Once I was a restaurant critic. Now I must book like an ordinary person

For the past five years or so, my best friends and I have been getting together for a Christmas lunch. Because I’m a food critic — or was, until recently — they have always left it to me to make the booking on the understanding that I’ll be able to secure a better table than they would. More often than not, this assumption proved to be correct and we have enjoyed memorable meals at some of the country’s finest restaurants.

Now that I no longer have a restaurant column, this year is shaping up to be very different. I had forgotten just how hard it is for a mere ‘civilian’ to get a reservation at a decent restaurant over the Christmas period. In the past, when I identified myself by name, the oleaginous Frenchman on the other end of the line would invariably say, ‘Ah! Meester Yong!’ These days, the response is more likely to be, ‘Can you ’old?’