and undoubtedly the fount of all knowledge.  And maybe my mother had just learned over the years not to argue, not to insist, not to get in Grandma’s bulldozer way.  And unfortunately that was how I reacted to her too, I followed Grandma’s lead in ignoring my mother, or rather by-passing her.  I always ran to Grandma with a grazed knee, it was Grandma who insisted on checking my homework, and it was to Grandma I handed my school report each term.  Grandma was literally in loco parentis; both my parents conspiring to absent themselves in different ways.

After Grandma died I shared the house in Putney with my mother for several years, but it was as if we were both camping in the house really; my mother spent all her time in the kitchen and conservatory while I kept to my bedroom and made the sitting room my own too, but neither of us really lived there as if it were our home, it felt more like a staging post, a rest-stop between different destinations.  And even then my mother was absent-minded to the point of distraction, constantly running out of basics like milk and bread, heaps of old newspapers which she kept meaning to do something with, a whole collection of empty yoghurt cartons sitting on the draining board next to a pile of unopened letters.  We seemed to be living separate lives, and though we would sometimes eat together it was more often in silence or a forced attempt at polite conversation.

In a funny sort of way although I knew my mother very well, I was always looking at the symptoms rather than the cause; I never really got to know what made her tick.  She has always been a bit of a mystery to me, one I admit I was never too bothered to unravel, preferring in a way to keep my own distance from this woman, who though my closest relation was so unlike me.  She had always been absent-minded, or other minded really, as if her real self was elsewhere, and it is this which makes it hard for me now to recognize if she is just being her usual muddled-headed slightly forgetful self, or if there might be something more serious going on.

I suppose I will just have to keep a closer watch on her from now on, we have settled in the last few years to just seeing each other about once a month, so maybe I will just pop in on her a bit more often.

I know you will think me selfish, and of course I will be there for her, but I just dread the thought that if she loses her independence so do I.

Tuesday 13th December

I cannot remember the day of the week when we left Cyprus – it may have been a Tuesday.  But for a child the actual day of the week seems to matter little, except for that freedom from school which a Saturday brings, and the quiescent boredom of Sundays, with Grandma burrowed deep into the Sunday Telegraph and my mother busy in the kitchen spending all morning on an inevitably boring Sunday roast, consisting of a cremated piece of shoe leather masquerading as beef, potatoes that achieved the singular distinction of being slightly raw in the middle and yet almost black on the outsides, chewy sprouts and lumpy gravy.  Ah, happy memories all.  For some reason though Tuesdays seem to  bring with them some augury of the fates; it was on a Tuesday that my 18^th birthday fell, that fateful day when Grandma apprised me of the fact that my father, whose memory I had difficulty in keeping alive after years of no contact, had in fact written to me.  Grandma in her wisdom had destroyed the unanswered letters he wrote to me, and had kept any chance that he could maybe retain a place in his heart for me well and truly bleak.

We always seemed to have sport, or gym on a Tuesday, and I can remember the dread I felt eating my lunch, knowing that in less than an hour I would not only be expected to swing from ropes and jump over a horse, but worse almost would be the ritual of the communal changing rooms, where the true cattiness of young girls had full rein.  I was a late developer, not that this bothered me much at all, but seemed to be a source of derisory laughter for some of the more buxomly gifted.  I was always a bit reserved, and felt quite embarrassed taking my clothes off even in front of my classmates, where those more confident like Jenny and Gwenny would almost delight in strutting around in knickers and trainer bra.

It was on a Tuesday that Grandma died; and so was finally laid to rest too my fateful relationship with Adrian, I can remember that day so clearly, and the knowing look in his eyes as he too realized that this was it, the show was now over, and I would be returning to Putney.

An even now, I don’t know why, I seem to suffer a small sigh of desperation as I wake up and realise that once again it is Tuesday.  Mondays for most people are the depressing day, when the working week begins anew, though I had always enjoyed going in on a Monday, and a new start, a new week, and full of resolutions of finally clearing the backlog I was quite jolly really.   But Tuesdays seemed to always hit me like a brick, that realization that actually the same old problems were there to be confronted, that Mondays confidence was somehow misplaced.  I always seemed to have some sort of review of my work on a Tuesday, usually because the previous weeks results had been worked on, and I was expected to have all the answers as to why we were under budget for Sales and over for Expenses, the usual story.

