Eddie Mair has more front than Harrods. Consider this: a member of the British Media, Mr Mair, berates another former such member, Boris Johnson, for making up quotes! What planet are you living on, Mr Mair? Making things up is what people in your profession do for a living!

What some people in your profession do for a living, not all as you imply

The Leveson Inquiry focuses on one particular scandal

No, it was triggered by one scandal and focused on many others

– but hacking into voicemails is among the least of the crimes committed by a metier which is almost single-handedly responsible for the cultural degradation of an entire nation.

Almost? What are the other factors you’d correlate with this perceived degradation?

Next, Mr Johnson, a politician, is criticised for lying to another politician, Michael Howard, all the while his interviewer feigning horror and surprise. Again, Mr Mair, what brand of glue are you sniffing? That’s what politicians do. Yes, they lie.

What some politicians do, but not all, as you imply

Just like journalists.

All journalists?

And they fiddle their expenses and they pervert the course of justice and they commit perjury and they make up stories to justify invading countries and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Welcome to the real world.

And they leave the toilet seat up and they fart in lifts and they utter awful cliches like ‘welcome to the real world’.

And then Mr Mair attacks the Mayor of London for agreeing, when in his mid-20s

Too young!

to supply a friend – me – with the address of a News of the World journalist so that the journalist in question could be given the hiding which most of us secretly admit such people deserve.

If I secretly admit  to wanting to give someone broken ribs, does that mean nobody knows?

Tell me, Mr Mair, if a piece of tabloid scum wished to smear members of your family, what would you do? Cry? Report him to the Press Complaints Commission?

Yeah probably both of those things, Mair not being a criminal like you

As we all know, Mr Johnson never provided me with any address. It is perfectly clear from the tape recording in question that he was simply placating a friend whom he considered to be letting off steam. But while this may rightly exonerate the Mayor of London, my own line has always been somewhat different – and consistent: my only regret being that I was never able to finish the job.

Likewise,

Not likewise; this paragraph bears no similarity to the last, other than it’s thirst for blood

the lure of no public office in the land could tempt me (unlike certain of my contemporaries) to fawn before people like the Murdochs. Individuals whose heads, in a better age, would be pinned to Traitors’ Gate.

Members of the British media should aspire to similar consistency.

They should consistently aspire to be impaled?

They may turn up their noses, for example, when journalists hack the voicemail of some celebrity using a technique known to most nine-year-olds. But did Mr Mair not consider the circumstances under which the Johnson tape was obtained? A police informer planting listening devices in someone’s home – an offence for which he was arrested. He admitted guilt, only to sell the recordings to the press at a later stage.

The methods may differ slightly. But they both constitute the same crime: illegal interception of communications. Fruit from the rotten tree.

The interview wasn’t about press integrity, and Mair didn’t use any of these methods.

But it is what Mr Mair did not question which reveals the moral bankruptcy both of his profession  and society itself. Tell me, Mr Mair, which do you think will cause Mr Johnson the greater difficulty on the Day of Judgement? Making up some quotes as a journalist, or the ritual humiliation of his wife and children?

Making up quotes, lying as an MP (see Chris Huhne) and conspiring to physically assault somebody or humiliating your family!

The fact that this argument been raised almost nowhere illustrates the topsy-turvy,Daily Mail-like nature of the British media’s moral posturing. We have become so utterly deadened to acts of genuine immorality, so totally immune to the breaking of vows made before God, so casual in the face of constant assaults on the sacred concept of family that real crimes do not even raise an eyebrow. Such reasoning does not even enter our minds.

Real crimes like physical assault? Oh wait no you meant made up crimes like assaults on ‘sacred concepts’

But should being ‘a nasty piece of work’, as Mr Mair put it, preclude Mr Johnson from high office? Not for the student of history, at least.

