Katie Jarvis meets Giles Coren, Times columnist and restaurant critic, and discovers a) his Cotswold home is quite hard to find b) his lawn tractor is quite hard to start and c) he isn’t especially angry at all (but actually quite pleasing).
False start number 1, in which I learn how to get a celebrity interview: I first meet Giles Coren at the Wilson Art Gallery, where he’s opening an exhibition about fakes (no metaphor/ wider comment intended). He’s ushered over to me – slim, neat, impossibly polite and good-looking - and, even though I should be asking him about fakes, the conversation finds it hard to steer away from sheep.
While he’s pondering a particularly sticky ovine topic, I quickly slip in, “May I do an interview with you?”“Yes,” he says.
“No,” I clarify, suspiciously. “I mean a proper one. Where I come to your house and stuff.”
“Yes,” he says.
A few weeks later, when I’m sitting in his garden, staring at sheep, I quiz him on this surprising turn. “Why did you say yes to the interview?”
“Well, I was at that thing doing Peter Harkness [chair of Cheltenham Trust a favour.”
“So you were basically stuck?”
“It would seem rude to say no. Erm. And Phil The Newsagent would be excited that I’m in Cotswold Life.”
Thinks: To secure a top-class interview, find celebrities doing Peter Harkness a favour. And check Phil The Newsagent’s excitement levels.
False start number 2, in which I find Giles Coren’s home against the odds: To get to Giles Coren’s home, I drive along lanes white with breeze-blown cow parsley; under birds dazzling in huge flocks above hills so many shades of green that you’d have thought a paint-shop was marketing them. There are even blood-red splodges of poppy spattered along the roadside. It’s like Edward Thomas invented it.
Denne historien er fra December 2017-utgaven av Cotswold Life.
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Denne historien er fra December 2017-utgaven av Cotswold Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Gloucestershire After The War
Discovering the county’s Arts and Crafts memorials of the First World War
THE WILD SIDE OF Moreton-in-Marsh
The days are getting shorter but there’s plenty of reasons to be cheerful, says Sue Bradley, who discovers how a Cotswolds town is becoming more wildlife-friendly and pots up some bulbs for an insect-friendly spring display
Mr Ashbee would approve
In the true spirit of the Arts & Crafts Movement, creativity has kept the Chipping Campden community ticking over during lockdown
The Cotswolds at war
These might be peaceful hills and vales, but our contribution to the war effort was considerable
Trust in good, local food
‘I’ve been following The Country Food Trust’s activities with admiration since it was founded’
Why Cath is an open book
Cath Kidston has opened up almost every nook and cranny of her Cotswold idyll in a new book, A Place Called Home. Katie Jarvis spoke to Cath ahead of her appearance at this year’s Stroud Book Festival STROUD BOOK FESTIVAL – THIS YEAR FREE AND ONLINE: NOVEMBER 4-8
From the Cotswolds to the world
Most people know that the Cotswolds have featured in a fair few Hollywood movies and TV series.
The Wild Hunt
In search of the legendary King Herla in the Malvern Hills
Fighting spirit amid the flowers
Tracy Spiers visits Warwick, a beautiful town that is open for business and ready to welcome visitors
Final journey
Cheltenham author and volunteer on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR), Nicolas Wheatley, recounts the fascinating story of funeral trains