Roger Collis

I’m fond of recalling a Len Deighton character who asked: ‘Do you like garlic?’ to get the reply, ‘Yes, but not secondhand!’

It figures, doesn’t it? The smell of frying onions is marvelous – but only if they are your onions!   Gratuitous cooking smells are invariably noxious – an invasion of privacy; an assault on our senses, not to mention our clothes… no matter what the culinary outcome.   Can you imagine anything worse than living above the kitchen vent of a three-star restaurant?  I once knew a Spanish millionaire who had a duplex apartment off Berkeley Square in London’s Mayfair. But the public entrance was a Cape Horn of pungent Middle Eastern cooking smells – welcome perhaps in another context.

I guess for most of us, other people’s cooking smells (OPCS) can be an occupational hazard, pretty well wherever one lives – and especially in Summer when burger fumes from the neighbor’s barbecue waft over the garden fence.

Summer was a hazardous season for OPCS when I lived on the Cote d’Azur. Our fifth floor apartment had a long wide balcony with a fabulous view of the sea and two light houses; great for entertaining, especially as the kitchen opened on to the balcony.  The bad news is that the whole side of the building came alive with chatter and conflicting cooking smells.

Imagine the scene.

‘Mmmmm,’ the lady says as you emerge with your guests on the balcony for aperitifs. ‘I can smell wonderful roast lamb; I’ll never forget the gigot you cooked when we last came round, when was it?’  She takes a kir royale (royally made with crème de mur as you know she likes it) and raises a smiling glass…

Actually, you had planned a cold lunch – a choice of terrines – terrine de campagne, terrine d’oie; terrine de canard, with garniture (sliced tomatoes; cornichons; those cocktail onions… Crusty pain de campagne. Dressed poached salmon with cucumber scales and mayonnaise, to follow; a nice brie, if anyone wants it; a mixture of fraises des bois (wild strawberries) and raspberries, and cream. And all washed down with a nicely chilled Sancerre. Then black coffee and a petit Calvados. Perfect; you’ve won your brownie points.

You’ll have guessed, of course, that the ‘roast lamb’ was gratuitously wrought by the demon cook on the third floor. Or was it the concierge?

As Shakespeare might have said: ‘On your olfactory senses work, and make imaginary puissance…’

Well, garlic takes a lot of beating – I have diabolical thoughts of a custom-made urn which wafts authentic garlic smoke in the way of recalcitrant neighbors. Or sardines delicately fried…

You get the drift?

Cooking is fraught with olfactory problems – and opportunities

Royal Alexandra and Albert School: Founders’ Day May 9, 2010

Headmaster, madam chairman, distinguished guests, members of the school, ladies & gentlemen

Deirdre Lane-Cooper was my beloved wife; she died at home here in Gatton in July last year.

Universally known and loved as ‘D’ she was a devoted member of St. Andrew’s – and is buried in the churchyard just across the way.

She was also a good friend of the school; and we enjoyed attending Founders’ Days together since I arrived in Gatton.

D trained in classical ballet and performed professionally for several years. She was first taught by her mother – a ballet teacher – and she used to say that she learned to dance before she could walk.  In fact, when she entered the Central School of Speech and Drama they had to teach her how to walk like a normal person and not like a dancer – in a sort of splayfoot, puddle-duck fashion… as she put it.

They obviously did a good job, because when I met D she didn’t so much walk as glide…

D was also a talented choreographer.

So it is in D’s memory that I am presenting for the first time this year the ‘D Lane-Cooper Prizes’ for Dance and for Choreography.

I congratulate the prizewinners and wish them every future success in following their talents – and their dreams.

‘Writers’ Workshop’ April 23-25, 2010. Summer Lodge, Dorset, England

-What is the story? The angle? It may be clear at the outset; it may emerge, or change, in the course of research. (Writing a weekly – especially a monthly – column, there is the risk of being pre-empted by news reports; the more spectacular the news, the more likely this is. One answer is to acknowledge knowledge of the news and commentate on it with your own inimitable spin.) 

-Researching the story: sources can be news clippings (which may spark the idea for a story; people… who can lead you to other people… the rush of excitement when suddenly you hit ‘pay dirt’ after a series of cold calls. Check and re-check the facts. 

-Research the publication; the people who read it – and their level of understanding. How much interest/knowledge can be assumed?  Inform; but don’t teach experts in the field how to suck eggs.

