A rather chili picture of what we face

A ridiculous and unseasonally warm chili

If ever you wanted an illustration of how wrong some things are, it’s the chili pepper in the picture.

That rather unassuming picture of that rather unassuming fruit was taken last week – after the pepper in question had been picked from a plant in a pot in my garden.

Let’s just reiterate: that’s not a greenhouse, but a garden. It may be south facing, but it’s in England. And it’s the winter. There’s another one left on the plant too.

Nothing has stopped growing, because the weather is nowhere near as cold as it should be in this part of the world at this time of year.

And this is neither the first time, nor the only example of the climate having gone haywire.

Of course there were floods in the olden days. But they were not every year, several times a year, in several – if not many – places.

We might not have had many deaths from the ongoing stormy weather, and London has certainly not been battered, but yet again, people have been flooded out of their homes, left without power over Christmas and beyond – and still it comes.

That’s without considering the environmental impact – salt water washing away sea walls and swamping fresh water areas of great importance to animal, bird and plant life.

And government is hoping to further cut back the department in question – the department that, for instance, deals with flood defences.

The weather in this part of the world used to be essentially reliable. It no longer is. Depending on the time of year, you basically knew what would be coming.

Not any more.

Anyone who says that the climate isn’t changing is a idiot.

I’m not going to claim to know exactly what’s caused/causing it (I’m not remotely qualified to read, understand and comment on the science) but to be honest, I don’t think that what’s causing it matters.

It’s happening and anyone who doesn’t think that we should find ways to deal with it is also an idiot.

In the meantime, I’ve got chilis on a plant in London in January.

This one was sliced and used to flavour the mushroom ‘gravy’ that went with pan-fried tuna last weekend.

It’s a Rick Stein dish – and a very nice one at that.

Start by softening chopped/sliced onion or shallot, carrot and celery in a pan, then adding your chili, plus dried mushrooms. How many dried mushrooms? Try a shed load. Porcini provide a really big flavour hit.

Add some white wine and simmer to reduce, then add some vegetable stock and reduce again.

Strain everything and, depending on how much liquid you’ve got left and how many you’re feeding, you can reduce again.

At that stage, whisk in some buerre manie – that’s equal amounts of softened butter and plain flour, mixed together – until you have thickened it as much as you want.

Pour over your pan-fried tuna and consume with relish.

Stein serves it with mashed potato with garlic. I opted for crushed root veg: parsnip, swede and carrot. Tasty, comforting – and healthy.

Not that it was the only episode of smash and grab on the dried mushroom front over the holiday season.

We started this year’s Christmas dinner with a mushroom consommé that also required less a shed load and more a whole garage full.

Made from vegetable stock that was then reduced with the dried mushrooms in it, it was clarified with an egg white raft and then strained through muslin, to pack a massive flavour punch.

The rest of the dinner went okay, but realisation has dawned that a four-course meal for two is not actually massively practical, since the non-cooking diner has a lot of time to sit around waiting between courses.

It was a realisation that was increased by a rare episode of entertaining friends with a three-course meal that flowed perfectly naturally even though one ingredient (carrots in the boles de picolat, which The Other Half insisted should be included this time) was defiantly reluctant to actually be cooked through properly.

But with three people to sit around, wine in hand, and chat, it wasn’t an issue for me to give the dish extra time.

I’ll say this, though, Christmas Day’s mandarin sorbet was top notch.

The rest of the festive cooking was about as simple as can be, although having proven to myself that a set custard needn’t be such a risk – that three-course meal – I set out on New Year’s Day to prove it hadn’t been a fluke, rustling up little crème caramels.

Honestly – who found out that burning sugar could make something so utterly scrumdumptiously fabulous?

Our first course, incidentally, was steak, with sautéed leeks and little potatoes pan-cooked in duck fat.

On the subject of duck, I have, in the last couple of years, discovered Reflets de France tins of duck confit from the south west of France.

It’s not the cheapest fodder in the world, but contains exactly and only what confit should: duck legs, salt and duck fat.

Over the holiday, Ocado had run out, so they substituted me some Gressingham duck confit. This has an ingredient list of:

Duck Legs (85%), Orange Zest, Ginger Purée, Rapeseed Oil, Salt, Black Pepper.

