Perfect fodder for a chap from Bath?

It was not without a certain amount of surprise that, on Thursday afternoon after work, venturing into Waitrose for some fodder, I discovered a “forgotten” cut of meat at the butcher’s counter.

In this case, it was pig cheeks – and it was cheap as chips. With little idea of what I would do with it, I bought some: five came in at 82p. That’s right – just 82p (approximately 500g).

The young man serving me looked astonished when he weighed them out. I was merely chuffed and rather excited.

A browse on the internet revealed that there is a consensus that this gloriously marbled cut needs a long, slow cook. I was suitably pleased, since I’d been musing that that would probably be the case.

Further exploration suggested – from (unsurprisingly) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – cooking it in cider.

That seemed like an eminently sound idea. So at that point I stopped looking at recipes and simply took that as my foundation.

As regular readers will know, that in itself is one of those massively pleasing things: when you reach a stage of kitchen confidence that you can glance at an idea and then toddle off, without having to measure and weigh and check the instructions every other minute or so.

I dredged the meat in plain flour and then browned it in olive oil.

Removed to a plate, a generous amount of chopped onion, celery and carrot went into the pan to be softened.

From there, organic cider was added and the pan scraped to deglaze. Some of my chicken stock – defrosted – went in too as the sauce thickened.

The meat was popped back in, along with a couple of bay leaves, a sprig of rosemary and two sprigs of fennel – the result of a brief exercise of standing in the garden and going: ‘what herbs shall I add?’ – and then the lid went on and it was left for around three hours on a low heat, with just the occasional stir.

About an hour out, I tossed in a diced cooking apple for good measure.

Then, much nearer the end, a good dollop of Dijon mustard was added, followed by an equally generous dollop of crème fraiche.

And that was that.

Served with puréed potato, the cheeks were beautifully tender and very tasty, while the sauce was a lovely combination of subtle flavours.

It was hardly difficult – but it is difficult to imagine anyone complaining at the price.

In one sense, you can see why the supermarkets don’t often like such cuts – why they have been ‘forgotten’, as Waitrose put it: they won’t pull in a fortune.

But if it’s there after you’ve taken the vastly more profitable prime cuts, then why on earth not make it available too?

Yet for all this apparent common sense, like so many other cuts, this has been largely forgotten. How many people would even know that the colloquial term for pig cheeks is ‘Bath chaps’? I’d heard the name, but had to be reminded.

One thing is certain, though: whatever you call them, I’ll certainly be looking out for this delicious cut again.

Art – with a capital A

One of the joys of visiting new places is the chance to visit museums and see art you’ve never seen before – or at least not outside the pages of a book.

Brugge was never going to be an exception to that after I’d read about the city’s Groeningemuseum. Small perhaps, but holding a very important collection of paintings by some of the Flemish Primitives, it went straight onto the list of ‘absolutely must visit’.

From a personal perspective, it’s an interest that goes back to my teens, when I was studying for an art A level.

At the time, we lived miles from any major galleries or museums, and I don’t recall ever visiting anywhere on holiday that was any better blessed.

Like music, art was a love that developed independently of my home life. My parents had accepted, since childhood, that I was good at drawing. So when teachers at my first grammar school asserted that I had the ability to go on and make art a career, they seemed entirely accepting of that.

I should point out that the path laid down for me was not really Art with a capital A – the bohemian, shivering-in-a-garret and painting naked people while swilling absinthe sort of thing.

It was always going to be rendered at least vaguely respectable by the insertion of commerce into the equation. In other words, I was being set on a path to becoming a graphic artist.

Much as I loved drawing, by the time we arrived at the point of laying down the academic foundations for my career, I had concluded that graphic art was not for me.

I felt, with a predictably overstated sense of teenage melodrama, that I the soul of a fine artist but none of the ability to do more than copy faithfully what was directly in front of me.

Yet a capacity that I derided in myself (and at one stage, several of my still life drawings hung around the school) was central to why I fell in love with Jan van Eyck (c1395-c1441) the moment we were introduced to The Arnolfini Wedding.

