Obscenities

Firstly, it is obscenely hot. We have just devoured the leftovers of yesterday's lunch, seated in a most civil manner at the garden furniture outside. I knew it was hot, I know I don't burn easily, but I was definitely getting a little pink out there by the end of the meal. Not good. By the time I'm fifty years old I'll be wrinkled as a scrotum. It's so quiet out there, as if nothing can be bothered to stir itself to do anything. I certainly can't stir myself into action today. I put in a titanic effort to get some roughs sent off before lunchtime, and having crawled painfully, brain bleeding, up to that difficult target at 12.17pm, I duly scoffed as my reward the wondrous foodstuffs we had brought home from our friend Naomi's house. I am now back indoors, belly full, watching my skin gradually grow less radiant and writing this.

Naomi's salads yesterday were a triumph. Pearl barley, tenderstem broccoli, butternut squash, red onions, pumpkin seeds, all brought together companionably under a dressing of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and parsley. I could eat that salad until I'm sick. Which would be obscene.

Speaking of which, the obscenity I intended to write about was something that I thought I was alone in noticing. That bald one from Masterchef - Gregg Wallace - is it just me or does the way in which he eats make you shudder too? I mean, what kind of weirdo puts cutlery in his mouth so deep and for so long that you think he's trying to eat the bowl of the spoon or see what the metal tastes like? Those poor forks sometimes get fully two seconds of in-mouth action, I swear. When it's his turn to taste the food, I have to look away. It grosses me out. To my delight yesterday, I discovered that Naomi shares my horror - we laughed like drains about it.