I have to say, the taste is okay, but The Other Half was not wrong when he pointed out that they’re rather tougher than the Reflets ones. And amazingly, they’re from the chiller cabinet, which seems rather to defeat the object of preserving the meat in, err duck fat and salt.

Christmas did produce one culinary first for me, though: after watching Nigel Slater’s excellent programme on biscuits, I finally pushed past my polite reservations – and dunked a biscuit!

So peeps, that in a nutshell is notes from the festive food front.

And so, with Christmas packed away once more, it’s back to what passes for normal.

Garden firsts and squidgy cakes

Coral spot.

Life as an apprentice gardener is full of little firsts. Having 10 out of 10 peas germinate in my growhouse is the sort of first that leaves you bursting with pride (albeit having done little more than offer nature a helping hand).

Correctly diagnosing a garden problem, followed by taking appropriate action, leaves an entirely different feeling.

There have been three bushes of pyracantha in the garden for years and, when we finally got around to having the entire area paved a year last November, these were cut back and the slabs arranged around them.

The amount they grew last year was just one of a series of lessons in how resilient plants are. You may think that you, the snails or the weather have killed something off, but give it time and there is every chance that it will come back.

Last year alone we seemed to witness more revivals than Billy Graham.

But back to the pyracantha – or firethorn as it sometimes known. It was one of the first things we planted, years ago when we moved in and the garden was just a few flags in a square outside the door, and a small ‘L’ of rather poor and uneven grass with a plain, light wood fence to keep the rest of the world out.

It was one of the first things into our small patch after an early attempted break in at the back. The flats were new and, in an area that still had some years to go before the trendiness only then starting to Hoxton would move further east, must have looked pretty damned posh, even though it was a housing association build.

It provides all-year-round greenery – and wonderfully sharp thorns.

There are nice berries for the birds in the autumn and winter – although our three bushes, theoretically producing different colours, only ever actually seem to manage red.

However, one of the bushes, after serious cutting back, has seen one thick trunk die off. And that, together with a little of the joined trunk, had pinky orange spots on it.

Anyway, that’s why there’s a Royal Horticultural Society book on Pests and Diseases on the shelf, for precisely such cases.

It turned out to be a case of coral spot – nectria cinnabarina – which can infect parts of dead trees and shrubs.

Treatment is pruning carefully and possible wound sealant to stop the infection getting in again.

Down on Columbia Road, Les explained that such sealants are usually bitumen-based. But my idea of using melted wax met with approval.

Here’s a thing: you don’t get to go to B&Q and get this sort of conversation. Don’t just cultivate your garden, but your local suppliers too, wherever possible.

Back at the ranch, The Other Half removed the infected parts and then dripped wax over the fresh-cut wood, as a hint of sleet filled the air.

Hopefully, that will do the job.

Not that it was all that needed doing this morning. I’d dug more of the compost in yesterday, finally seeing something that looks like a much more mixed, lighter soil.

But while I’d been doing that, I’d noticed just how many weeds were showing their faces in the rest of the patch that is marked out for communal decking.

If I don’t do anything, they’ll be in my bit before you can say Charlie Dimmock.

Once I was out there with the Dutch hoe, in community-minded mode, I gave Michael’s bare bed a few minutes of attention too, as there were weeds sprouting where he’d cleared away another dying bush, ready to take flowers this year.

So far this year, I’m the only one doing any actual gardening, but I suspect that won’t last, once the weather is a little more consistently warmer and brighter. If …

After that, my hands – even having worn gloves – were frozen. The wind was biting.

And so to the remains of yesterday’s Westmorland farmhouse pie – topped with freshly-rolled pastry from the leftover dough.

Perfect fodder for such a day.

One of the joys of having cupboards that seem to be bursting at the seams is that on the sort of day when it’s cold and grim outside, and you suddenly fancy a cake, it’s not usually too difficult to find enough ingredients in the kitchen.

Having spent such a busy morning, I fancied dipping once more into Recipes of Lakeland as the day got progressively colder and greyer.

There are cakes and fruit breads and biscuits galore in its pages – the only shame being that all those readers who contributed recipes are not themselves credited.