It was, I rapidly surmised, medieval super-realism.

Until a couple of years ago, I’d seen precious little by the Flemish Primitives apart from that particularly famous work of van Eyck’s, which hangs in London’s National gallery, and which I’ve visited more than once.

But then, wandering around the less popular parts of the Louvre one day – in other words, the galleries furthest removed physically from some painting of a woman by some Italian dauber – I found myself gazing at van Eyck’s Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (1435), along with works by the likes of Hans Memling (1430-1494), a German who moved to Flanders, and Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464), whose names I’d last been aware of in those art history classes.

So the Groeningemuseum was always going to be a treat.

And indeed, there were three paintings by van Eyck, who had lived and worked in Brugge (and has a square named after him there, with a statue in it. And a Jan van Eyck cafe).

His Portrait of Christ (1440) struck me as strikingly reminiscent of German painter Albrecht Dürer’s Christ-like self portrait of 1500 – a harbinger of Lutheran ideas of a personal Christ, perhaps?

Van Eyck's messiah is no blond, blue-eyed character. German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder pictured Christ with dark hair in his 1510 painting, Christ Crowned with Thorns. Similarly, the crucifixion element of German artist Matthais Grünewald's 1515 Isenheim alterpiece does not depict a blond Jesus.

The image that has become so dominant in Western representations of Jesus seems to have emerged later.

But back to van Eyck. The portrait of his wife, Margareta van Eyck (1439), is wonderful, as is the far larger Madonna with Canon van der Paele (1436), which also includes a St George figure, thus allowing van Eyck to show off just how well he could paint metal.

So you have a mix of the secular and the religious – and, of course, the place where those meet when living, wealthy patrons want themselves painted into religious scenes.

There are two really important things about van Eyck and all the Flemish Primitives: first, they revolutionised painting by adding oil instead of egg yolk to their colours.

The results have retained a fabulous vibrancy and depth of colour.

And second, their ability to capture the detail of rich, complex textures, particularly on fabric, was just stunning. You know what fabrics are velvet, for instance, because you can see that it’s velvet. You could almost expect that, were you to touch the painting, it would feel like velvet too.

All of which is why the term ‘primitives’ in this case seems utterly absurd.

The Memling and van der Weyden paintings that hang in the Groeningemuseum are also magnificent.

In terms of the former, I was particularly taken by his sepia-toned doors to the Triptych of the Family Moreel (1484), including one of St George slaying the dragon (left).

Death of the Virgin (c1472-80) by Hugo van der Goes (c1440-1482) was also worth seeing.

A subject that was popular at one time, it went out of fashion as the doctrine of the assumption took hold. The last major Catholic depiction of Mary's death was by Caravaggio in 1606.

And there is no shortage of representations of a rather different religious scene.

The most extraordinary must be The Last Judgment (1450-1516) by Hieronymous Bosch (c1450-1516) – the first time I’ve seen a Bosch in ‘the flesh’, so to speak.

And it’s far smaller than you expect it to be, given the amount of detail that he packed in.

Fascinatingly, there are Bosch-like figures and ideas in the 1555 Last Judgment by Jan Provoost (1462-1929) – no cribbing, obviously – which also shows the Pope as one of those on the way to hell (left).

That, together with the 1551 Last Judgment by Pieter Pourbus (1523–1584), used to hang in the Brugge Stadhuis, where it was intended to inspire those making and deploying law to do so well.

And what’s also clear in both these paintings is how ordinary people are portrayed much more naturalistically than the religious figures; you go from looking at the highly stylised to the recognisably real.

There are moments of humour too – albeit unintended. The Master of the Darmstadt Passion, whose Christ Carrying the Cross and Crucifixion was painted in 1450, may have been fortunate in his anonymity.

Frankly, his thief walking to execution is rolling his eyes in such a way that it brings to mind Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the character wondering whether his brother will arrive in time to get him down from the cross this time around.

It doesn’t half make you realise the quality of some of the other artists there.

And that, in a sort of how-do-you-measure-happiness way, it’s good to see some rather poorer art as well, so you don’t start needing to worry that your judgment is shot the moment merely by the simple act of walking through a gallery door.

