Days Without Alcohol - 45.
Great gig in Cheltenham tonight, despite a slightly shaky second half - putting in an interval made me slightly lose the flow of it, but I am sure I will get used to it. It seemed to go down well. I drove home in the fog. To save money I am going to drive home whenever possible this year, and it was lucky tonight as the bar was closed by the time I was out of the dressing room and so no-one was around to say hello, or get an autograph or a DVD. It would have been a slightly desolate walk back to my hotel after such a sudden come down. But Cheltenham is only a couple of hours drive away from home, even in the fog, and it was great to do my stuff and then head for my own bed.
I have a very good feeling about this year's tour. Last year I was a bit miserable and lonely, but this is a shorter run of dates and I am in a better frame of mind and I am looking forward to doing the show another 20 or so times before moving on to the next one.
Before the gig I had a salad in Pizza Express. I recently emailed my favourite restaurant chain to enquire about the calorific content of their menu. Counting calories doesn't mean that I can't eat out or can't eat pizza (have had two this year so far and the weight is still dropping off), but in order to keep track of things it is handy to have at least a rough idea of what's in what I'm eating.
This is what I wrote,
"Is there anywhere I can find out the calorific values and fat content etc of everything on your menu?
RH"
I got a quick reply-
"Hello
Thank you for your email enquiry. Unfortunately we do not have nutritional information for our menu. Our food is freshly prepared by hand and so nutritional values would vary. However, we can provide the following as tips for making dishes lighter in terms of fat and calories.
Reduce calories and fat
* Ask for either no cheese or reduced levels of cheese in your pizzas or salads
* Ask for pizzas to be made up by our chefs without the addition of olive oil
* Replace ingredients that are naturally high in fat and calories or marinated/stored in oil (such as pepperoni, nuts, tuna, anchovies,
artichokes, spiced beef) with less fattening/calorific ingredients (such as chicken, mushrooms, rocket, spinach, herbs)
* Ask for salads either without dressing, with a smaller amount of dressing or with dressing on the side to give you full control over the amount of dressing you choose to add. Instead of a dressing, you can always ask for a squeeze of lemon juice to be added to the salad which can add flavour but
without the calories and fat
* Ask for salads without croutons
* If you really just can't resist a dessert, why not consider sharing with your fellow diners
* Finish the meal with tea, filter coffee or an expresso rather than a
higher calorie cappuccino, latte or liqueur coffee
Reduce salt
* Ask for dishes to come without olives or capers as these pickled
vegetables are all quite high in salt
* Ask for pasta and pizza dishes to be topped with freshly-ground pepper rather than Grana Padano cheese which is high in salt
* Ask chefs to add extra garlic or black pepper to dishes as opposed to extra salt
Boost fibre
* Order a side salad to go with the main meal
* Choose starters, pastas and pizzas that contain plenty of vegetables.
Many dishes include good amounts of peppers, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach and rocket. The more colour that's on the plate, the more nutrients
that meal is likely to contain.
Regards
Catherine Young
Customer Service"
I found this slightly irritating and condescending. After all I was not asking for diet tips, just wanting to a rough estimate of calories (an average would be fine) so that I would know how much exercise I would need to do or what other cutbacks I could make during the day to justify the pizza. My guess incidentally is that an average pizza has 1200 calories and the chicken salad with vegetables that I like is probably under 500. But what if I am wildly wrong - in either direction?
So I sent back an email - "Thanks, I know how to cut down calories of things. I would really appreciate an answer to my question rather than slightly patronising diet advice. An average ball park figure would be acceptable."
But no response has as yet come through. I don't know why Pizza Express are being so secretive - it would really help people to make informed decisions about what they are consuming.
So I've sent off this email today -
"Hi Catherine.
I emailed you after you sent out this reply to my question about calorific and fat content of your menu, but I have no reply to my follow up query.
I am a big fan of Pizza Express, but I am also on a calorie controlled diet. I would really like to continue eating in your restaurant, but in order to do so I need to make an informed decision about what I am eating. Is, for example, your Etna Pizza on average 800 calories or is it 1800? If it is near the former then I know I can come in and eat it, if the latter then I can't. If you don't tell me I will have to assume it is the latter and you will lose a regular customer. If, however, it is as I am guessing about 1000 calories then I can work round that and have it as the occasional treat - perhaps choosing not to have olive oil on it if I wish, but that's up to me.
