Real life | 18 December 2010

Deck the halls with anti-wrinkle cream. Fa-la-la-la-laaa-la-la-la-la. ’Tis the season to be racked with insecurity. Fa-la-la-la-laaa…

I don’t know why Christmas should remind us of failure and doom. It’s meant to be a celebration of the greatest beginning of all time, the birth of Jesus and the possibility of everlasting life (albeit it after death, although I’m not fussy — I’ll take everlasting life in whatever format it’s being offered). And yet all it does is make me think about how old and lonely I am. It doesn’t help that my birthday is on 1 January, or that I sat next to a famous chef at a Christmas party the other day and he guessed my age to be forty.

I have tried to rationalise this horrifying incident thus: all famous chefs are grumpy. I declared the starter to be a stuffed mushroom when in fact it was an artichoke. I couldn’t remember the name of any of his restaurants.