• In a sort of alphabetical blogging triptych, the B and C of Belgian art forms will follow in the coming days: beer and chocolate.

It's not just about the chips

Flemish food is perhaps not one of the world’s great cuisines, but that’s not to say that there isn’t much to enjoy and appreciate.

Setting aside chocolate – and don’t worry, we’ll discuss that at length in a coming post – there’s plenty left. For instance, there are waffles – indeed, and you can even get a waffle on a stick in Brugge.

But for somewhat more substantial food, there’s nowhere better to start than Vlaamse Stoverij – or Flamande carbonade as it’s perhaps better known (which does also tie in with the language issue). For the sake of this blog, though, let’s stick with the Flemish where possible.

But whatever you call it, this hearty stew of beef, slow, slow cooked in beer, is a classic – even if many people think of it as a northern French dish.

I had some on night two (pictured above), when we’d discovered that all of the restaurants we’d been considering were closed for the May Day holiday, and had had to resort to the same place as the night before.

The pieces of beef seemed huge and, personally, it hadn’t been cooked as long as I’d have liked. But while the meat didn’t flake at the merest hint of a touch, the sauce was enjoyably sweet.

Away from such meatiness, seafood holds a strong position in Flemish food – certainly in Brugge, anyway.

The stone fish market – a 19th-century creation, so a newcomer in Brugge terms – still hosts three fish stalls for several days every week.

There are vast, square trays of crayfish and shrimps cooking as people wait to be served from a pleasingly wide variety of fish. Spider crab is popular too, along with skate.

It’s a selection of fish that is familiar to British diners – and after all, the Belgians fish in pretty much the same seas. But the selection that seems readily available (and a shop a few doors from our hotel also bore witness to this) is larger than what we are generally able to buy in supermarkets.

Setting aside the obviously touristy ‘moules et frites’ on restaurant menus, it’s clear that shrimps and small sole – ‘sliptong’ in Flemish – are massively popular.

If ‘sliptong’ was a fun new word, it had nothing on my favourite linguistic discovery of the week.

‘Slagroom’ has nothing to do with slags of any variety; it’s the Flemish for whipped cream, which they employ copious amounts of, including in cups of cappuccino – you have to order an ‘Italian-style’ one if you don’t want the cream.

But for someone who enjoys the odd Carry On film, such words are irresistible.

We both tried eel (‘paling’ in Flemish, if you’re interested).

It was roasted simply in the lunch I had while sitting outside the Café Jan van Eyck in Jan van Eyckplein, and served with a spinach purée as a sauce in The Other Half’s while lunching near the brewery.

The eel has a mild flavour and firm flesh – I can’t understand why Brits have managed to make it into a rather slimy dish with jellied eel. It’s at its best, in my opinion, when smoked, but this was well worth a try.

The meal on our third night was the best. While my duck was good and my Belgian cheese platter interesting, the best course of all was the starter.

It arrived as a mound of salad: grated carrot, green asparagus, leaves and other strings of root veg that I couldn’t make out – it couldn’t have been celeriac, surely, as that would have discoloured too quickly?

But buried beneath were two rolls of very gently smoked salmon, filled with flaked crab, shrimps and a little dill. And all topped with only a minimal, light dressing.


It sounds so simple – and was so light and refreshing. And as I ate, it was with a feeling of spring greenness.


Indeed, there was a pervasive sense of seasonality.


The Belgians – like the Germans – celebrate the arrival of asparagus, using both green and white. And most menus that we saw listed at least a couple of dishes built around spargel.

In the more touristy cafes, the Flemish seem particularly fond of serving a sort of mustard cress, piled high as a substantial garnish; crisp little leaves and a big, peppery taste. Even these were always fresh and always enjoyable.

One of the other things that Belgium is famous for is chips – or fritjes. Much thinner than our chips and served with a variety of dressings – most traditionally, mayonnaise – they’re available everywhere and come with everything.

Our first chance to sample came late on Monday afternoon as we took our first amble around the streets, and realised that we had eaten little that day. So we bought a tray each of fritjes.