Not very elegant, but plenty of taste.

In his thoroughly enjoyable Eating for England, Nigel Slater notes the extraordinary regional variety of such cakes and observes that, although English cakes lack the elegance and finesse of a Madeleine, they have “a certain wobbly charm to them” and a “lick-your-fingers stickiness”.

Dalton gingerbread seemed likely to fall into exactly that category.

Three cups plain flour,” says the recipe, to be rubbed into “¼lb lard”. This is the juncture at which I admit southern jessiedom.

Much as I have learned, in the last couple of years, to love lard – and dripping – using it in a cake is a step too far. So, butter instead.

And to translate everything into modern money, that’s 450g plain flour and 225g butter.

Once you’ve beaten those together – in a mixer in my case: all the bodybuilding of my younger years still hasn’t equipped me with a country housewife’s forearms – before adding 150g sugar (I used a soft demerara) a pinch of salt, two teaspoons of ground ginger and last, one and a half teaspoons of baking powder.

Into that, mix 150g of melted dark treacle: for some reason or other, lost in the mists of time, there was a jar of organic stuff in the cupboard, unopened.

Then, dissolve a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda into 150g of boiling water – and stir that into the mixture.

Decant everything into “a deep roasting tin” and bake in a moderate oven for half an hour.

The tin in my case was my largest enamel pie dish, buttered. The oven was set at 150˚C (fan).

I tested with a skewer after 30 minutes – and gave it another 10.

This is not a thing of beauty. It is not elegant. It lacks any finesse; although it came clean away from the dish easily, it crumbles even more easily.

But it is crisp on the outside, squidgy and sticky inside; dense and rich and yet not heavy; gloriously aromatic and, tasted together with a bit of Stilton (Lancashire or Cheshire would also work well) it is a thing of warming, comforting pleasure.

Comfort essential as winter returns

After the joyous hints of spring last weekend, the days since have descended further and further into grey chilliness, and the weekend dawned not only with a numbingly cold wind, but with a trickle of snow that, while it was never going to stick, seemed set on reminding us that winter is not gone yet.

Broadway Market was no warmer and by the time I turned the key in the door, four bags bursting with food, my hands were frozen, in spite of the gloves.

It was a day for comfort food – and what could be more comforting than belly pork?

It’s not a cut I’ve cooked often, and to be honest, I couldn’t think in what book on the shelf I’d find a recipe, so after deciding that this would be perfect, I hit the internet.

To be specific, I searched for the following words: ‘Belly pork Nigel Slater’, because such a search will frequently throw up quality results.

Indeed, one of the first things that came up was an Observer column by Slater with five different recipes for my desired cut.

And there, indeed, was the one that sounded perfect.

This is precisely why I spend time writing out menus and planning a shopping list instead of simply ‘going to market’. In this case, it meant that I could ask Matthew to bone me around a kilo of pork belly, and score the skin.

That done, it was relatively easy to stuff it with a mixture of sausage meat, chopped apple (a Cox for sharpness) and some small sage leaves – Slater says leaving them whole infuses the stuffing without taking it over.

My tying up is far from perfect, but sticking with four shorter pieces of sting instead of attempting to mimic the pros with one lengthy one ensured that it held together for the cooking. Which is, after all, the main point.

Once the skin has been seasoned, you’re ready to go.

The oven was heated to 180˚C (fan) and a little lard melted in the roasting tin.

The pork then got 20 minutes before the temperature was reduced to 170˚C (fan) and it was left for a further 40-50 minutes – you can check that the juices are clear.

In the event, my fan oven never being predictable but often seeming slow, it had five minutes or so beyond that latter point.

Surprisingly, it had produced relatively little fat – Slater says to expect quite a lot. But this isn’t a problem. There was no shortage of meaty goodness left once the meat itself had been moved to a warm place to rest.

On the hob, it was given a good glug of cider and the bits were scraped off the tin and reduced to provide a tasty gravy.

Served with small pillows of mash and rather larger heaps of cavolo nero, this was very tasty and very comforting indeed.

Now I’m not much on desserts, but somehow the weather was demanding afters, so I’d decided to try something that I’d only attempted once before, and that with inedible results: a rice pudding.

