From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giles Coren (born 29 July 1969) is a controversial British food critic and novelist. He is the son of the late British writer and humorist Alan Coren and brother of journalist and poker player Victoria Coren.

Life and career

Coren was born in Paddington, London. He is a columnist for the British newspaper The Times, and was named 2005 "Food And Drink Writer of the Year".^[1][2] Coren also contributes a column to The Times, the subject of which ranges from personal life to politics. Under the pseudonym Warwick Hunt, he wrote The Intellectual's Guide to Fashion in The Sunday Times.^[3] He is credited by inventor James Dyson as the co-author of his autobiography published in 1997.^[4] In 2005, Coren published his first novel, Winkler, reviewed in The New Statesman^[5], and The Independent^[6]. One section of the novel won the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award.^[7][8]

In the autumn of 2005, Coren appeared as a regular correspondent on Gordon Ramsay's The F-Word.^[2] In June 2006, he presented a programme on the digital channel More4, entitled Tax the Fat, about clinical obesity and the cost it presents to the NHS. He co-presented the Channel 4 series Animal Pharm with Dr. Olivia Judson in March 2007. Around the same time, he appeared in a series of television advertisements advertising Birds Eye frozen foods. Critics, such as Ian Burrell in The Independent, suggested he had "sold out", and ridiculed his decision.^[9] Also in 2006, Coren also presented the film and DVD review programme Movie Lounge.

Along with Sue Perkins, Coren starred in Edwardian Supersize Me; the two spent a week on the diet of a wealthy Edwardian couple, for a BBC Four documentary shown in December 2007.^[10] The pair were reunited for a series (The Supersizers Go...) broadcast in May 2008 on BBC Two.^[11] From 15 June 2009 the pair hosted "The Supersizers Eat...".^[12]

Leaked e-mail to subeditors

On 23 July 2008, a leaked email from Coren to the sub-editors of the The Times was published in The Guardian newspaper. Coren's internal Times email used profanity and verbal abuse to take issue with a colleague's removal of an indefinite article (an "a") from his piece. He was particularly enraged that, consequently, his article ended on an unstressed syllable and that a joke was lost in the change from "a nosh" to "nosh".^[13] The Guardian's leak was further covered in other newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph.^[14] The exchange was reprinted in the American magazine Harper's a few months later.

Polish controversy

In his next article, on 26 July 2008, Coren claimed his Jewish family had been persecuted by Poles; that Poles used to burn Jews in synagogues for entertainment at Easter; and that Poland is in denial about its role in the Holocaust. He used the racial slur "Polack" to describe immigrant Poles, who should "clear off".^[15]

Coren's piece led to many Times letters protesting against Anti-Polish sentiment and detailing the rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Prof. Antony Polonsky wrote: "Coren is incorrect to state that there have been no attempts to deal with the complex and painful Polish-Jewish past."^[16] Polish ambassador Barbara Tuge-Erecińska wrote: "the issue of Polish-Jewish relations has been unfairly and deeply falsified."^[17][18] Coren's comments led to a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission,^[19] an early day motion in the UK parliament,^[20] and an editorial in The Economist.^[21]

Coren responded: "I wrote in passing that the Poles remain in denial about their responsibility for the Holocaust. How gratifying, then, to see so many letters in The Times in the subsequent days from Poles denying their responsibility for the Holocaust."^[22] He also told The Jewish Chronicle: "F*** the Poles".^[23] The case has been referred to the European Court of Human Rights.^[24]

Articles

Coren, Giles (4 October 2008). "I'm proud to be famous for being rude". The Spectator 308 (9397): 20. http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/2189296/im-proud-to-be-famous-for-being-rude.thtml. Retrieved 13 December 2008.  

Personal life

Coren was educated at Westminster School and Keble College, Oxford, where he read English Literature. He lives in Kentish Town,^[25] London, with his fiancée Esther Walker, a journalist for the London Evening Standard.^[26] He proposed to her on a mountain in Morocco in June 2009.^[27]

References

External links

• [5] Giles Coren on Twitter
• Giles Coren articles on Times Online
• Giles Coren reviews on Times Online
• Giles Coren (Byliner: Writers)

From Wikiquote

Giles Coren (born 1969 in Paddington, London) is a British restaurant critic and broadcaster. He is the son of Alan Coren, and the brother of Victoria Coren.

Sourced

Jewish Chronicle, 23 February 2007 [1]

• I get so excited when I know I’m going to a good restaurant, then, when I do the review, I write myself up into such a frenzy that I have to go out and eat all over again.

• Some critics think the way I write is somehow disrespectful to food. But how can you write a restaurant column without being entertaining? You might as well not get up in the morning. People complain my sense of humour is puerile but the reason I have a job is because my sense of humour is puerile.

• My dad was undeniably famous when I was a kid — he was on Wogan and Clive James and the radio every week, but as far as I was concerned he wasn’t famous enough. My best friend was Ben Brooke-Taylor. His dad Tim was in The Goodies — that was famous.

• I wanted to be a great literary novelist so that people would eventually talk about Alan Coren the scribbler and father of the great Giles.

• The Jewish religion has it completely right in maintaining you should think very carefully about what you eat.

• I am very snobby. My family is Orthodox so I would never go to a Reform rabbi.

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Giles Coren