A bed of dead herbs leaves him with a nasty taste in his mouth

My herb garden is dead. To be honest, my herb garden has been an unmitigated disaster from day one. Having moved into a flat with a basement courtyard I was so excited that once again I might grow fresh herbs. There was already a huge and flourishing palm tree, a bamboo and an aspidistra so I assumed there was at least a hint of fertility in the flower beds.

With this in mind I headed off to the South of England Show, where I purchased a set of rather robust looking herb plants at no little expense. They did look fine and I carefully transplanted them into the beds and watched. I watched every day. At first they wilted a little, then a few days on they rallied and showed signs of improvement. But not for long.

There were around 15 in total, and they certainly prolonged the agony of failure as they died off, one by one. Even the mint, the most robust of garden herbs, has failed and all that remains is a withered stump, and don’t try to comfort me with cries of ‘just wait, next day you will be ankle deep in the stuff and ruing the day you planted it!’ Well I won’t, I will be harvesting it by the armful and making huge jugs of mint tea sweetened with honey to calm my anger at the loss of the other 14 dismal specimens.

That might be a little harsh, the plants were sturdy enough when I bought them, so maybe they just didn’t like it in my sunken courtyard. To be frank, I don’t blame them either. Lovely as it is, with the dismal summer we had we never once ventured out there to enjoy the cool solitude; we didn’t need to get cool, we needed to get warm. Perhaps the cold that lingers is not medical after all – but rising damp.

I miss having fresh herbs and I hate those pots in supermarkets that come with so much promise but again seem to fade away after a few days. I know what you’re thinking… it’s me… but I promise, in the past I have grown herbs with great success, really I have.

Next year I will try herbs again, this time in pots on our front window ledges but any advice would be very welcome.

All in the best taste
“What a lovely job you have, I wish I could do what you do.” I’ve heard it more than I’ve had hot dinners, or maybe not, after all, what they are refering to are the hot dinners, of which I do eat very many.

I would never deny that I have a lovely job, a real joy that takes me out and about to meet interesting people, see great theatre and art, and interview actors and business people…

And then there’s the food. The most recent uttering of the ‘what a lovely job’ line came after I had spent a few hours judging a curry competition. This was my third time in the role and it has become an annual event that I very much look forward to. The Food Safety Team at the City Council had organised their Brighton & Hove Curry Chef of the Year and this year the judging was at Brighton Racecourse. Each of the five chefs had been briefed to create three dishes: a main course, a side dish and either a rice or bread. Of course, challenged with creating a meal in competition conditions, what chef can resist a bit of showing off? As a consequence we had more than the required three dishes, sometimes as many as eight. Now when you start to scale that up across all the chefs you start to get a picture of what was involved. I reckon I tasted at least 30 different things, just a little of each, but enough to render my tummy as not unlike a pedal bin, filled with bits and bobs that were never meant to sit together. No, not nice.

It’s not the first time. In the same building a few years ago I was challenged to judge over 54 sausages. Yes, 54! Now imagine what that could do you your digestive tract. We had to invent the sausage equivalent of the spittoon to survive.

Next week it’s cakes, and I have been assured there will be only three finalists. I hope so.