By way of explanation, that attempt had been from a Michel Roux recipe, whereby the individual puddings – cardamom-scented – were baked in the oven.

Rice pudding is not high on the menu of my childhood memories: certainly not at home, anyway.

It was one of those school dinner desserts of folkloric magnitude, along with sago and semolina, all of which came served with a dollop of red jam, which was most definitely not to be swirled in too much lest the observing teachers tick you off.

In Slater’s Real Fast Puddings, there is a recipe for a 20-minute version. It looked easy and ideal.

I had pudding rice in from last year’s ill-starred effort, plus vanilla essence, and simply made sure I bought quality milk and cream.

The milk, cream, vanilla, rice and a little water all go into a heavy-based pan and are brought to the boil.

The heat is turned down so that the mix is, as Slater describes it, bubbling gently, just as you’d do with a risotto.

After 20 minutes or so, when the rice is cooked but still has some texture, add a small amount of butter and then some caster sugar.

Once the sugar has melted, you’re ready to go.

It was, in this case, served with a small dollop of raspberry jam – the French sort, with no added sugar and plenty of real fruity taste and and a touch of tartness.

And after all these years, I could finally see what the fuss is about.

It's also worth adding that the whole meal was a testament to the qualities of traditional British food – to forget that quality is our loss.

In the preceding days, as the temperature had dropped, I’d ‘discovered’ the Slater pudding book while looking for crumble recipes.

If ever you wanted a quick illustration of just how variable much in the culinary world can be, then crumble is it.

In her Complete Cookery Course, St Delia of Norwich, on whom I swear for basics, sets down a crumble topping thus: for four portions, 225g flour, 75g butter and 75-110g sugar, depending on taste.

And this is what I have used for some years (with the minimum sugar), on the rare occasions I make a crumble.

Yet the venerable Mr Slater gives it as 175g flour, 175g butter and 100g caster sugar (also for four).

And a spot of internet research produces further variations on the proportions of these core ingredients – without getting into the addition of oats or ground almonds or whatever.

We stay as straightforward as possible here – I have an Other Half to feed. But Delia’s version seems a tad floury to my mind, which was why I was looking elsewhere.

I decided to try Slater’s version. Well, until I’d tried to be clever by measuring flour and sugar into the scales at the same time, only to realise that I’d tipped in equal proportions of both.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to consider trying to separate the two – and I’m loathe to waste perfectly good ingredients – so after a facepalm moment, I shrugged, decided that it wasn’t going to make a staggering amount of difference, and weighed out the same amount of butter.

For just the two of us, it would be a ridiculously small amount to mix, but it keeps perfectly well, in a cling film-covered bowl in the fridge, so you can use it over a few days.

First time out, I used rhubarb with some thinly-sliced stem ginger, an experiment that didn’t entirely work. The taste combination is fine, but good ground ginger would be better.

And with rhubarb in particular, you really do only need a very small amount of water to start the process.

That’s less the case with apple – which featured the following day. A nicely-sized Bramley cooked with a little brown sugar, water and ground ginger until caramelisation was nearing.

It was still good a chunky when decanted into the small dishes I use to make individual crumbles, but perfectly cooked by the time it was served, with a dollop of clotted cream.

For the actual cooking, Slater’s suggested 170˚C (fan), rising to 180˚C over half an hour, works well and aids crunchiness and the pleasure of having the fruit bubble to the surface, volcano-like, by the time it’s ready to serve.

And so to the topping. Well, in the event, it worked just fine: indeed, it avoided the flouriness that I wasn’t entirely happy with in Delia’s version.

I will try Slater’s proportions, but the entire episode was a perfect illustration of how an absence of basic knowledge can lead us to treat recipes as having a godlike status that brooks no alteration or adjustment, when that’s precisely (so to speak) the sort of freedom that time in the kitchen should involve.

Farewell Ratzi and thanks for all the bigotry

Thomas Mann – damned by the Pope.

Isn’t identity a funny thing? Okay, let me try to be clearer: isn’t how we choose to identify ourselves a funny thing – what labels we decide fit us; what tribes we decide we belong to?

To be honest, I’m not personally a big fan of identity politics – or, indeed, of labels in general. So often it seems simply to point up what divides us rather than what unites us.