The largest Empire the world has ever known was created by some very rum characters indeed. Today, the Duke of Wellington (whose instincts I am convinced would have accorded very much with my own when it comes to the media) would be doing time for attempted murder in respect of his duelling. Oliver Cromwell would be on trial at the Hague for his butchering of the Irish Catholics he considered mere ‘chaff’ to his sword. Edward Longshanks ‘Hammer of the Scots’, Francis Drake,

None of those people were elected.

Clive of India, Cecil Rhodes — the list is endless.

No it isn’t.

I can confirm from my own experience that the reincarnated spirits of such men are far more likely to be found in Wormwood Scrubs than in the Cabinet.

Your own experience of speaking to dead people?

The plundering of half the world’s natural resources from their legitimate owners and the systematic enslavement of entire populations were not achieved by ‘nice pieces of work.’

Is this to advocate a return to a more brutal age? Not so much as to seek cogency from sections of a media which are nostalgic  about Britain’s ‘glorious’ past and bitter about her relegation to miserable little backwater as they see it, whilst simultaneously pointing the finger at ‘nasty pieces of work.’

Mair isn’t a section of the media and did none of these things.

I have never once, in any form of election, voted for clowns from my own or my parents’ generation (many of whom I have met and known) so undeserving do I consider them of endorsement. So would I make an exception in the case of Mr Johnson?

This would depend on how much he has changed in the past couple of decades. It would depend on the extent to which he has become corrupted by a system which promotes mediocrity after mediocrity. It would depend on to what extent the types of ‘minders’ (who inevitably surround such individuals) will have reprogrammed him.

But when it comes to the Boris Johnson of the Eighties and early Nineties I knew so dearly then the answer is: yes, I would make an exception. And for this reason alone: his capacity for original thought.

The jokes and fun were all very well but the Boris Johnson I knew liked ideas and ideas are what we need now, more than at any time since World War II. The rest of the now prominent nonentities among our contemporaries – the politicians in particular – were simply incapable of ‘big’ or new ideas to an extent which, as a widely-travelled man, I have seen in no other society.

Boris steals his ideas.

It is upon ideas therefore that I suggest he focus. Not on an office to which no honour attaches nor any real power. So, too, he must cherish the mother of his children and the family God has given to him.

This isn’t even a rant about Mair anymore!

A career has been made by pretending that Ian Hislop is actually funny and a general dumbing down. It is time to dumb up.

Who’s career? A general dumbing down of what? And what is a dumbing up!

Please Fraser, please keep printing this sort of hilarious drivel

The machine of a dream

This is a photo of the espresso machine my brother got for the Hoxton Bakery, where he’s now serving up espresso.  As I mentioned in Hi Mag they are on the same street as Embassy East and part of a torrent of fine coffee shops flooding the East End.

They also have massive croissants 

This is vegetarian I promise

This is a recipe for people who really like beetroot.  It’s a soup that provides an uncompromising earthy wave of health that is perfect for banishing hangovers.  Borscht is the best food from Eastern Europe, and is best made as simply as possible.

I took the various techniques Keith Floyd uses for enhancing the beetroot power, and added raw beetroot at the end.  This requires cloudy home made stock with plenty of taste.

7 organic beetroots
A large pan of chicken or vegetable stock
A splash of wine, sherry or Friexenet
A glug of red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
Juice of half a lemon or a shot of limoncello

Peel and chop up 5 beetroots, and add these to the stock.  Bring this to the boil and leave to simmer for about an hour.

Lift out and discard the pieces of beetroot, which should be pale and wan by now, drained of their dramatic dark juices.  Liquidise another beetroot and chop the other into 1cm chunks.  Add these to the soup along with the other ingredients and some seasoning.  Heat until the beetroot pieces are warmed through, but not cooked.  Serve with a dollop of craime fraiche and some fancy bread.

More soup, comrade?

“I challenge anybody I know to stop for a month, to go the same places, do the same things, interact with the same people and just remove the alcohol from the equation and see how they feel.”