They were, unfortunately, very crisp – which was far from easy for me.

The bowl served with our meals that evening was far better. But by the end of our second day I was, frankly, all chipped out.

On our final evening, we ended up in a French-influenced fish restaurant, where I picked the turbot on the basis that it’s not something I’ve tried often.

A light vegetable broth preceded started our meal – and delightful and refreshing it was – and then came the fish.

It arrived as two pieces of fillet, surrounded by generous portions of a lobster bisque and hollandaise, with a panade of crab, plus spinach purée, deep-fried leek and goodness knows what else.

The sauces worked well together – a big, hefty dose of rich, savoury sweetness. But then you sit back and you think: ‘what’s the point of having turbot if the subtly of the taste is swamped?’

It was a very old style of French cooking: if not quite after Escoffier himself, then certainly predating the creation of nouvelle cuisine – and absolute evidence of what the likes of Paul Bocuse were turning their backs on when they launched that culinary movement.

It was a dish that showed just how much tastes have evolved: I found myself longing for the salmon rolls of the previous night, piled high with salad and with only the barest amount of dressing.

And as one always brings someone home from any trip, I came away wanting to eat more salad and most certainly more leaves.

And to taste again that sense of the green, of the pastoral, that has hung around in my mind since the first forkful.

Across Flanders fields to a most Catholic city

The most Catholic city in the most Catholic country in Europe. That's one description of Brugge.

And even the shortest of ambles around this extraordinary place is enough to see the importance of Catholicism.


Oh, it may not be as obvious as in the number of churches, but it's there in other ways.


There are, for instance, more little Marian shrines on buildings than I have seen anywhere else, be that in rural Ireland or in Venice.


And they're not simply signs of the past, adorning only the city's older buildings, but there are plenty of new ones too.


It's there too in the church-run alms houses that sprang up to deal with the poverty that rose when the city's fortunes declined as its sea route silted up, and in its remaining beguinage – where unmarried or widowed women could adopt a life of religious devotion without actually taking full vows.


But then again, the history of the region is such that religion is perhaps one of the few things that unites this country.


Belgium is only a century and a half old. So much of it's identity is in its religion. Language has long been – and remains – a dividing factor, with those in the Dutch-speaking north feeling as though there is still not cultural and linguistic equality.


Indeed, only in very recent years has Dutch been given equal legal status with French. And, as an elderly man told me – while I was innocently trying to buy a Steiff cat – the Belgian royal family have only just started managing to speak the odd word of Flemish (Dutch).


But far from its religiosity having turned it into a pleasure free zone, Brugge has much to offer the more sensually-inclined visitor. There's beer, for starters. And chocolate. And how much else can anyone ask for? Okay, okay - but let's not go down that route just now.


Trade made Brugge great – the high point was from 1200 to 1400. And if those dates don't don't make you gulp a tad, then some of the buildings will. Enjoying a revival – partly courtesy of EU funding, tourism and the UNESCO recognition that has put it on tick-box lists for every coach party to hit Europe – this tiny city is a real step back in time.


That's not to fall for the 'living museum' baloney, though. It's a living city, and while tourism may be massively important, it's not the be all and end all.


Yet when you walk into the Burg – a small square, first mentioned in documents in the 9th century – and see the medieval Stadhuis (left), in all its flamboyant gothic glory, your jaw is only going in one direction.


You are walking in the footsteps of millions before. And those millions include the likes of great Flemish artists such as Bruegal and van Eyck and Memling, who will have seen this scene you now see.


It is history and time concertinaed in a way that is as freakish as it is exhilarating. Because while we in the UK might all have seen the occasional old building – and the occasional ancient ruin – there is something quite different about seeing whole streets and squares that have barely changed in centuries.


This is not to suggest that the city of Brugge has stuck itself in formaldehyde. It is not a theme park. It is not a museum. Indeed, perhaps rather unexpectedly, modern buildings are present, but the architecture reveals a great sensitivity to the surrounding history. Not subservience or crass pastiche, but sensitivity.


