Tanya Gold
Food columnist
My worst date was with the man who is now my husband. It was in February 1994, and we were both freshers at Oxford. He took me to see Schindler’s List. Schindler’s List is not really a date movie, even if its score does feature on The Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World… Ever! (Volume 2. I love the ‘Ever!’) It’s the genocide of European Jewry, I suppose; it just doesn’t make me want to mate with someone so tall, blond and blue-eyed they could conceivably be a Lebensborn baby. I realise now that he had a strategy; he thought I might be so upset about the Holocaust — as if it was news to me! — that I would have sex with him and produce a half-Lebensborn baby. The strategy failed for 19 years and nine months. He also bought popcorn. Schindler’s List is not really a popcorn movie, either.
Jack Whitehall
Comedian
My worst date happened when I was fresh out of university. I took her to a very upmarket restaurant for our first date. She was an older sophisticated lady and I wanted to pull out all the stops. The wine flowed, as did the conversation, and things were looking good until the bill came. We’d run up a hefty tab, but I’d already settled it with myself that she was worth being skint for the next month for. I slammed down my Nationwide debit card and smiled at her. Moments later, to my horror, the waiter uttered the words no man wants to hear on a first date: ‘Sir, your card has been declined.’ I hit panic stations, and after forcing him reluctantly to check it several times, was left with only one final play to save face. Call my mother. What ensued was a humiliating spectacle in which I argued with my mum on the phone in front of the poor girl until out of embarrassment she decided to just pay the enormous bill herself. There was no second date. Now I always bring cash.
Jack Whitehall’s latest DVD, Jack Whitehall Gets Around, is out now.
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