I hate talented people.

“You really make me sick. In the nicest possible way.”

OK, perhaps not the nicest possible way to introduce yourself to someone, but I did want to congratulate the chef for a delightful lunch (it was like that film with that woman: “you had me at triple-cooked chips”). The thing being that the head chef in this swanky Berkshire hotel (I wasn’t paying, it was a Hyundai event) is only 18 years old.

No, really. Luke Thomas has just become the youngest head chef in the country with his own restaurant at Sanctum on the Green in Cookham Dean and I think I hate him. Not only is he successful in a field that he’s set his mind on reaching the top of, he has a clarity and sense of purpose and I’ve not seen in anyone of any age for quite a long time. In the (almost) decade I have on him I should have been able to cure one of the easier cancers, broker at least five minutes of peace in the Middle East or even just learn to cook rice without messing it up. He even does better brownies than mine, and I was always really proud of those.

I couldn’t say that it was anything personal, my hatred of this talented wunderkind: I pretty much don’t like anyone talented. I find them intimidating and good at stuff. If everyone was a bit rubbish at things I’d feel a lot better about it all. Certainly not knocking together a delicious scotch egg with a crispy breadcrumb shell and soft yolk for lunch. And where does one find time to cook chips three times? I think it’s all because I’m essentially quite arrogant, and like to think that I could be brilliant at anything (it’s so obviously not true, it’s clearly an illness). Anything contrary to that is a challenge to my very psyche.

That said, the brownies and the chips did distract me for a few minutes.