On Tuesday, we turned right out of our central hotel and, within a few metres, had found ourselves transported to working-class Brugge. In this case, since it was the morning of 1 May, there were trades unionists gathering outside bars for an early drink, before setting out on their march.


A brass band was with them. It was a scene that could have come straight out of northern England. And later, as we stood at the edge of the inner city, beneath on the peripheral windmills, we watched a further group of trades unionists, with their own band, marching to join the ones we'd left refreshing themselves.


And walking in the middle of this scene that could have come pretty much straight out of Brassed Off was a priest in his vestments – a reminder that in parts of the continent, there are Catholic trades unions associations.


There is plenty of other history here. Traveling through the Flanders countryside after rain had left swamp conditions everywhere, one couldn't help but wonder who had ever had the bright idea of fighting a war in such terrain.


The scenery around is something so instantly recognisable: grass, water, cows and pollarded trees – you know it because you've seen it in Flemish paintings from centuries ago.


But the thought of less pastoral events brought to mind the hellish visions of Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch.


In the meantime, one of our guides around the city was George William Thomson Omond, a Scottish advocate and history writer, whose Bruges and West Flanders from 1906 had been downloaded onto his iPad by The Other Half and was quoted at some length during our stay.


Omond had no obvious qualifications as an historian – one of the most interesting aspects of his work was that it was less a history and more a travelogue: indeed, you could see it as the precursor to the blogging of our own times.


But it added an extra flavour to the trip – and perhaps there is little more that any author could ask?


We heard bells peel from all around us and at many times every day.


Walking past an old alms house, an elderly, wrinkled face looked out blankly – another reminder of the impolite art of Bosch and others, revealing a reality that was hardly pastoral.


The buildings ranged in age and, on occasion, the sheer mass of step gables made you feel as though you'd been shrunk down to take on the status of an extra in Legoland.


Brugge is many things – not least, the real background for many great painters of the Northern Renaissance – it is steeped in far more history. And even a slight bit of digging quickly repays the effort required to get beneath the skin of tourist guide platitudes.


And perhaps most obvious of all is the realisation that the medieval magnificence that you can find defy notions of uncivilised times. The jaw-dropping Stadhuis alone is worth the visit.

Soup and salt cod

With Belgium hoving into view on the horizon, there was little shopping to do on Broadway Market this morning.

But while I’m looking forward to visiting another northern European country for the first time, there are still a couple of days to go before we head to the land of chocolate, beer and chips with mayonnaise.

Two pieces of cod fillet had been salting for a couple of weeks, and on Wednesday, I started softening them in water. The intention was to try a Sicilian dish on Friday, but The Other Half wrinkled his nose when shown the recipe and, to be frank, by close of play yesterday, I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with any such response.

Having started our break by having my hair done – Belgium deserves to see me looking neat and tidy, instead of as the rather shaggy specimen of recent weeks – I headed to a nearby Waitrose and picked up lamb chops from the south west, plus Jersey Royals.

The meat was grilled, the potatoes boiled and buttered, and some frozen peas served up too, together with mint jelly.

Innovative cooking it might not have been, but who needs innovation when you have decent, seasonal ingredients?

Today, however, was a leap into the realms of experimentation (for me, at least).

Just after noon, I chopped a banana shallot and started cooking it gently in olive oil.

It was followed into the pan by chopped celery, cauliflower and asparagus. None of these had been bought today, but really did need using up.

After a softening in the oil, everything was then cooked in chicken stock.

And here we have a little diversion.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been using Knorr’s bottled liquid stock for when I don’t have any homemade, when I only need a little or when I’m doing something unplanned and haven’t had time to thaw some  of my own out.

But when I looked at one of the bottles a few weeks ago, I was stunned to see the ingredient list.

Today, I happened to pick up a box of organic Kallo stock cubes to check the ingredients. It was replaced when I saw that the second ingredient listed was palm oil.

And Marigold stock contains the same.

The production of this stuff is a major problem in terms of killing off the natural habitats of orangutans.

I’m not claiming any sort of ‘green’ saint, but I’m not going to help kill off more of our cousins if I can help it.