And even now, when there is no work to go to, even now Tuesdays seem to depress me.   And it is so irrational, why on earth should the day of the week affect me so – or maybe it is more in retrospect, when for whatever reason something un-towards happens, or I receive some bad news, I nod inwardly acknowledging the fact that, of course, what did I expect – it is Tuesday after all.

Monday 12th December

Reluctantly I had agreed to accompany my friend Barbara to go Christmas Shopping, and almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth I began to regret them.  I had already done my own, well what little I was prepared to do; I only buy for a small circle of friends, and my Mother.  I have a habit of buying early and inevitably by the end of November I am done.  But Barbara is one of these quite disorganized people who seem to muddle through life despite leaving everything until the last minute.  Two weeks to go and she hadn’t bought a thing, no presents, no cards (where mine were all posted a few days ago), no tree, and no food either, not even the almost obligatory Christmas pudding which I have stashed away in my cupboard from the previous year.  One thing I learned from Grandma, a Christmas cake improves with age.  She had seemed almost desperate on the phone, almost pleading with me, and I felt I couldn’t refuse.  How I wish I had.

As she lives in Docklands we went shopping in the underground mall at Canary Wharf, and even though I had travelled to her house by Tube she insisted on driving the short distance and we parked two floors lower in a claustrophobic concrete car park.  I hate shopping malls at the best of times, and two weeks before Christmas is far from that.  I thought it was packed, but Barbara insisted it was quiet; apparently the Westfield effect .  It may have been that as I was not needing to buy anything I was a bit jaded but somehow nothing I looked at was appealing; was it me or did everything look tatty and literally old-hat.  I literally saw nothing I would have wanted to buy; we seemed to spend an age in tired old shops like Boots and Marks, where not only the assistants but most of the merchandise looked bored.  Especially those box sets of perfume where you get a tiny bottle of eau de cologne and a silly tube of shower gel, which nobody really wants (it is shower gel, so why perfume it, it will be washed off in any case, so you are only making your plug-hole smell pretty not yourself) in a shiny gold cardboard box that is three times bigger than the perfume and at least twice the price.

And so many of the shoppers were literally dragging themselves around the shops, desperately picking things up, shaking their heads, showing their partners who invariably would shrug their shoulders or nod approval, just to get it over with and out of there.  And kids, kids in pushchairs, kids being carried, kids with face-paint, kids queuing to see Santa, kids grizzling, kids being cheeky to their parents, kids whining for a balloon, kids being pampered and pandered to, and parents at their wits end.

And Barbara, sweet but chaotic Barbara, hadn’t a clue what to get people, or even who she had to buy for.  Never heard of a list my dear?   So, we ended up spending a whole afternoon slapping in and out of shops and buying very very little.  At least we had a Starbucks, and I sat in my armchair sipping my latte and watching in amazement this ritual, no doubt being played out all over the country at this very moment, people desperately doing their Christmas shopping,   we have 365 days notice of Christmas, but it still seems to come as a shock to most people as they wake up two weeks before the magic day and realise “Oh my God, only two weeks to go,”

So, Christmas Shopping, no thanks – I’ll give it a miss if you don’t mind.

Sunday 11th December

Only a couple of generations ago, of course, and no-one would have disputed that I was old indeed.  I am sixty-five after all, and it is only recently that someone of that age, and especially a woman, would have been considered to be, if not in their dotage, then definitely old.  One of the unwritten rules of our present polite society is that just as one refrains from calling someone fat, the word ‘old’ is reserved for the truly decrepit and those visibly in poor health.  Sixty is the new fifty, and even seventy is now considered quite young. And we are inveigled with stories of sprightly seventy year olds walking to the North Pole, or opening a new business, or perhaps just something as mundane as a parachute or a bungee jump.  And no, you may have no fears for me in that direction; I have never sought to make a fool of myself and hope that I don’t let my standards slip as I glide into old age.  I am quite fit really I suppose, though I have never been into a Gym since school, when once a week the small Hall was converted into an amateur Gynasium, with ropes and wall bars, and a battered old horse and springboard wheeled out, along with a few rubber floor mats.  I was always a reluctant participant, simply going through the motions as I did too when we were marched to the playing fields of a neighbouring boys school for Hockey.  I walk, it is as simple as that, I try to walk almost everywhere; not having a car can really be a boon sometimes.

