“No one should suffer my pastry.” — Grace Dent

I eat food from all over the world for my job as a restaurant critic, so I often find myself craving a plain Barnsley lamb chop or fish and chips, as I'm so sick of sashimi.

My plan, for several years, has been to simply let one year merge into the other, without fanfare, so that the Grim Reaper won't notice me and move me closer to my exit interview.

If I desire something badly enough, I'll buy it for myself; and this thing will never be a Yankee Candle gift set or a book bought beside a shop till that delivers 'The Tao Of Pooh.'

I don't like birthdays. Never have done. Not when I was little and it involved the wild decadence of a Wimpy Brown Derby doughnut with chocolate drizzle, and even less so as I grew older.