As anyone who knows me will testify, my body is a temple. A Buddhist temple. Friends have cruelly suggested I had been in training for the following events in the London 2012 Olympic Games—the diabetics and the paralytics. In response, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone by undergoing an eight-day hunger strike outside the home of the prime minister in protest about the lack of equal parenting rights in the UK. By Day 6, an armed response team were protecting David Cameron's refrigerator and I would have killed for a quiche. I knew licorice had to be in the book after I began hallucinating about a character made from assorted licorice candies. The Prime Minister subsequently sent me a letter as slippery as his preelection commitments.
Calabrian licorice is probably the best in the world. The soil and climate in Calabria, the "toe" of Italy, is ideal for growing glycyrrhiza glabra, the roots of which produce licorice with a bittersweet taste that is said to have soothing properties for digestion and sore throats