But what is it about the human body that it is unforgiving and so quick to remind you that you are actually getting old; the aching bones as you haul yourself out of the sofa, when once you jumped up without even a hand on the arm to help you.  And the winter colds which previously you just shrugged off, now hang around for weeks, despite all the comforts and remedies you apply; that hacking cough is so persistent and the nose that had stopped dripping is now running like a leaky tap.  I almost wish I had actually had the wretched flu-jab after all.

But this feeling of ‘oldness’ is not so much that one’s aches and pains are noticeably increasing, it is more one of attitude.  How many times have I caught myself about to say “Young people of today” just like Grandma used to be so fond of declaring, usually with a warning glance in my direction I might add. Why do I feel so excluded from the mainstream, alienated almost by the younger people I seem to see all around me.  I look in the mirror, and surely I don’t actually look that old, or do I? Or is that these features, so familiar to me, look so different to the under-thirties, with their nonchalant air of eternal youth; their turn will come, so I don’t blame them for just getting on with it and having a good time.

Sometimes I think I am just wallowing in my memories, and that maybe I should just bite the bullet and look around me for a partner before I get really old.  I have considered it but I suppose it is because I feel that I may have more to lose than I would gain.  If only it could be contained to just a weekly meal out in a good restaurant, the occasional concert and afternoon walks around a gallery.  That would suit me fine, it’s the moving in with someone that I dread, the putting up with their moods, their mess, their neediness that I dread, and so I remain single, and decline those half-ventured invites I still get occasionally at friends parties, and prefer to grow old gracefully, or for all anyone cares, quite disgracefully.

Saturday 10th December

He was wearing a leopard-skin trilby and a red bow-tie.  A short dapper little man, with swarthy olive skin, a neat black moustache and Chinese eyes, he might have been Mongolian, he had that Oriental look about him.  I was sitting quietly minding my own business over an early morning coffee and toast.  Restless, I had been out walking in the Park again, and heading for home had dallied and dithered and returning by the most circuitous route I could think of I had stopped for  an early breakfast.  My mind was elsewhere and I hadn’t really noticed him at first; in fact I think he had wandered in and out at least twice before I really clocked him.  It was the trilby, of course, that did it, that triggered the conscious mind into acknowledging that I had seen him all along, I mean who could miss him in that get-up.  Not that he looked ridiculous, no he was too serious for that, and he was immaculately if somewhat eccentrically dressed despite his choice of headwear.  He was, as I said, quite short, and in that ferret-like way that short people often have he was quick and tidy in his movements, his patent leather shoes pointing outwards most elegantly as he skipped his way in and out of the café. But what on earth was he doing, why was he repeatedly (because he continued exiting and re-entering for the next few minutes) coming in and then looking about him and as if just remembering a forgotten appointment, turning sharply on his heel  and leaving, only to return again a minute or two later.  And the staff behind the counter seemed to just accept this behaviour as perfectly normal, and maybe it was, perhaps he was a habitué of this establishment, while admittedly I was a stranger, and this was his usual style of coming and going.  I was, despite my previous train of thought, (now abandoned altogether) intrigued and entranced and I stayed long after my coffee was finished, and my crusts of toast lying cold on the plate had been cleared away by the very ancient Italian waitress, who looked as if she was the proprietors mother or maybe even nonna (grandmother, as I discovered in our Italian sojourns).  And then I suddenly realised he wasn’t coming back anymore.  I was quite devastated, for fifteen minutes I had watched him come and go, and wondered who he was and where he came from and if he visited this particular café every day and what he did for a living and what nationality he actually was, and then he was gone.

I got up and paid the bill, and in passing asked the young man behind the counter who he was.  “Pardon, but who do you mean Madame?”   “Why the little man who kept coming in and going out.  Just a few minutes ago, you must have seen him.  You know, Leopard skin trilby and red bow-tie?”  “No, I am sorry, I just-a do my job, you see.  I work here every day, I no notice customers no more. Sorry.”

And that was that, I couldn’t stop myself from looking both ways up and down the street, but there was no sign of him at all.  I am sure I would have known him anywhere, the little bundled up walk, the dapper little steps he took, and besides, just how many people do you see dressed so distinctively.

