Grace Dent won the 2019 Guild of Food Writers’ Award for her essays on junk food and class. She continues to be restaurant critic at the Guardian, and is currently trying to make sense of socially-distanced restaurants and the future of eating out.
Mr Dent Snr’s care home went into lockdown measures in March 2020. He has been tested twice for Covid-19. His favourite chair is viewable from the street, so at least his family can see he’s alive. By day, he mainly sleeps with a copy of the Mirror on his lap. Although he can no longer read it, he finally got to have his newspaper in peace.
Mrs Dent Snr is currently self-isolating in a small flat close to her family in the Lakes. She is stable and has found comfort during lockdown in the QVC Shopping channel, Angel Delight and long daily phone-calls with her children. She thinks Hungry is more evidence of her daughter’s over-active imagination and is irked that her Franklin Mint Victorian figurine collection was not included in the home-décor passages.
In July 2020, the UK Government banned advertising of junk food, both on TV and online, before 9 p.m., as well as Buy-One-Get-One free deals on high fat, salt and sugar products.