It’s 5am on Saturday morning and I’m barely awake, denied the snooze button, attempting to read 2016’s A Gentleman in Moscow by American novelist Amor Towles by bedside light. So far Count Alexander Somebody has been escorted through the Kremlin to his hotel in Red Square, pondered his dead grandmother and made friends with a pigeon. Why am I reading this pre-sunrise tale of suspected post-first world war anti-communism/ornithology? Because I’m recreating Gregg Wallace’s perfect Saturday, obviously.
Last week, Wallace outlined his ideal Saturday in a column that became a surprise viral hit. The MasterChef presenter arrives at the gym an hour before opening time, meets his PA at a Harvester for breakfast, spends two hours in his home office playing a strategy war game, cooks dinner, and falls asleep by nine. I’m a big Wallace fan: when I interviewed him for this newspaper, I found him charming, hilarious and endearing. (“Mate, please. I’m Gregg Wallace. I’m the bald fat bloke off MasterChef.”) I was saddened to hear that Wallace feels “deeply hurt” after he was compared to Alan Partridge following the column, so I wondered what I could do to help out.
Perhaps I could join him on Saturday for a recreation? His publicist politely declined, so I decided to go it alone instead. Wallace’s local gym lets him in early at 7am for a private swim and sauna. He then posts his daily to-do lists to Instagram, while upping his step count on the treadmill. I turn up at my local gym when it opens at 7am, and in spite of my best “don’t you know who I ams?”, I’m made to swim and sauna with the plebs. My treadmill to-do list reads: must get fitter. Wallace has dropped five stone. This deserves applause (as does the fact that he is known as “the graphic designer’s friend” as he’s easier to cut out on Photoshop because of his lack of hair).
By 10:30am, Wallace is chowing down on a full English at his local Harvester. This is hours away from my local Harvester in south London but Guardian journalist Stuart Heritage lives near Wallace, so we hatch a plan. If I head to my local Harvester and Heritage his, we can form an intra-Harvester Gregg Wallace spy ring and beat the paparazzi to a photo of the great man forking a sausage. I head to my local Harvester in South Norwood. We cut live to Stuart Heritage in Kent.
Stuart Heritage: Yeah, he’s not here, which isn’t a total surprise, because according to his Instagram he’s off to Twickenham to watch England v Wales. I’ve brought my kids and dad, and Dad is denigrating Wallace hard. “How can this possibly be his favourite breakfast?” he keeps saying, poking his scrambled eggs. “The man knows nothing about food.” I just asked a server if she’s ever seen Wallace. She said no, but did tell me the name of his favourite pub, so perhaps that will be the next stage of my weird quest to stalk Gregg Wallace on the Guardian’s dime.
Back to south-east London for lunch. Apparently, Wallace favours a bowl of midday homemade white bean soup. My attempt that involves frying onions and blending cannellini beans is pretty bland, plus I’m still stuffed from my Harvester fry-up. At 1:30pm, it’s family time, to which I play God’s advocate. Wallace says he didn’t think he would have another child until he met his fourth wife. I counter: this is called love. I’m a parent and would say you probably hardly ever give the 90 minute’s undivided attention that Wallace diarised to give to his son, by which I mean no phones, cooking or cleaning. Wallace’s young son has complex additional needs. I have a young daughter with complex additional needs so feel I am allowed to sympathise. But if you’re not in the same boat, it’s hard to explain what all the fuss is about.
What I have no experience of is the hardcore role-playing video game Wallace plays for two hours at 3pm. What even is it? “Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is a fairly nerdy PC game made in 2018 but set in the 9th century, where everything is muddy and horrible,” Matt Bassil, a staff writer at Wargamer.com, tells me. “You hire a bunch of guys with axes, then move your armies around a miniature map of (soon to be) England beating the snot out of people in giant set-piece battles. It’s not one of the best Total War games. He should be playing Total War: Warhammer that has vampires and dragons in it.”
Wallace finishes his day with grilled fish, his biweekly pint, glass of wine and brandy, a film on his laptop and bed by 9pm. I fall asleep, exhausted, half drunk, halfway through Mission: Impossible 2 on Channel 5. Thanks, Gregg. I had a lovely day. Same time next week?
Rich Pelley is a freelance writer