But no, no hat, no bow-tie.  Just a passing moment in my day, and if I hadn’t had my notebook with me I too might well have forgotten him too, just like the assistant behind the counter.  But now I have written this down it will always be there to remind me of the day I saw the little Chinese looking man in his leopard skin trilby and red bow-tie.

Friday 9th December

This wasn’t when we left Cyprus; I had known for days at least but had just been too scared to ask, not for information but rather for confirmation, about my biggest fear; that we would be leaving my father behind.  Or even after a few months when he never came back for me; the trouble was I kept seeing him, or rather glimpses of him, reflected in shop windows, or just hopping on a bus that was too far ahead to run after, or the shadow against the front door window, and then realizing it was just the tree outside blowing in the wind.  It wasn’t even when Grandma told me he had written to me for a few years, I had always suspected as much, and had even gone to the effort of telling my school-friends what he had written, recreating long imaginary letters he had sent me, full of news about his exciting life in Cyprus, and how he was going to have me go out and stay with him in the summer.  So it was no real surprise when Grandma informed me that he had actually written, only, sensible to a fault, she had destroyed them long ago.  I could see her point, it was really much better for me to forget him, than to hanker after a man like that, a man who was capable of the most unspeakable of crimes, which of course in true Grandma fashion, were never actually spoken about, just alluded to.  No, actually colluded not alluded, it was just assumed that I knew all along what he was nominally guilty of, and it was never actually talked about.  I just knew that he had made my mother very unhappy, though that wouldn’t have take that much in my opinion, and that he had been the cause of Mummy and he getting a divorce – another dirty word.

It wasn’t even after Grandma died and I made that fateful discovery – I won’t tell you because it would spoil the book ‘Catherines Story’ for you.  Or the day we buried her.  No I didn’t realize I was my own even then.

Or after any other event you might choose to mention.

I realized I was on my own every single day of my life.  I have always been on my own really.  I had Grandma, who tyrannized as much she purported to love me, and my shadow of a mother who always seemed to be hovering just outside of my grasp, and the memory of my father, or rather the memory of the memory of my father; but these were all unable to help me through my aloneness.  Even in my scant few relationships I have been alone, alone and yet close to someone, who may or may not have loved me, but could never make me feel any less alone than I already was. I always felt I was forgotten about somehow; perhaps every one else had attended some vitally important lesson at school where they taught you how to live your life, how to mix with other people, how not to be alone.  “And on the way out, don’t forget to pick up your manual – you are going to need it, so don’t lose it.”

Well nobody ever gave me the manual, so I didn’t even get the chance to look at it, let alone lose it.

So, every day I realize that I am on my own, and always have been, and always will be too. I sometimes wonder if it is only me though, or if we all feel the same.  Are we all alone, but maybe that day of realization hasn’t come for all us yet.  But it will.

Thursday 8th December

Okay, so maybe the one you have been waiting for; Anna and her sister Anna have arrived in Tennesse (did Bertolt Brecht simply stick a pin into a map of America, or was there some secret logic at work) and discover Greed, which is different from pure Gluttony and from Lust too.  Greed is the disease that is most prevalent in our own money-driven society, where the answer to all of life’s ills is to get rich.  And once rich, rich is simply not good enough, we could always do with a bit more and then some. I am sure that most of us have no problem with a bit of wealth, and the desire to have a bit more than one has got.  Nothing nicer than to be able to afford that little cocktail dress, or those shoes or that handbag, even though you would once have been horrified at the prices.  The trouble with Greed is that once it gets its’ twisty little fingers entwined into your soul there is no stopping it.  How many houses do you really need, how many cars in the garage, how many CDs on the shelf, how many pairs of shoes in your wardrobe?  It is all relative.  I read the results of a survey on the perception of wealth, and almost everyone thought that they would be happy earning between two and three times their current income; that is about as far as we can really imagine, those things that are always elusively out of our reach.  When buying your house you realize just how much more another hundred thousand would get you, and then when you finally get that dream house, you see your neighbours with an extra bedroom or three and a conservatory and that old devil called Greed starts worming its’ way into your consciousness.  And the trouble is that our whole society is based on Greed, from the investment bankers down to the people in the council flats, we are all taught that what you can grab and hold onto is good for you.  Little surprise then that the rioters were mostly after the looting.

