What if? (Don't mention the War)

Regrets, I've had a few. But then again too few to mention (thank you, Frank). And for what it's worth it's a mantra I subscribe to. Things you've done and shouldn't have, things you should have said but didn't. It doesn't matter. Move on. Life doesn't have a rewind button. Never begin a sentence with 'If only' - what follows will be shrouded in melancholia and ultimately a waste of breath.

However, kickstart a sentence with 'What if...?' and it's game on. Loaded with speculation and suggestion - the exploration of possibilities and consequences - it's when ideas come alive. The reason I bring it up is because I'm currently reading Len Deighton's SS-GB. The premise of his 1978 novel is that Germany won the war, Churchill has been executed and the King is imprisoned in the Tower of London. I'm gripped! It's compelling Bank Holiday reading.

Cookin'

I've always loved cooking. In fact my first website in the late 1990s (Geocities, anyone?) was given over to recipes that were floating my boat at the time. And it was around that time I wrote a piece for Delicious magazine that combined food & drink, and music. Always a heady mix.

It was also a period when I immersed myself in Saturday morning TV cookery shows. I couldn't get enough of 'em. Having been brought up on The Galloping Gourmet, Floyd and Delia there was, thanks to Oliver, Rhodes et al, a new gang in town. I even invested in all the spin-off books that came out on their coattails not least everything that the enchanting Rachel Allen lent her name to. Add to those all the pre-loved tomes I was snapping up in secondhand bookshops and I'd amassed quite the culinary library - including Len Deighton's fabulous Action Cook Book from 1965. God bless you, Len.

An extract from the foreword: Four hectic years ago Len Deighton began his cookstrips in the London Observer and serious cooking enthusiasts seized upon them without being sure that this was the same man who spoke over Soviet radio, talked with Hollywood lawyers and wrote the sort of spy thrillers that had to be submitted to the War Office before publication. It is.

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Before I sign off, I can't not mention my favourite cookery show theme. It comes from an era when cookery programmes were very proper, very correct. And, for the most part, very dull. Farmhouse Kitchen, made by Yorkshire Television, was stultifyingly dull. It first aired in 1971 and was presented by Dorothy Sleightholme. Suffice it to say she was no Fanny Craddock. But the show's 40 second musical ident was something else altogether. I came to know it from the Loungecore revolution of the mid 90s. Maybe you did too...

Reg Wale - Fruity Flutes

Reg Wale (1906-1998)

Dorothy Sleightholme (1915-1983)

Len Deighton (1929-2026)