Just when I thought the days of canteen salad bar virtuosity were well and truly over they pull an 18-wheeler out of nowhere : New potatoes with bacon and aniseed. Yum yum.

Now playing : Trini Lopez at PJ’s. With the possible exception of Made in Japan, probably the best live album ever recorded. PJ’s seems to have been some legendary sinkhole in Hollywood in the mid to early 60’s, apparently a favoured hangout of the rat pack, but beyond that I can’t find out much about the place. To me it conjours up such a rich image of a certain period – urban hipsters, twin-set secretaries, wannabe hustlers, slumming celebs, sweating ad-men, Rockwell engineers on a night out, everyone drinking Mai-tais and Bourbon on the rocks like tomorrow doesn’t exist . . . On the album you can hear this drunken mob singing along, yelling to their friends, jabbering inanely and above all screaming for more booze. You can practically smell the spilt drinks, the cigarette smoke and the cheap cologne, feel the stickiness of the carpet and the heat – awesome.