Michael Briant is the man largely responsible for my spending most Saturday evenings of my younger days (from the age of 11 to about 21) hiding behind the sofa, most Saturday nights sleeping with the lights on and most Sunday mornings getting spanked for wetting the bed the night before!
You see, Michael Briant directed some of the most frightening episodes of Doctor Who that ever saw the light of day.
There is a whole generation of people, now in their forties and fifties, who will unashamably wet themselves in public if anyone creeps up behind them and shouts…
Born in Scotland, celebrated chick-lit author, Jenny Colgan studied at Edinburgh University before working for six years in the health service.
During this time she moonlighted as a stand-up comic.
On her website Jenny explains that “I live mostly in France, which sounds show-offy but if you saw our house you would realise it really isn’t.
My husband Andrew is a marine engineer and works a lot round here, and we have three children.
Wallace is four and likes calamari, trampolining and making loud announcements about just how he will run the world when he is Spiderman; Michael-Francis is nearly two and likes singing lalala, tucking bears under his arms and peering dubiously at new food, and Delphie is brand new and likes sleeping and the way the sun moves across the tree leaves.”
Award-winning fashion and beauty writer, Karen Wheeler is a former Fashion Editor of The Mail on Sunday.
She has also worked as a freelance and regular contributor to the FT’s How To Spend It magazine for over a decade. She’s won the prestigious Jasmine Literary Award for writing about perfume three times and generally specialises in fashion, beauty and luxury goods trends.
And, for some reason, she left her perfectly good job and moved to France were she is currently working on her second book…. Tout Allure.
Tout Sweet
Her first book, Tout Sweet, chronicles the life of a fashion editor who has hung up her Manolos to live in rural France. You can read some of the stupendous reviews of it here… (click on image for Amazon).
During her career she has interviewed many of fashion’s top names including Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein and her work has appeared in The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times Style, ES, YOU and numerous international luxury goods magazines.
Inb other words, she is probably one of the poshest people we have yet to interview for A Taste of Garlic (and probably will be until Anjelina Jolie, Carla Bruni or Charlotte Rampling get round to answering their emails!)
And now, she is being interviewed, on your behalf, for A Taste of Garlic! Lucky girl! Lucky you! And, I hope, lucky me!
John Dummer is probably best known for being the drummer for Darts (also writing ‘Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love’, ‘How Many Nights’ and the truly wonderful ‘Late Last Night’.)
For those youngsters amongst the readership of aTasteOfGarlic, Darts was a nine-strong, energetic doo-wop group whose brand of visual excitement and tight harmonies earned them rave reviews wherever they played.
They had a string of chart hits in the late seventies and early eighties and were one of the hardest working bands of that period.
John left Darts in 1980 and, with his wife Helen, moved to France.
After a few years there and a few years in Portugal, they moved back to France in 1999 to renovate a 300-year-old farm in Aquitaine near a spa town called Dax.
Carol Drinkwater is the actress who, for many, is best known for her award winning role as Helen Herriot in the television series… All Creatures Great and Small.
Carol is, however, also a successful author who had written many books including the wonderfully interesting Olive Farm series.
All of these are available from all good bookshops or from the Amazon widget below.
Carol has her own website at http://www.caroldrinkwater.com where you can keep up with the latest news, browse the galleries of gorgeous photos and try out some of Carol’s recipes.
As soon as Carol agreed to the interview, I didn’t waste a moment. Bearing in mind the weather report I harnessed the huskies to my sleigh, borrowed an extra thick vest from a local author and put on a pair of my thickest woolie undies.
And, suitably prepared, I set off for Provence.
Unfortunately, the snow didn’t arrive and so I had to resort to sending the interview off by email.
Joanne Harris is the internationally acclaimed author of… Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, Coastliners, The French Kitchen, The French Market and a handful of other books.
Her books are available from all good bookshops, or from the carousel Amazon bookshop thingy, somewhere on this page.
She has a very nice web site at the cunningly named… The Joanne Harris Website and is the poshest author we’ve interviewed so far at A Taste of Garlic (and probably will be for a long time – unless Peter Mayle ever gets round to answering his email.)
I was very surprised to find out that Joanne Harris doesn’t live in France.
I assumed that anyone who wrote so beautifully about France must be a resident. But, then again, even though she has a French mother, Joanne was born in Yorkshire and, as we all know, Yorkshire lasses can be a bit proud of their place of birth.
I decided to ignore the Yorkshire bit and ask Joanne Harris for an interview anyway.
Stephen Clarke is the world-renowned author of A Year in the Merde, Merde Actually, Merde Happens, Dial M for Merde and Talk to the Snail.
He narrowly missed out on this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature but is a sure bet for next year’s award.
He has been romantically linked to Vanessa Paradis, Emmanuelle Béart, Ludivine Sagnier and (rather generously, in my mind), Charlotte Rampling.
And, he has very kindly agreed to put down his pen and answer a few simple questions (another world exclusive for A Taste of Garlic – another one in the eye for you, Hello magazine!)
George East (who is to be found at George East in France – Online) very kindly consented to doing an interview for A Taste of Garlic and, because it was raining hard, didn’t insist on my traipsing up to the outer regions of wild and windy Finistère (where I believe baby eating is the norm and strangers from other parts of Brittany are routinely kidnapped and sexually assaulted with a courgette before being marinated in cider – or is that Peckham that I’m thinking about?)
So, we did the interview by email instead.
Before I could even start by asking George if he was sitting comfortably he insisted in saying…
“Yo Keef. What a brilliantly good and funny site. Can I add it to my recommends in the new Brittany book, which will be out next year? Are we linked with your site/s, and if not can we be?”
Interview (Writer) | Keith Eckstein January 19, 2010 | 
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Born in Scotland, celebrated chick-lit author, Jenny Colgan studied at Edinburgh University before working for six years in the health service.
John Dummer is probably best known for being the drummer for Darts (also writing ‘Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love’, ‘How Many Nights’ and the truly wonderful ‘Late Last Night’.)
Carol Drinkwater is the actress who, for many, is best known for her award winning role as Helen Herriot in the television series… All Creatures Great and Small.
Joanne Harris is the internationally acclaimed author of… Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, Coastliners, The French Kitchen, The French Market and a handful of other books.
Stephen Clarke is the world-renowned author of A Year in the Merde, Merde Actually, Merde Happens, Dial M for Merde and Talk to the Snail.
George East (who is to be found at