So it was not uppermost in my mind to consider penning something around February being LGBT History Month.

But then something happened that made me change my mind.

The Pope decided to retire.

That’s right: because Joseph Ratzinger has called it a day, I decided to pick up the LGBT baton for a post.

Many of us might prefer that no religious leader have any meaningful power in the 21^st century world, but whether we like it or not, that is not the case, and the office of pope still commands a great deal of clout and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Before his own elevation, Ratzinger had previously been grand inquisitor for John Paul II: when Karol Wojtyła was getting a tad past it, it was undoubtedly Ratzi who was really pulling the strings, so he’s had power for rather longer than simply his ascension to the top job in 2005.

Now, number one point to make: beating Ratzinger up because he was a member of the Hitler Youth is just plain daft. You don’t have a to be a fascist sympathiser to comprehend that children, at that time, would have had little safe choice in the matter.

So that isn’t going to be this blog’s complaint.

The problem with Ratzinger is that he has used his office to push lines that are sexist and homophobic.

Clare Balding – damned by the Pope.

His rhetoric about how those dodgy gays will essentially kill off civilisation cannot simply be taken as the rantings of an elderly person – not least because he/the office has the authority mentioned earlier.

And whether the Pope realised or intended it or not, his pronouncements have lent a veneer of legitimacy to those who would discriminate against LGBT people – and even do violence toward them.

His stand against contraception in general – and, in particular, the use of condoms as a method of safe sex – has been detrimental to the fights against poverty and against HIV/Aids.

He would rather a married couple produce far more brats than they can care for than that they use contraception. He wants every act of sexual intimacy to be heterosexual, monogamous, married and with getting the bird up the duff in mind.

He would rather that people died of Aids-related conditions than that they use condoms.

This is also an individual who has played a role in the protection of child abusers by his organisation.

Jodie Foster – damned by the Pope.

But then again, this he has also headed an organisation that believes that the victim of rape, even if a nine-year-old child, should not be allowed an abortion if made pregnant by her abuser.

It is an organisation that does not value women, but would rather a woman die than have the abortion that could save her life. The realised human being is worth less, in Catholic orthodoxy, than the potential of her producing a (male) child.

These are the attitudes that Herr Ratzinger has chosen to uphold in the name of a belief in something for which there is not a solitary shred of evidence.

Thus his faith cannot be viewed as somehow ‘cute’ or ‘quirky’, but for what it is: a stick with which to beat many, many other human beings whose lives and whose intrinsic being is different to what he wants it to be.

Let's also be quite clear: there really is not much difference between the likes of Ratzinger and the likes of the Taliban: and yet we (rightly) condemn one, but allow the other great respect and clout.

There’s something very wrong with that; very wrong indeed.

Oscar Wilde – damned by the Pope.

And it is worth noting that it is far from certain that the cardinals will elect a new pontiff with more 'liberal' credentials. Ratzinger is not the first 'traditionalist' to occupy the role of pope, and he is highly unlikely to be the last. In other words, his reactionary attitudes are far from unique.

I hope that Ratzinger has a peaceful retirement. There would be something rather pointless and sad about wishing him, as an individual, ill. But he is most certainly NOT some sort of saint. And the organisation that he has spent a lifetime promoting and defending is, frankly, immoral and corrupt and well past its sell-by date.

Now, since I have mentioned LGBT History Month, let's be a little more positive. Here are a few of my own household gods – who just happen to be or have been part of the community of which I myself am also a member. They're not my only "household gods", and they are not "household gods" because of their sexuality, although it is not hindered by the sense of connection that flows from that.

And perhaps, in that, I have just countered my own arguments against identity politics.

Remember: every one of these extraordinary people would be damned by the man who is just about to retire, and by his organisation. And yet he and it would almost certainly applaud Tony Blair.

Alan Turning – damned by the Pope.

Alan Turing – massively instrumental in the defeat of fascism and in the development of modern computer science, but effectively driven to his death afterwards simply because he was gay.

Thomas Mann – one of the greatest authors ever; a principled and humane giant.

Virginia Woolf – wonderful, wonderful writer, and hugely innovative. If you haven't done so already, do read Mrs Dalloway.

