I think it’s interesting that this place and a lot of us old-timers have been influenced by things which we shared at a point in time but are now inaccessible.
There is a wyrd occult glamour to that but it is also just simply being really old.
Meanwhile, my own kitchen, I wager, is a little Garden of Eden, a mini-Avalon of dinner time in Bow, a triumph of invention over underwhelming circumstances. It's like Madhur Jaffrey crossed with Elizabeth David crossed with Oliver Craner. The British diet is very bad, but very good if you know how to exploit its obscure delights, just like Britain itself.
The only way I can describe it is by saying that it's like sitting down to an argument with a full bottle of red and a fresh pack of cigs and getting stuck in for the evening and then falling into bed with Claire Luce before leaving in the morning for the Amalfi. Or, it's like this: once when I left for the Arctic, I came back with a beautiful block of ice in a tin for a lovely Soho stripper, and she smiled when I gave it to her. And I'd expected a kick in the chops, or a sneer of derision. Look, what kind of definition do you want exactly? I know you know what I mean, anyway. Don't make me drag this blather out any longer.
This spiel is dedicated to the woman in my life, Monica Bellucci.
A Time for Fear (2003-4)
Citta Violenta (2003-9)
World War Four (2004-2009)
The Kirkpatrick Mission (basically 2011-2015, although I added old stuff onto it as well)
Cinecittà (which just functioned as a place to put film writing)
These are all defunct now, although most are still accessible.
If I had to stand by any of them, it would be Citta Violenta and the one I do now.
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