Clarke Hayes

Having tea with Gillian Anderson is a thoroughly pleasant business — a splash of muted glamour in a fairly drab London autumn. I thoroughly recommend it, as a more engaging companion it would be a challenge to find. We meet in the studiously bijou surroundings of the Zetter Townhouse in St John’s Square, chosen, I suspect, because no one there has the slightest clue who she is. She is wearing the no-make-up disguise, and glides serenely under London’s radar, something she clearly enjoys. She is a tad jetlagged, she says, having just arrived home from a three-week stint ‘doing press’ in LA. We are talking in the Games Room downstairs when there is an unexpected rattling at the window. We are momentarily flustered – is it a stalker?

So there we were again – those of us with access to Sky Sports, that is – sitting on the edge of our sofas, willing the improbable to pass, and willing indeed to stay up very late to watch it happen. But it was not to be. Few on this earth – with the possible exception of Rafael Nadal – could have beat Roger Federer in the ‘grapple in the Apple’ on the Arthur Ashe court last night. Andy Murray clearly could not – this time. And yet, and yet! There were glimpses of the Murray that has, and I’m sure will again, beat Federer. Murray loves Flushing Meadows – its vastness, its buzz, its NYC setting; and hard court seems to be his favourite surface. So expect him to compete well here again next year. But what of last night?

There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. There’s a fair glut of food festivals going on all across the country in the coming weeks, reflecting — and rightly so — the harvest. But how retro is that? Fantastic! Even better, to my mind, is that it proves that our collective mindset has changed dramatically — we are growing ever prouder of our food and its local provenance, willing even to think that British might really be best. That in itself is cause for celebration. My local is the second annual Hastings Seafood and Wine Festival (22-23 September). This one neatly conflates the old and the new.