Does anyone know of any organic – or even non-organic – stock cubes or powder that isn’t stock full (sorry) of crap or has palm oil in it?

Anyway, back to today’s fodder.

Once the veg were cooked, the solids were decanted into my mini processor and blitzed, then placed into a clean pan with the strained liquid.

After a little more gentle cooking, seasoning (it needed a fair bit) and double cream were added.

It was served with (for me) garnishes of some dried chili, dried mint and grated Pecorino, and was very enjoyable.

Soup really is humble food – but such a joy once you get a handle on it. Cheap and good for using stuff up too.

Later, the salt cod was drained and then dried before being placed in a pan with ordinary olive oil to cover, brought gently to a bubble (just over 100˚C) and left to cook for around 15 minutes.

It was served with basmati rice and the warmed contents of a tin of Italian tomato ‘fillets’, to which had been added some salt and some chili flakes.

The rice was probably overcooked for some tastes, but the fish was very pleasing.

It was interesting to cook something like this without a specific recipe, and I was reasonably pleased with the results.

I doubt, though, that it will be the sort of thing we eat next week.

Chocolate-flavoured beer or grass-flavoured chocolate, anyone?

And at least one of those really does exist.

A tale of two delis

Back on 3 August 2007, L Terroni & Sons, a large Italian deli on Clerkenwell Road, ceased trading.

It was a bolt out of the blue, to customers and staff alike, and to an Italian community that has been in the area for more than a century and a half.

In the middle of the 19th century, around 2,000 Italian immigrants had settled in that area of London – a particularly poor one – where they worked in a variety of jobs, from street musicians to makes of scientific instruments.

At around that time, a Roman Catholic priest, St Vincent Pallotti, thought of building a church for the Italians.

Designed by Irish architect, Sir John Miller-Bryson, St Peter the Italian Church was modeled on the church of the Basilica of San Crisogono in Rome, although by the time it was consecrated in 1863, it was rather smaller than the initially ambitious plans of holding a congregation of nearly 3,500.

Terroni & Sons opened its own doors a decade and a half later.

No explanation was ever given for its closure in 2007, but foodies lamented its passing, dreading that the site would be turned into yet another 'express' supermarket or a fast food joint.

But the green shutters stayed in place and the only thing that moved in was dust and rust.

Perhaps that was the result of the financial crisis, but what is certain is that Terroni & Sons is now open for business once more.

In the days when I'd actually been working in that part of town, I hadn't had enough interest or experience to bother visiting.

Indeed, I'd only just bought my second cookery book - Jamie Oliver's The Return of the Naked Chef and hadn't progressed from supermarket shopping.

By the time it closed, I was working elsewhere.

So it was with a burst of pleasure that I realised only a few weeks ago, as I made a rare journey down Clerkenwell Road, that it was open once more.

The following week, I walked over after work to explore this revived Aladdin's cave. And it was well worth the effort.

It's not as large as the original and the range of foods is perhaps not quite as large as at Lina Stores in Soho (perhaps that will develop), but it is still a very welcome addition - or re-addition - to the London food map.

There's a large selection of Italian wines (left) and a brilliant range of dried pasta - the picture below shows just a very small sample.

The cheese and meat selections are decent - indeed, the fennel sausages looked so voluptuously, moistly lovely that I liberated half a dozen and changed my plans for that evening's meal.

A nice piece of Pecorino also found it's way into my basket, together with coffee and biscuits, a slab of lardo and a jar of plumptious capers.

In a massive coincidence - or perhaps not really that much of one - I was just a couple of days into my attempt to learn Italian.

The charming young lady who served me was not 100% fluent in English, so by the time I left, I'd already used a word or two of my very embryonic new language skills.

And it proved to be just the first visit.

This afternoon, after work, I wended my way in that direction again.

This time, I stopped off first at Veneticus, another Italian deli, café and gelateria, just a few doors away on the other side of the road.

It's very spacious and light inside, but while there are some good things on offer - I did pick up a jar of chopped chili - it doesn't have the selection that Terroni has.

