John Gibson: Pass me that broon sauce!

You can tell a man, I always say, not by the cut of his cloth, rather by the colour of his sauce.

Either he’s a brown man or a ketchup freak. Me, when you boil it all down, I’m a “broon” man.

Initially, well into my teens, I shook it into my soup and my fellow diners at the table, devoid of culinary culture would grimace and go “aargh”.

Now I’m broon one day, ketchup the next. However my gut feeling takes me.

What’s got me havering about the two big sauces is that researchers Mintel have found that brown sauce sales (HP’s been around since 1899) last year rose nine per cent to £51 million.

At this rate your HP will catch up on ketchup which accounts for 57 per cent of all sales.

Maestro Marty

From my “down memory lane” picture file. Marty Grosz brought his guitar, banjo and priceless chat from the States to the Edinburgh Jazzfest in the late Nineties. The inimitable Berlin-born Marty starred in Europe alongside Bob Wilber, Kenny Davern and Herb Ellis. He’s still with us, 82 this month. Still a one-off.

Afterwords . .

. . . Suzi Quatro, below, who had her first No 1 in 1973: “I’ve had a very long, successful career. I’ve survived but that’s because I’m straight. I’m the wild one on stage and the mild one off stage.”