If it turns out to be too calorific then I would probably go for a Pollo Verdure salad, which seems to me to be exactly the same wherever I go and which I am guessing is about 500 calories, but it might be less. You must know. And if you could tell me then it gives me the opportunity to make a decision myself and possibly go for a starter as well if it's less calorific than I imagine.
The fact that you refuse to give out details and just send out a general email makes me think that Pizza Express food must be loaded with an almost unimaginable amount of calories and you fear that the only way you will get customers in is to keep this a secret and send out a factsheet about how you can make your calorie-filled unhealthy food less dangerous to the dieter.
I am sure this can't be true, but that's what you are making me feel.
It would be a shame if you lost a valued customer because of this strange attitude.
Please can you send me even approximate information on my actual question.
Richard Herring
PS While I'm at it, you need to sort out the whole discretionary donation on the Veneziana, which is not discretionary at all, but mandatory. Either change the word on the menu or make it actually discretionary.
PPS I am publishing this correspondence on my popular blog at www.richardherring.com/warmingup and now there are several thousand people waiting for your reply. I am sure I can encourage them to all email you individually about this if I wanted to."
Please don't email Catherine yet. Let's give her a chance to open up and chill out a bit. But if nothing is forthcoming I will instruct your further, my army of internerds. This could be a bit like Watergate or Capricorn One, except more pizza based.
Anyway, that is by the by. What I was going to write about was the people on the next table. It was a couple with a young son of about three years old, who was at that stage where he is shouting about everything and asking question upon question upon question. I have to say that the parents did a good job of trying to keep this little tyke under control and it didn't spoil my meal. Quite the opposite I found it a) quite amusing and b) felt a bit sorry for the mum and dad who had to endure this for eighteen hours a day, when thirty minutes at a short distance became a little wearing.
And I like kids and also understand that this is a phase that every human being in the world goes through. To get annoyed by it is to deny your own humanity. That little boy was once you. You were shouting enthusiastically and questioning the world and so full of joy at being alive that you were unable to understand how your joie de vivre affected other people.
I know I certainly was and even have vague memories of being on a bus and my mum telling me to quieten down or being in a public place and causing some consternation amongst strangers by being much too loud and asking questions about poo. I was 28 years old when these things occurred.
The boy's gran was on her way to New Zealand and the father foolishly informed the child that it would be night time where she was going. "Why?" asked the boy.
"Well it's difficult to explain," said the well meaning father.
"Don't even try," said the worn down weary mother, but the dad had a crack anyway, saying that it's because in New Zealand night comes quicker than it does here. I looked at the confused child's face as he attempted to absorb this information. He didn't have much hope as he would really have no understanding of what New Zealand was or how far away it was, and I felt it was inevitable given his previous behaviour that he would now ask why that was and we'd become trapped in an impossibly never ending conversation. Amazingly the answer satisfied his tiny brain and he got on with his carefree life, asking questions instead about where everyone he knew would be at this exact moment.
I found it very amusing, but also wondered how I would cope if it was my child and I had to put up with this enthusiasm and curiosity every waking second. There's a big part of me that wants to have kids, but nearly every time I actually see other people's I am filled with dread. If they're not defecating in their pants, they're crying and screaming, or attempting to make sense of stuff they are not equipped to understand and then just when they're becoming self-sufficient they turn into teenagers and a new nightmare begins. Then they get over that, and get into their twenties but are still getting into scrapes and really unable to understand what's going on. Then they hit their thirties and have to deal with relationships falling apart or children of their own. Then they hit their forties and realise that their lives are meaningless and they have wasted their youth. And all the time you have to deal with it and the only escape you have from these parasitic, needy cunts is to die.
Why would anyone do it?
Why do I still want to?
Still, I like this kid very much and he made me laugh all the way through my salad of indeterminate calorific value and when I got to the bit about hating kids in the show I was able to add their annoying questioning nature to my long list of reasons for despising them. So thanks for that, anonymous, annoying, but sweet child. Hope you enjoyed your margarine pizza - which is what he called a margarita. And surely it is things like that, if nothing else, that make the whole nightmare of parenthood worthwhile.
