Giles Coren

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Giles Coren : biography

29 July 1969 –

On 22 May 2011, it was reported that lawyers at Schillings acting for an England footballer had persuaded the High Court judge Mr Justice Tugendhat to ask the Attorney General for England and Wales, Dominic Grieve, to consider the criminal prosecution of "a top journalist" over a matter that breached a privacy injunction. Coren acknowledged on Twitter that he could face jail for contempt of court, saying: "A funny fucking day. The support of twitter has been almost tear-jerking. But I am afraid there won’t be room for all of us in the cell. xxx." On 23 May 2011, Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament John Hemming spoke in the House of Commons and used parliamentary privilege to identify Coren as the person involved, leading to an immediate rebuke from Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow.Sky News YouTube, 23 May 2011 In an interview with The Sunday Times on 29 May 2011, Hemming revealed that he considered naming both footballers in the Coren controversy, before the Speaker stopped him. Hemming commented that the Speaker was "probably right to do so", and added: "I couldn’t be guaranteed his family didn’t know, whereas Giggs’ name had been chanted on the terraces.""Try beating my 26, Giggsy" Camilla Long, The Sunday Times, 29 May 2011

According to the Daily Telegraph, the Premier League footballer identified by Coren in the tweets was not Ryan Giggs, and was known in the privacy injunction by the pseudonym TSE. The case at the High Court in London was TSE & ELP v News Group Newspapers Ltd, with TSE being described as "a married footballer" who had been involved in an extra-marital relationship with a woman known as ELP. Neither person had wished The Sun to publish the details of the relationship. The injunction was granted on 13 May 2011 by Mr Justice Tugendhat, who accepted claims from the footballer that publication of the details of the relationship "would provoke the cruel chants of supporters." Tugendhat said that aspects of the case had been published on "various electronic media, including Twitter", but added: "the fact that these publications have occurred does not mean that there should be no injunction in this case".

Television

The F-Word Tax the Fat Animal Farm Movie Lounge

With Sue Perkins, Coren starred in Edwardian Supersize Me; the two spent a week on the diet of a wealthy Edwardian couple, for a BBC Four documentary shown in December 2007. The pair were reunited for a series (The Supersizers Go…) broadcast in May 2008 on BBC Two. From 15 June 2009 the pair hosted The Supersizers Eat…, which began with an episode on the cuisine of the 1980s and went on to look at the 1950s, 1920s, the French Revolution, Medieval culture, and ancient Rome.

Personal life

Coren was born in Paddington, London, the son of Anne (née Kasriel) and British humourist Alan Coren and elder brother of journalist Victoria Coren. He was educated at The Hall School in Hampstead, Westminster School, and read English at Keble College, Oxford.

He lives in Kentish Town, Camden, London, with his wife Esther Walker.

In a BBC television interview in December 2012, Coren said that he has been meeting a psychoanalyst four times a week for five years. Interview with BBC News, 20 December 2012.

Writing

Newspapers

Coren has been a columnist for the British newspaper The Times since 1993, and was named 2005 "Food And Drink Writer of the Year". As well as restaurant reviews, he also contributes a column to The Times, the subjects of which range from personal life to politics. Under the pseudonym ‘Professor Gideon Garter’, he wrote The Intellectual’s Guide to Fashion in The Sunday Times. Random House

Books

Coren is credited by inventor James Dyson as the co-author of his autobiography published in 1997.

In 2005, he published his first novel, Winkler, reviewed in The New Statesman and The Independent. One section of the novel won the Literary Review’s "Bad Sex in Fiction Award".