6 August

More bad news from my producer back in London. The commissioning editors at ITV have apparently decided to ‘pass’ on our new series, Look What’s Cooking. It seems they’ve screened the pilot episode to a sample audience and it ‘tested old’, whatever that means. Honestly, aren’t these people capable of making a simple decision without having to run it by five hundred mindless members of the general public? When I make a dish I don’t send portions out to complete strangers asking, ‘Is there enough salt?’ I trust my own instincts, experience and skill. Now, I’m not suggesting that LWC (as it affectionately came to be known during production of the pilot) was ground-breaking television. And, yes, the eviction process – in which the bottom-ranked chef was pushed into a stylised cauldron of hot oil – clearly needed a tweak (the so-called Safety Officer we used was less than helpful). But given a decent budget, I truly believe it could have developed into an excellent series.

To take my mind off things, I decided to make some guacamole, only to discover that the entire tray of avocados I purchased yesterday are brown and unusable. I’m all for artisanal produce, but this is basically just fraud.

7 August

The glorious weather continues. If anything, it’s a little too warm. I’m struggling to keep cool during the middle of the day and there’s so much dust in the air (being thrown up by inconsiderate tourists’ cars) that Phillip is finding it difficult to breathe. San Cisterno has been well and truly invaded by tour buses. It’s such a pity to see picturesque squares clogged with coaches belching diesel fumes, when just a few weeks ago we had them to ourselves. There are so many people in town that yesterday we couldn’t even get a seat at Mangero, despite being regulars. Not that you’d want to sit there, surrounded by Russian holidaymakers talking loudly into their mobile phones and ordering cappucinos with lunch (when everyone knows that this form of coffee is never drunk after 10 am). No, thank you.