Bare Foot in the Park

Alex James beat me to it with Slow Life. He wrote a Slow Life column for the Spectator, in the same part of the magazine as Taki’s High Life. My guess is that he was waiting to slip into Taki’s shoes, being a High Life man at heart- he’s said to have spent £1m on Champagne and coke when he was the bass player with Blur. But he’s no match for Taki, and he gave up his Slow Life column in 2010. He’s now biding his time as a cheese-maker on his farm in Oxfordshire.

This weekend Alex has been hosting a food festival, with a bit of pop thrown in, and doesn’t seem inclined to slip into anyone’s shoes, not even his own. This photo shows his bare tootsies on the main stage as he opened the festival, which he called Feastival. It’s a brave man who walks barefoot where festival campers have been, even if it’s on his own land. I think he may have been reliving some of his Blur days because when his co-host, Jamie Oliver, came to the first event this morning he said he had such a hangover he could hardly move his head.
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The alcoholic theme continued with the launch of Alex’s new cheese, which he has called “Goddess”. It’s made with Guernsey cow’s milk “gently washed in Temperley Somerset Cider Brandy”. It’s very smelly, which bodes well, but I’m going to let it mature slowly for a week or so before I give it a try.