Oddly, perhaps, you don't hear the same number of Italian voices either. Which may say something.

I pottered away and went to look in the Italian Church - finding a little piece of Italy right in London.

And then it was on to Terroni again, where I enjoyed an espresso (real wake-up juice) outside in the unexpected sunshine.

It came served with a piece of panettone: light and rich at the same time, and shot through with the sweetest imaginable fruit.

More biscuits, pasta from the huge selection, Italian espresso coffee, more Pecorino and some Parmigiano Reggiano, plus some mini chili salamis to take to work for lunch one day.

And then six luscious sausages: a pair each of the fennel, mild Italian and spicy Italian, which were subsequently grilled and served with some tiny Jersey Royals and some sautéed, mixed baby Italian mushrooms.

It's impossible to imagine that this will not become a regular port of call. And in the meantime, the joys of social media mean that I can even follow news from the shop at @_terroni.

Which element of modernity would not, I suspect, have happened in the old days.

Rupert Murdoch, a dumbed-down press and trolls

It’s been a funny couple of days on the old mass meeja front. Setting aside the appearances of James Murdoch, and his father, Howling Mad, at the Leveson inquiry into press standards in the UK – which is the best soap opera ever, bar none – there has been another little spat to grapple with.


Mary Beard, the erudite classicist, is currently to be seen on BBC2 presenting her new series, Meet the Romans.


It’s a fascinating series that, as she explained in last night's episode, looks beyond the ‘friends, Romans and countrymen’ speechifying of white toga-clad politicians and philosophers in the Forum, to what ancient Rome would have been like for its rather more ordinary denizens.


Beard’s knowledge of her subject is beyond doubt and her enthusiasm is infectious. It's top stuff.


Her ‘problem’, so it seems, is in not being a supermodel. Well, that’s according to AA Gill, TV reviewer for The Times, who, in essence, said that she was too ugly to be on the goggle box.


Still, it meant that he didn’t actually have to review the programme. Beard does not wear make up or dye her hair: in other words: she doesn’t kow-tow to certain conventions.


As her own riposte in the Daily Mail made clear, she’s comfortable as she is.


And she make some excellent points about confidence and ‘inner beauty’ too.


Although she did very nearly chuck a spanner into the works at the end by throwing in a caustic remark about Gill not having been to university. Not all us have been to university – but we don’t all go around being terrified of and offensive about those who did.


This must have been quite hard to swallow for the Mail, which is on a permanent trip to make women feel insecure about their looks and their bodies.


On the same day it launched itself into self-flagellatory mode with a piece on 'life for a month without my beauty regime'.


Regular readers here might remember my own admissions on the pots and potions, but reading this, it rapidly becomes clear that Anna Pursglove's beauty regime is probably not what most women would think of as a beauty ‘routine’.


A brief sample will make the point. “Among my favourite monthly treatments,” she writes, “are microdermabrasion (where the skin is treated with exfoliant crystals to remove dead cells), Keratin (long-lasting) blow-drying, Shellac (long-lasting) manicures, eyebrow threading and eyelash tinting, plus waxing (legs and/or bikini line, depending on the amount of flesh I plan to show that month).


“Then there’s the ‘occasionals’ list including chemical peels, laser thread-vein removal on my face, spray tans, semi-permanent eyelash extensions and teeth whitening.”


Blimey. I know that this is all fab in the service-based economy in which we live – girls: get out and have your legs waxed for the sake of the economy – but I very much doubt it’s what the majority of women will think of as their basic routine.


Now I love an occasional massage and I love having my hair done – both are wonderfully relaxing – but that’s the limit of what I’ve ever had as treatments (although being a reasonably sensible individual, I’m not going to fall into the ‘never say never’ trap).


But let’s get back to Gill and the Times.


This latest nastiness comes just a couple of years after his “dyke on a bike” comment about openly out presenter Clare Balding, which was also in what was supposed to be a review of a TV programme in which she was touring parts of the UK on a bike.


Nor is it the first time he's had a serious dig at Beard for her looks.