Quentin Crisp – England’s real queen.

Oscar Wilde – greatest wit ever? And yet one of my favourite quotes of all time is more poignant than Wilde’s reputation would lead one to expect: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”.

Stephen Sondheim – what a god of the musical theatre. Forget Andrew Lloyd Whatever He's Called.

The Pope.

Clare Balding – breaks down barriers all over the place, not least by being a ‘posh bird’ introducing Rugby League for the BBC. In line for national treasure status – and it will be utterly deserved.

Alan Bennett – just a wonderful writer; such a great ability to understand human beings and the smallnesses of their lives.

Nigel Slater – quite simply the best food writer that this country has produced since Elizabeth David. Nobody else, currently writing, has anything close to his sense of food and time and place and memory.

Jodie Foster – a wonderful screen actor, and has managed an amazing career without getting caught into all the crass celeb gossip etc.

Gore Vidal – oh how we miss him; an intellectual giant and iconoclast.

The sound of Christmas

Bogart. Pencil sketch.

Everyone has memories that are linked to times of year; to occasions; to places. Christmas and New Year are hardly unique, but they’re always going to feature highly on any such personal list.

For Nigel Slater, many such memories are inextricably bound up with food – and that includes his festive ones. His memoir of his early life, Toast, is well worth reading.

But while I have memories of Christmases past, food has never been the main part of those – not least, I suspect, because of a strong memory of my mother, sister and me sitting around, waiting for my father to return from taking morning services before we could begin the big festive meal, the crackle of unspoken tension alive in the air.

And turkey was never a favourite meat anyway: bland and less than moist. My mother's stuffing balls – she never actually stuffed the bird – and the sausages were always welcome, perhaps especially when cold, and particularly when accompanying cold turkey sandwiches on Christmas night.

Ah yes: Christmas night in front of the telly, watching the late-night BBC2 classic movie after my sister had gone to bed.

Sometimes you don’t even need things to have been replicated often for them to be linked and lodged in your head.

The sandwiches – brown meat, well salted – were traditional, but I remember just one specific such film, and thus it has become a norm for those times.

It was The Big Sleep; 1946, Bogart and Bacall setting the screen alight with their chemistry. The plot a mystery, but who ever cared?

Films were a vital part of my life; welcome escapism. There would be Saturday evening westerns after Grandstand had finished; an event that made sure my first heroes were not pop stars, but the likes of Jimmy Stewart and, most of all, John Wayne.

But then came that Christmas night and, at something like 13 or 14, a sudden burst of growing up. Wayne became a thing of the past – Bogart, a Christmas Day birthday boy himself, usurping utterly more simplistic tastes.

It was not without ramifications. Destined (according to teachers and, therefore, parents alike) to be a graphic artist, pencils were turned to conveying this new, noir passion. It continued unabated and fed into my O level work.

But that wasn’t the only Christmas Day film that had a lasting influence.

Pick a Pocket or Two – or just skip lunch.

Around much the same time, the BBC screened Oliver! for the first time one Christmas afternoon.

I have no memory of the rest of the family sitting down to watch. They might have. They might not. But memory is an odd beast, and mine is of seeing it in a sort of vacuum of personal delight.

A few years earlier, there had been an attempt to have me learn to play the piano. My mother’s parents had given us one and, when I was considered old enough, one of my father’s church organists was given the task of teaching me.

It was tedious: he lacked any inspirational qualities and I lacked any interest.

By the time the attempt withered, I had learned little more than to recognise middle C on both page and instrument.

But from nowhere came the desire to play. I saved school lunch money for a week or so, pretending I’d eaten but going without, and bought the film score instead.

At home, perched on the long bench, padded, and covered in shining emerald green fabric, the lid raised as neglected ivories itched to be tinkled, I started picking out the tunes.

It drove everyone mad. After such a previous lack of enthusiasm, now I’d happily play away for hours. Not smoothly or flowingly; but I worked at it and learned some of the pieces.

And later, I bought more sheet music. Inevitably, more show scores, although I made attempts – slow and error-strewn – at Beethoven and Chopin.

