Picking up on FG's last point, I'm not going to be responding to anything from Michael Lewis. I really don't need the personal abuse which is all he can come up with where I'm concerned. Before anybody argues that it's a bit rich for a restaurant critic, who sometimes writes sharp reviews, to object to abuse, I'm posting on this site in my free time. If you wish to abuse me proefessionally feel free to do so via the email address at the bottom of my newspaper reviews, or via snail mail to me at 119 Farringdon Road London EC1 3ER. Be sure to do it in green ink on lined paper so I know what I'm getting. A few saliva stains also help. To other stuff. Cooking is very different to literature or music, in that there is a body of work upon whcih everybody draws. I haven't yet been into a restaurant kitchen - however high flying - which didn't have a stack of cook books on a shelf in the corner. There are very few places which have nothing on their menus that you cannot find elsewhere. They may do it better. THey may use better ingredients. But the fundementals remain the same. For what it's worth I described the Fat Duck as the most exciting in Britain (Not Europe, not the world) and I think that stands. It's irrelevant whether it draws upon things going on elswhere. (Although from conversations I have had with Heston I do believe he is a free thinker, pursuing a similar route to others, not a knock off merchant.) To return to the literature analogy, saying that you can't have two or three chefs working through the same ideas is a little like saying we don't need Salman Rushdie because Gabriel Garcia Marquez has already done the magic realism thing. As to how one goes about judging restaurants as a newspaper critic, I have said this before elsewhere but I will say it again. I am employed to write a column that will sell newspapers. that is all. Not to serve gastronomy or the restaurant business; sell newspapers. How one does that is an issue for debate. I do it by trying to relate my experience to the expectations of most ordinary people. That means, in short, that my column probably is not aimed at most of the people who post here. By the level of your interest you are not most normal people. Most of you probably know more about food than I do. However my editors reckon I write a good column and, for them, that's what counts. Naturally my level of knowledge has increased as I have gone on in the job. Funnily enough I don't think that has improved the column. I have to remind myself not to become too propeller head about it all because experience has shown me that, when I do, the readers switch off. When they do that I am no use to anybody. I do believe it is possible, based on average experience of restaurants, to judge whether a place is any good or not. Somewhere along the line I may have hijacked this thread. It wasn't the intention.