-Get to know the readers and talk directly to them (always be aware of the ‘reader over the shoulder’).  [My readers of The Frequent Traveler column in the International Herald Tribune seemed to have a better knowledge of certain acronyms and travel jargon than those of the New York Times, for whom I often had to spell things out, only because they tended to be less informed about events outside the United States.]  

-Focus the story into the words/space available. (Don’t try to write ‘War and Peace’ in 600 words. However limited your space, selective detail can make the story come alive.

-A news story is the antithesis of the short story (and often the feature) – the ‘denouement’ should be at the beginning, not at the end. 

-Hence the ‘pyramid lead.’ You need to engage the reader and explain what the story is about and why it is important – instantly. The lead might be a quotation, anecdotal, simply declamatory; the idea is to lead the reader into the next graf which tells the reader what the story is about and why it is important. The rest of the story is to ‘explain and amplify.’ If it needs to be cut half way down through lack of space on the page, it should still hold together. A good copy editor will try to ‘shrink’ your copy rather than cut it off at the end. But be prepared to sacrifice your ego.

-Be active not passive; go easy on adjectives and adverbs; use concrete not abstract nouns. The best reporting rule is still to begin every story with the classic: who, what, when and where.

-Use quotes sparingly but powerfully. Don’t pile quotes on quotes; measure them out with editorial. Give examples. Be aware of the ‘editor over the shoulder’

-Tell people what they didn’t know

-Style; ‘tone of voice;’ ‘point of view.’ Write as simply, as succinctly as you can and style will follow. Avoid mannerisms in the pursuit of ‘style.’ Fats Waller, when asked for a definition of jazz: ‘Lady if you have to ask, I can’t tell you.’ 

-If you’re finding a pattern in disparate information and new ideas about it as you write, write on!

-Get a ‘style book;’ what ever it is, be consistent. [For example I always use the singular after the collective noun; and tuck commas, semi-colons and full stops inside quotation marks] Good grammar matters.

-If in doubt, cut it out. Don’t take risks on getting facts wrong.

-Avoid ‘fine writing.’ Think about what Elmore Leonard said, ‘If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.’

-Satire should be almost indistinguishable from reality. (Satirists these days are always being second-guessed by real events.) Now you see it, now you don’t. I was amused to hear the other day that a CCN copy editor had tried in vain to trace my favorite deus ex machina ‘Stanley Zilch, director of Blue Skies Research Institute in Broken Springs, Colorado.’!   

-Leave readers thinking that you could have written a lot more/given more detail on the subject if only they had given you more space. It is often the subtext, what you leave out which counts. 

-Columns are ‘the art of the possible;’ if only because you’re always a phone-call away from that last vital source when the deadline looms. Or the subject is only-way ready.

-Deadlines and the ‘automatic pilot.’ This is when experience counts; mysterious reflexes seem to kick in when you are up against the wire and passionately trying to get the damned thing filed. You’ll recognize it when it happens; it is one of the painful joys of writing journalism.  

-If you think the story is great when you file it, think again. A little anxiety is a good thing.  It’s when you think you’ve done a great piece that it all falls apart. Believe me; I’ve been there.

-Remember, you are only as good as your last story.

I felt strangely reassured and later exulted at reports that a cloud of volcanic ash from a newly active volcano in Iceland has closed airports across Europe. Proof, were it needed, that acts of nature can still thwart the best laid plans of mice and men.

Rumors that the United States considers this an unfriendly act and is considering sanctions against Iceland seem to be unfounded. But that it may be fallout from the Icelandic banking meltdown.

Meanwhile, let’s enjoy while we can the spectacular sunsets.

Let us learn from learned studies

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, March 10, 2010
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/
Effects of stress on human mating preferences: Stressed individuals prefer dissimilar mates 
Humans usually prefer similar mates. However, mating preferences are also context-dependent. One context factor that has been shown to influence mating preferences in animals is stress. In our study we tested whether stress also influences human preferences for similar mates. Participants viewed pictures of erotic female nudes that were similar and dissimilar from themselves. Participants that were stressed before the presentation of the erotic female nudes preferred dissimilar erotic nudes, while non-stressed participants showed a preference for similar ones. Our findings indicate that stress may reverse human mating preferences: making dissimilar mates more attractive than the usually preferred similar mates.  Contact: Miss Johanna Lass-Hennemann,   University of Trier, lass1302@uni-trier.de, 00496512013661