Keith Floyd

Keith Floyd died yesterday and I am more saddened by the news than I had expected. I would never have wanted his personal life nor his need for fags and tobacco, but he was a great chef.

My first ever "proper" restaurant meal was in his bistro in Victoria Street when I was a 19-year-old student , the memory of which remains with me to this day. I cannot remember what I ate, but I do remember a manual worker in overalls coming into the restaurant by himself and ordering the jugged hare. I thought to myself that this was how life should be - excellent food, well cooked, available to absolutely everyone. So thank you Dr Josie Titcombe, Mandy Williams and the other medical students who invited me out that evening.

I also remember eating in Floyd's other restaurant around the corner in The Mall a few years later, taking Moonface for our first anniversary meal in 1974. That was the night the IRA bomb went off in Park Street. If I hadn't been eating out that evening, I would have died. Again, I cannot remember what I ate (Beef Wellington, perhaps?) but I do remember being awake at 3am with my back burning, the brown fat around my kidneys burning off the excess calories form the meal.

I'm sure that Keith will be in hell already, taking charge of the barbecues and drinking red wine from litre flagons.

:o)