Giles Coren

Giles Coren (born 29th July 1969 in Paddington, London) is a British journalist and broadcaster. Coren is the son of the late British writer and humourist Alan Coren, and the brother of journalist Victoria Coren. He was educated at Westminster School before going on to Keble College, Oxford, where he achieved a first in English. He lives "round the corner" from the Osteria Emilia restaurant in Hampstead, London. [cite web|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/25/pressandpublishing.thetimes|title='I have never ended on an unstressed syllable!'|last=Barton|first=Laura|date=2008-07-25|accessdate=2008-09-30|publisher=The Guardian]

Career

Coren is mainly known as a restaurant critic for the British newspaper "The Times", winning the title "Food And Drink Writer of the Year" in 2005. [cite web|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1528246,00.html|title=Judges toast Times Online writers|date=2005-03-16|accessdate=2008-09-30|last=McLennan|first=Louisa|publisher=The Times] He claims to have eaten in over 8,000 restaurants.cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/f-word/series-1/q-and-a-giles-coren_p_1.html|title=Giles Coren Tells All|publisher=Channel 4|date=2007-09-06|accessdate=2008-09-30] Coren also contributes a column to "The Times", the subject of which ranges from curious events in his personal life to political satire. Under the pseudonym Professor Gideon Garter, he wrote "The Intellectual's Guide to Fashion" in "The Sunday Times", satirizing the pretensions of modern critical theory and cultural commentary.cite web|url=http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/giles-coren|title=About Giles Coren|publisher=FantasticFiction.co.uk|date=2008-09-21|accessdate=2008-09-30]

In 2005, Coren's published his first novel, the nihilistic "Winkler", to generally good reviews, including particular praise from "The New Statesman" [cite web|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200508290035|title=Fiction - Fockn' funny|publisher=The New Statesman|last=Sooke|first=Alistair|date=2005-08-29|accessdate=2008-09-30] , and "The Independent" [cite web|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/winkler-by-giles-coren-510813.html|title=Winkler, by Giles Coren|last=Bywater|first=Michael|publisher=The Independent|date=2005-10-14|accessdate=2008-09-30] One section of the novel won the Literary Review's "Bad Sex in Fiction Award", beating off stiff competition from John Updike and Norman Mailer who were also nominated. The passage for which he was awarded ended with the sentence fragment "Like Zorro". [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4488848.stm |title=Bad sex book prize for journalist|date=2005-12-01|accessdate=2008-09-30|publisher=BBC.co.uk] This reference has gained a cult status as an internet meme, although he says he is unaware of what the word "meme" means. [cite web|url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,6000,1652812,00.html|title=The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award|publisher=The Guardian|date=2005-11-28|accessdate=2008-09-30] He is credited by inventor James Dyson as the co-author of Dyson's autobiography, "Against The Odds: An Autobiography", published in 1997. [cite book|title=Against The Odds: An Autobiography|first=James|last=Dyson|authorlink=James_Dyson|isbn=0-75280-981-4|year=1997|quote=...I was flattered when he agreed to collaborate on this book.|publisher=Orion Business]

In the autumn of 2005, Coren appeared as a regular correspondent on Gordon Ramsay's "The F-Word". In June 2006, he presented a programme on the digital channel More4, entitled "Tax the Fat", a semi-serious look at the cost of clinical obesity and the cost it presents to the NHS. He co-presented the Channel 4 series "Animal Pharm" with Dr. Olivia Judson in March 2007. Around the same time, he appeared in a series of television advertisements advertising Birds Eye frozen foods. Critics, such as Ian Burrell in "The Independent", suggested he had "sold out", and ridiculed his decision. [cite web|url=http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2281977.ece|title=Giles Coren: The critic who turned salesman|last=Burrell|first=Ian|date=2007-02-19|accessdate=2008-09-30|publisher=The Independent]