It began with three dreadful weekends in a row where I drank far too much.  My house-mate and I decided, during a tortuous hungover train journey on the mad goal of proving we weren’t alcoholics by giving up for a month.  Our friends laughed uproariously while we climbed on the water wagon with fire in our hearts.

She broke the pact that evening, leaving me to cling on for dear life while the wheeled, horse driven metaphor careered out of control towards a fucking mountainside.  That said, the first week was fairly easy, as I felt too unwell to consider drinking.

“This is fine; I might even give up drinking for good.  This is
changing the whole way I view my relationship with booze”

Friday saw me creating and gulping down esoteric smoothies of hemp protein, eggs and mangoes   To smother the impulse to drink booze, I excitedly downed pints of Coke Zero and apple juice, proclaiming what an exciting experience this was.  I was thinking about sentences before uttering them, holding conversations without shouting; feeling unusually self-confident.

The second week at work immediately threw two all nighters in my path as we stressed and sweated through submitting a bid minutes before the deadline.  I needed a stiff drink after Monday, and I needed six beers to celebrate at midnight on Tuesday.    Instead I slept badly.  At least laying in bed all morning with a hangover lets you sleep a bit longer; springing up full of joy on my day off was no fun.  I had to suffer the torture of basking in the sun and sipping apple juice.

The next day just took the piss.  After an all day conference, sat still, ending with a dull French guy who brought 60 slides and a deep monotone waffle, I was thirsty.  We where shuffled into this giant networking room with flunkies carrying around trays loaded with free drinks.

“Would you like one, sir?

“Er… no thanks”, I said.  And cheese sticks!  That heavenly, salty snack that radically alters your brain chemistry to want to gulp lager was on offer as well.  It was like the chapter at the end of Brave New World where the hero is so surrounded by people indulging themselves, he has no option but to submerge completely before hanging himself.  I thought about this and wearily got the tube home.

I had started to feel dreadful.  No hangover could be worse than the emotional exhaustion I felt that Friday, and the evening was the last straw. A heavy binge session with friends I had not seen in ages, at one of my favourite pubs in London.  My veneer of positive experimentation with abstinence was slipping when I described how satisfying my fancy lemonade was.  This was a house of local ales and fancy Belgian beers, not jumped up kids’ drinks.  By the end of the night I was worn out with my friend winding me up on the bus and before retiring to bed, I was engulfed by a deep feeling of loneliness.

Waiting in the sunshine the next day, I realised, as I was travelling to Bristol to carouse with old friends and meet some new ones, that I was never going to enjoy the weekend like this.  My ‘realist’ friends had started to believe I could do it, and I had learned a valuable
lesson; that my social life revolves around the heady freedom that booze grants.

Is there no escape?

This is not an adult drink, so I won’t take you down the road of ageing your nog, but it’s important to be confident with separating eggs. Most importantly you need to ensure you keep the bowls clean and don’t allow any grease or yolk into your whites, or they’ll never stiffen.

If you can find it, use Metaxa 5 or 7 star brandy for the alcohol, as it’s slight sweetness enriches the drink. Otherwise cognac, dark rum or bourbon is fine. To make vanilla sugar, simply scrape the seeds from a vanilla pod into a jar of golden caster sugar, mix around and leave the remaining husk in the jar.

6 very fresh eggs
5 tablespoons of vanilla sugar
550 ml whole milk
250ml thick double cream
250 ml Metaxa 5 star brandy
Freshly grated nutmeg

Rinse some martini glasses for your guests and place in the freezer, still wet. Separate the eggs and leave the whites to one side. Beat the yolks, sugar milk and half the cream together in a bowl. Add booze to taste.

Use an electric whisk to beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Whip the remaining cream until disastrously fluffy.  Give the yolk mixture one final furious whisk and fold everything together.

Use a ladle to pour the eggnog into your ice cold glasses, making sure each gets an even distribution of froth and liquid. Grate a sprinkling of nutmeg onto each.