Many years later, reviewing for the Morning Star, the National Youth Theatre staged Blitz!, another Lionel Bart show. The rest of the media, which never before bothered to review these ‘amateur’ productions, feigned interest – amazed that Bart was even still alive.

Could they have an interview? No, he was not a well man. But 12 months on, when the group staged Maggie May, National Youth Theatre artistic director Ed Wilson, to whom I had told the story of my pianistic endeavours, invited me to the announcement of the new season, and engineered a meeting with the man himself.

“Tell him the same story,” said Ed, “and you’ll have him eating out of your hands”.

It was the final interview Bart ever gave. And setting aside any cynical hackery, I stood transfixed, starstruck even, as, lost in own memories, he regaled me with stories of how, on the opening night of Maggie May, he’d attended the premiere with Judy Garland on his arm.

Judy Garland: oh my.

'I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.'

The Wizard of Oz was never a Christmas film for me, but it came to have a Christmas connotation. One of the earliest films I’d been taken to see at the cinema on a re-release, I’d been terrified by the witch.

At 12 or 13, I played the Munchkin mayor in a school production. Some six or seven years later, I was unexpectedly playing the witch in a production at the Grand Theatre, Lancaster.

I say “unexpectedly”, because there were plenty more senior actors around who could have expected to win the role, and anyway, I’d auditioned for Gloria, on the basis of a combination of age and singing voice.

But I’d been asked to read the witch during auditions for the part of Gilda, the good witch – and had had enough of a ball that I’d been given the part.

A week in December, with matinees – a week to remember, seeing small children slither up the backs of their seats at the front of the stage, scared, but unable to take their bloggling eyes off what was happening under the bright lights as I – as the witch – slowly descended the stairs over the pit and into the stalls.

Oh, such power!

Weeks after, I was with my mother in a shop in Lancaster when a small boy suddenly yelled: ‘It’s her! It’s the witch!’ And that was without the make-up.

But that’s not the only Judy Garland connection in my Christmas memory bank.

Years later, I was helping my mother decorate the house one Christmas Eve (it’s always a last-minute matter) and we had the television on to accompany us. It was Meet Me in St Louis.

My father, late home from a service or a meeting, came into the room, stopped and stared at the TV long and hard, eyes narrowed in intense concentration.

Yes Dad: it's Judy.

Eventually, he said: “It’s The Wizard of Oz.” Well, at least he’d recognised Judy.

But going back to those earlier Christmases, the bumper issue of the Radio Times would have been scoured several times over before any of the programmes aired, just to pick out what films I might hope to see and makes a note of them.

And this was in simpler times, remember, when there were only listings for three channels.

Films, films and more films: I was in love with the Golden Age of Hollywood. Later, the magazine would be plundered for my scrapbooks, carefully-snipped stills joining cast lists and comments of my own.

The Radio Times Christmas edition has continued to be a part of my personal festive season, though to be honest, there seems little more on that I want to watch than there was in the 1970s.

Yesterday, scouring it once again for something to watch on a grim, rain-sodden afternoon, I could find nothing.

Rainy entertainment for a rainy day.

But a thought occurred. On the shelf was a copy of the 60^th anniversary BluRay of Singin’ in the Rain. What could be better?

It’s easy to imagine that technological advancement takes us further and further away from the past. That, after all, is partly what this Gene Kelly classic is all about.

But fully restored and on a format that allows the full glory of the original design and cinematography to be enjoyed once more, it snapped into life.

Kelly himself, utterly brilliant – what a dancer; Debbie Reynolds in delightful girl-next-door-becomes-a-star mode and Donald O’Connor showing fabulous slapstick skills – oh, it was as much a joy as ever.

So that’s my Christmas rediscovered: old movies. Classic Hollywood. Glitz and glamour and escapism, and yes, a little sentiment too. Although I draw the line at the schmaltz assault of A Wonderful Life.

I could stand in front of a little bookshop in Lancaster, waiting for the bus home after school, and put names to all the faces on the covers of large studio histories, then linking them according to who had appeared with whom on film.

I never sat down and learned such things; they just stayed put once imbibed.

So what’s up next? Well, it just has to be the BluRay copy of The Wizard of Oz. It too has been on the shelf for some time. This is clearly the moment it’s been waiting for.