Along with writer and performer Sue Perkins, Coren starred in "Edwardian Supersize Me"; the two spent a week on the diet of a wealthy Edwardian couple, for a BBC4 documentary shown in December 2007. [cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/edwardian-supersize-me.shtml|title=Edwardian Supersize Me|publisher=BBC.co.uk|accessdate=2008-09-30|date=2007-12-22] The pair were reunited for a series ("The Supersizers Go...") based around period dietary habits broadcast from May 2008 on BBC Two, beginning with "The Supersizers Go Wartime". Other programmes in the series have looked at the diets of the 1970s, the Restoration period and the Elizabethan age. [cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bvr0t/episodes/2008|title=The Supersizers Go...|accessdate=2008-09-30|publisher=BBC.co.uk|date=2008]

Criticism

ensitivity

On July 23, 2008, a leaked email from Coren to the sub-editors of the "The Times" was published in "The Guardian" newspaper. The email took issue with a sub-editor's removal of an indefinite article (an "a") from Coren's article, which altered the meaning of a sentence (invalidating a play on words) and ended it, Coren claimed, on an unstressed syllable. [cite web|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey|title=Read Giles Coren's letter to Times subs|publisher=The Guardian|date=2008-07-23|accessdate=2008-09-30] "The Guardian"'s leak was further covered in other newspapers, including "The Daily Telegraph". [cite web|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2455076/Restaurant-reviewer-Giles-Coren-abuses-colleagues-in-leaked-email.html|title=Restaurant reviewer Giles Coren abuses colleagues in leaked email|date=2008-09-11|accessdate=2008-09-30|publisher=The Daily Telegraph|last=Moore|first=Matthew]

Anti-Polish sentiment

Three days later, on July 26, 2008, Coren published a comment piece in "The Times" alleging persecution of his Jewish family by Polish people. In the article, entitled "Two waves of immigration, Poles apart",Coren expressed some anti-Polish sentiment in describing how, in his view, the Poles remain in denial about their part in the Holocaust. [cite web|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/giles_coren/article4399669.ece|title=Two waves of immigration, Poles apart|last=Coren|first=Giles|publisher=The Times|date=2008-07-26|accessdate=2008-09-30] Coren's piece prompted a letter of complaint to "The Times" from the Polish ambassador to the UK, Barbara Tuge-Erecinska, entitled "Poland's role in the Holocaust". The ambassador criticised Coren's text as "unsupported by any basic historic or geographic knowledge" and informed him about the Polish Righteous among the Nations. She wrote that "the issue of Polish-Jewish relations has been unfairly and deeply falsified" by his "aggressive remarks" and "contempt". [cite web|last=Tuge-Erecinska|first=Barbara|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article4431225.ece|title=Poland’s role in the Holocaust|date=2008-07-31|publisher=The Times|accessdate=2008-09-30]

Coren replied in his column the following week, stating "I wrote in passing that the Poles remain in denial about their responsibility for the Holocaust. How gratifying, then, to see so many letters in The Times in the subsequent days from Poles denying their responsibility for the Holocaust" before asking the ambassador to explain the Kielce pogrom which occurred 15 months after World War 2 finished, and in which 37 Jews were killed at the hands of Poles. [cite web|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/giles_coren/article4445423.ece|title=The winner's version of history. That's original|publisher=The Times|last=Coren|first=Giles|date=2008-08-02|accessdate=2008-09-30] Coren's comments caused the Federation of Poles in Great Britain, a representative of the Polish British community, to demand a published apology from "The Times" under threat of an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, which has the power to force an apology. [cite web|last=Conlan|first=Tara|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/08/pressandpublishing.thetimes?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront|title=Giles Coren Times article prompts Polish complaints to PCC|publisher=The Guardian|date=2008-08-08|accessdate=2008-09-30] On August 14, 2008, an editorial in "The Economist" described Coren's article and the lack of an apology from Coren or "The Times" as "unacceptable prejudice". [cite web|url=http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11918619|title=Unacceptable prejudice|publisher=The Economist|date=2008-08-14|accessdate=2008-09-30]

References

External links

* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/giles_coren/ Giles Coren articles on] Times Online
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/eating_out/giles_coren/ Giles Coren reviews] on Times Online
* [http://www.byliner.com/writer/?id=3424 Giles Coren (Byliner: Writers)]