But surely enough is enough, does one really need four holidays a year – and holidays from what, those who can best afford them rarely need them as much as those who cannot.  I have more clothes at this point in my life, more than I can possibly wear, and yet when I am walking down Oxford or Bond Street I am often tempted, and for what, some sort of instant gratification, or is something deeper going on her, this desire to keep acquiring more and more stuff.  Every advertisement is based on human greed, promising happiness if only we buy that face cream or wear this perfume or use this furniture polish, when actually we are perfectly happy without any of them.  Sometimes I think I was never happier than those years between Adrian and Edward, on my own, not  a lot of money, still having to save for things, and yet I still read all the books I wanted to whereas now I buy more than I can read and end up taking them unread to my local Oxfam.   My cleaning lady regular gets foisted on her clothes I let go to make room in my wardrobe for new stuff, and they are perfectly good really, sometimes barely worn at all, so what is driving me – is it boredom or greed, to just have one more outfit, one more book, one more CD.

At least I can afford it, so maybe little harm is done.  The ones we should feel sorry for are those whose Greed will not let them stop even though they cannot afford it and slip deeper into debt.  Or those Greedy businessmen and wheeler-dealers who just have to win another contract or make another deal, buy a few more shares, and without a thought as to the consequences as long as they accumulate more and more wealth.  And Greed will be the death of us, the death of our Planet too if we aren’t careful.  So definitely the deadliest sin of them all I would say.

Wednesday 7th December

I have always disliked these so-called reality television programmes that are everywhere now on television, none more so than Masterchef.  The competition element is always contrived; after all – why can there not be two or even three master-chefs, if they are equally capable.  There is always the silliness of having an imposed time limit, as if in reality ones guests would walk out if you hadn’t quite got the dish correct in the allotted forty-five minutes. And the silly music and the almost gestation length pause before they announce (in no particular order) the survivors or the losers, and the inane comments from the competitors, stating in almost identical but I am sure well-rehearsed lines how much staying in the competition means to them, I mean who cares how much it matters to them; whether they can cook is really all that matters. The thing I hated most though were the commentators John Torode and Greg Wallace, with their shouted “Only five minutes left” and equally stupid statements – not even sentences half the time, “Boy, can this boy really cook” and “Now, the real competition starts” and the way they kept barking at each other just like rutting stags in the mating season.  Still, I kept watching because the thing with all these shows is once you start watching you are hooked; I think I was watching for the enjoyment of seeing the flaws as much as for who won, because again, it really doesn’t matter who wins, it is the doing of the thing that is why you watch – to see the achievements and the disasters, and to nod quietly to oneself, ‘Yes, I could make that, that wasn’t so hard’.

But suddenly the programme has excelled itself – the pattern is actually usually the other way round, after an exciting start each series becomes weaker and they start introducing sillier and sillier aspects, so that you end up with motorbikes on ice, tossing pancakes to a Samba – well, you get the picture.  But tra-la-la on the trumpet and enter Michel Roux Junior with his Gallic good looks, tiny graying beard, piercing eyes and superb skill and knowledge and the even more formidable Monica Galetti, who is knowledgeable, intelligent and so good in front of the camera that if the food weren’t so delicious you could almost eat her instead. John Torode has wandered off to grill his kippers elsewhere leaving a gentler, funnier, and set against the other two, a kinder Greg as judge.  Michel is always reasonable too, he never neglects to say something good about the food, and he is precise in telling them exactly what is lacking or not quite perfect.  The contestants are already chefs in training so the standards are that much higher, no longer your talented amateurs, but people who already can cook.  And the result is not only culinary excellence but a great and entertaining show, there is still the irritating voice-over and the contestants telling you how much it means to them, and the sad shots of the losers hanging up their aprons and walking out head hung low, but suddenly it is about real cooking and taste and technique and presentation. I love it, and even though I rarely cook properly these days I feel I am learning something new each week.  I just wish Michel Roux Junior could come round to my house for a little candle-lit soirree where I could try out my French and maybe buy a new frock, though I am sure my soufflé might not be quite up to his standards we could have fun trying it out.  Hahaha