Yet only today, in his appearance at Leveson, Howling Mad claimed that Margaret Thatcher didn’t understand the threat from trades unions and costs to that “iconic” title.


Things have come to a pretty pass when what was once the nation’s paper of record has been taken to such a Murdochian low as to countenance regular bouts of infantile bullying within its pages.


But then, this is a proprietor whose answer to the supposed ‘elitism’ that he has railed against is to make a substantial contribution to the dumbing down of public discourse in the UK.


Yes, people can easily avoid buying his titles or the books he publishes, or watching his TV channels. But the impact of that general dumbing down – and Murdoch is not alone in shouldering blame – is felt even by those who directly avoid his works.


The dumbing down has also been boosted by the growth of communications technology and 24-hour TV. The development of 24/7 news leaves printed news media needing to fill pages with things other than stories that are hours late.


One option is opinion. Sensation is another, cheap tactic to gain readers (and advertising).


The Mail is expert at it, even to the extent of publishing such outlandish, tear-your-hair-out articles that gets social media in a tizzy and thousands more people clicking on link to read the madness. This is usually written by a shrill woman in such a way as to demean women in general and any woman who dares describe herself as 'a feminist' in particular, and it generates massive traffic and more advertising.


Clever, eh?


The Guardian plays a different game, giving a regular platform to a particular kind of female writer who confuses feminism with misandry, nurses attitudes that are close to US right-wing Christian fundamentalists – and an utter intolerance and contempt for any woman (particularly) who disagrees.


So the Times is not unique in this sensationalist approach – its particular tragedy is, as mentioned above, that it used to be the newspaper of record.


However, while I’m not remotely interested in calling for Gill sans his head, there is the question of response.


Like all trolls, he has the capacity to get under the skin simply by being nasty. And he’s probably loving every minute of having created this latest little shitstorm. So should one just ignore him, denying him what he craves – the oxygen of publicity?


Or should one challenge such behaviour, which is, frankly, no different to that of a playground bully?


‘Sticks and stone may break my bones’ and all that rather misses the point that words can hurt very deeply indeed.


Personally, I found the burst of confidence that hit me around 12 years ago was a big help. 


Before then, I’d been called names in the street simply for, like Beard, not looking like Claudia Schiffer. You’d barely believe the lack of self awareness of some of those doing the name calling. The only oil paintings they’d have come out would have been the nightmarish visions of Hieronymous Bosch.


I’ve also been on the receiving end in print. In spring 1998, on the basis that I was the sports editor of a national daily at the time – and the only woman in such a position – I was interviewed for the Observer by a young, fellow female hackette.


But there was to be no sense of sisterly solidarity.


Unfortunately, I no longer have the printed article, but it was bang out of order. Not only did it put words in my mouth – perhaps I hadn’t been remotely interesting enough – but her main issue seemed to be with how I looked.


And I recall one comment suggesting that, once you’d reached such a career pinnacle, perhaps one didn’t actually have to bother.


It was cheap, to say the least. Unprofessional and unethical are other words that spring to mind.


In subsequent years, I’ve developed a rather thicker skin. It’s particularly important online.


Only a couple of weeks ago, responding innocuously to a comment on the website of a particular news publication, I was lambasted for my looks. I’d signed in using my Facebook identity and it showed the picture that I currently have there as an avatar.


I responded simply by pointing out that the individual in question was a typical coward, hiding behind anonymity and no avatar to provoke comparisons with, say, George Clooney.


The thing is, though, that if you don’t respond in some way, you leave them thinking they’ve ‘won’.


They’re pitiful, but perhaps ignoring them and letting them think that they’ve successfully upset you is the real oxygen they seek.


Thankfully, I’m comfortable enough in my own skin these days not to be upset.


Sometimes I wear make up – sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I dress in a more feminine fashion – sometimes I don’t.


It doesn’t depend on how I think other people think I should dress, but on how I feel and, to an extent, social conventions about where I’ll be working and who, if anyone, I’ll be meeting in the course of that work.


My own revenge over the Observer article has not occurred yet. But they say that it’s a dish best eaten cold. It’s in the freezer even as I write.