My Nog is the fluffiest.

Making sandwiches the night before work is great but if you are regularly drunk during the week it’s never going to happen.   Pret’s is boring and you still want to make stuff with your own hands, so I devised, through patient experimentation, this dish that you can put together in the smallest office kitchen without a microwave (you might need a sharp knife).  It is so delicious that I have it almost every day now and because it hardly has any carbs it doesn’t make you sluggish and sleepy all afternoon.

You can find these ingredients in small supermarkets but I have moved to industrial scale by cooking a whole chicken on Sunday evening and buying all the week’s avocados so they can ripen on my desk.

1 Ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
A fistful of pine nuts (optional: cashews)
Lots of cooked chicken, sliced or shredded
A spoon of mayonnaise
Feta or crumbly goat’s cheese, cubed
Pepper (steal sachets from Pret’s)

Those are the ingredients, now go and make it yourself.

The breakfast menu focusses around variations on English breakfasts and French Eggs, the obvious choice either Eggs Benedict, Eggs Florentine or Eggs Royale (with Smoked Salmon).  These three were each served as they should be, on toasted muffins and with a deep helping of thick Hollandaise sauce.

The variations of fry ups feature poached or scrambled eggs, and were served generously and with aplomb.  The Cumberland Sausage Breakfast was hard to face with a headache, but I was overwhelmed by the Hash Brown Breakfast when I discovered that the familiar triangles of grease soaked potato where actually home-made, coarse and strongly seasoned.  Every part of that meal was right, including the fluffy eggs and the rich tomato. The Vegetarian Sausage Breakfast is worth avoiding for obvious reasons, but Mediterranean Breakfast offers a meat free and boldly aromatic alternative.

It’s sometimes important to have cake with Sunday Brunch and standing at the counter in the Legume it’s possible to get carried away.  I only managed one of the home-made cakes on offer, a moist two layered sponge with a sticky fruit filling.

There are oceans of treats to explore.

As an eating out experience, Broadway Street on a Saturday offers such a rich smorgasbord of delights that many visitors are paralysed with indecision. The samosas on offer from the Indian food stall are rich and heavily spiced, and a fish stand offers smoked herrings, as well as salmon and cream cheese bagels. This establishment also offers the best fast food money can buy; a thick steak of marinated sashimi grade tuna, seared lightly on both sides and sold in a bun with salad and wasabi sauce. A neighbouring fishmonger specialises in expensive smoked salmon, and offers small sliders of his delicious lean slices with cream cheese, dill and crusty bread. Other stalls are less impressive, serving rather dull quiches, German bratwurst or Polish sausages.

The token artisan coffee stands offer great espressos, but a rarer experience is offered by Che Phe VN, who serve Vietnamese Coffee, ice cold and sweetened with condensed milk. The best place to go for a sweet course is the highly original Violet Cupcakes for perfect mouthfuls of spongy bliss. Their greatest creation is the massive Victoria Sponge ‘cupcake’, a chaotic mess of sponge, rhubarb and cream.

The fresh produce available includes both essentials and rare delicacies. There are top class organic fruit, vegetable and bread stalls, and hawkers selling esoteric dips, sauces, chutneys, and olives and several excellent cheese stalls.  As you’d expect there are opportunities to try almost everything.  Northfield Farm sports an outlet with some excellent meat and dairy, although their eggs are anaemic and tasteless and their sausages can be uninspiring.

If you’re thirsty after shuffling through Broadway Street’s crowds, I recommend the excellent cocktail bar, Off Broadway.  If you fancy a walk, go to Pub in the Park on London Fields instead.

It took me until the bottom of the bottle to realise this intriguing Sauvignon Blanc was from Slovenia rather than some bay in Marlborough.  Far out!  This adds a profound novelty to the wine, but it is a genuinely appealing low-priced supermarket choice.  It features the usual massive perfumed, fruity hit of a Sauvignon, with a crystalline bite that sets it apart.