Tim Hayward

I have no wish to sound like a worn and bitter hack, sand-blasted by weltschmerz, but I don’t have many ambitions left. It’s not like I want to write the Great Western Novel. AI can do that and who the hell reads any more? And I worry about ‘bucket lists’. They always seem remarkably similar. Ridiculous self-imposed sporting targets like marathons; the health-and-safety sanitised absurdity of ‘adrenaline’ experiences; pathologically unimaginative travel. I blame advertising for this. Indiscriminate 30-second reels of yoga/skydiving/surfing/beaches/hiking/street food in Thailand/stargazing in Machu bloody Picchu. God we’ve become dull. Even our ‘wildest dreams’ are commoditised and fully predictable.

Many of us will remember, misty-eyed, how things changed around the turn of the century. How Britain ceased to be a nation brutalised by rationing and rissoles and instead blossomed into a utopia of celebrity chefs, endless food TV and a population seemingly willing and able to eat out most nights of the week. We no longer regarded ourselves as poor cousins to European nations with ‘cuisines’ – hell, Michelin stars glittered from every orifice. We had the uncalibrated zealotry of converts. In the years following the pandemic, UK hospitality came blinking back into the light, adopted a collective fixed grin and the can-do attitude of small businesspeople, and did some amazing things while trying to get back to that prelapsarian state of glory.