Latest news with #GilesCoren
Times
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The female chef exposing restaurants' sex and drug culture
'H i, Slutty,' I say to the young female chef who is holding out a hand to greet me. It feels rude calling this stranger 'Slutty', but Slutty Cheff is the alias under which she has built a cult following on Instagram of 43,000. Her anonymous account, where she never reveals her name or her face (it is usually obscured by a burger emoji or a burger-shaped balaclava), has become a hot favourite among Gen Zers. She won't tell me which restaurants she has worked in, but says they are the sorts of places where the critics Giles Coren and Grace Dent would eat. Her online persona is a version of her that is 'obnoxious, narcissistic, self-obsessed and at times sarky and mean. Right now, no way am I mentally stable enough to put my face [out there].'
Times
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
As I watched people glued to their phones I realised — we are forgetting how to talk
Recently I found myself at dinner with m'learned colleague Giles Coren. Without wishing to confirm preconceptions about what Giles and I get up to in our free time, it is relevant to this story that you know we were dining at one of London's fanciest new restaurants. Each dish was pristine, caviar-ridden. Nobody was escaping for less than £250 a head. And yet something felt off. I couldn't put my finger on it. Then Giles leant across the table. 'Have you noticed everyone here is on their phones?' He was right. Entirely right. Next to us, two businessmen hadn't looked up from their emails once. Next to them, a family with two teenagers in baseball caps, ignoring their food and instead gorging lasciviously on TikTok
Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
What to do in London this weekend
The weather remains somewhere between passable and pleasing — and that means London is coming alive for summer. The city's historic gardens are springing to life with seasonal tulips, plus several film and music festivals are returning to the capital this weekend. For something more intimate, there are new restaurant openings and yoga workshops taking place from north to south, for every type of city dweller. After the roaring success of Joséphine Bouchon in Chelsea (Giles Coren hailed it a 'seriously wonderful' restaurant), the Lyons-born chef Claude Bosi and his wife, Lucy, are bringing their French neighbourhood bistro concept to well-heeled Marylebone. At this tightly packed, buzzy bouchon, you can feast on a set menu of French classics, from pork rillettes or leek
BBC News
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Beyond Belief Cultural Religiosity
Giles Fraser meets columnist Giles Coren, who was raised in the Jewish tradition, became an atheist and who now feels at home in a Christian church, to explore what it means to be culturally religious. Is cultural religiosity an oxymoron and totally untenable? Is it on the rise or has it always been there? Is it damaging to traditional religious practices? And, does it really matter? To examine these questions, Giles is joined by: Michael Rosen, author and poet, known for his work exploring humanism and atheism. He has co-written a book, "What is Humanism? How do you live without a god? And Other Big Questions for Kids," which looks at how humanists approach fundamental questions about morals, ethics, and the origins of life. Kate Smurthwaite, patron of the Humanist society and feminist, atheist comedian and activist. Internationally, she is probably best-known as the star of a viral video in which she claims that she doesn't have a faith because she is not an idiot. Justin Brierley, writer, documentary maker and broadcaster behind the book and podcast series, 'The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God'. Over the course of his work Justin looks at why new atheism grew old and why secular thinkers are considering Christianity again. Producers: Alexa Good & Linda Walker Editor: Tim Pemberton
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Restaurant critic Giles Coren, 55, reveals he has prostate cancer
The restaurant critic Giles Coren has revealed he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Writing in the Times, Coren said he had been told the tumour would need monitoring but 'no treatment would be necessary for the moment'. In his column, the 55-year-old recounted a call from a urology nurse on Wednesday explaining that 'some cancer' had been found in a biopsy of tissue samples recently taken from his prostate, 'but less than a millimetre in just three of the 21 samples'.. His Gleason score – a commonly used grading system for prostate cancer – was 'the lowest possible rating for a malign tumour', he wrote. Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in England, Prostate Cancer UK reported earlier this week. There were 55,033 diagnoses of the disease in 2023, compared with 47,526 for breast cancer. Coren's urologist urged him to have the biopsy taken after Coren requested a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test from his GP a couple of years ago, along with his annual cholesterol check, and discovered his PSA level was raised. The NHS offers PSA tests to men aged 50 and over who request them, while men who have a family history of prostate cancer can speak with their GP about having a test from the age of 45. Coren wrote: 'I had only asked for the test because such good work has been done lately to raise awareness, by people like Stephen Fry and Bill Turnbull – and latterly poor Chris Hoy – and now here I was with a score of four, where higher than 2.5 is considered abnormal and facing imminent death.' This assertion was refuted by his GP, who told him: 'It's not imminent death. All men get it, if they live long enough. It's a slow cancer. Most men die with it, not of it. And a raised PSA doesn't necessarily mean cancer anyway.' Coren, an award-winning food and drink writer, has appeared on BBC shows including The Supersizers, Our Food and the F-Word with Gordon Ramsay. He has been writing for the Times since 2002. He is the son of the English journalist and humourist Alan Coren and the elder brother of Victoria Coren Mitchell.
