Woz Is Poz

Antony Worrall Thompson has been there since the start. He was at the launch of the British Street Food Awards back in 2009. With Marco Pierre White — and a bit of a cough as I remember.

In 2010, he and his lovely wife Jay gave up their  weekend and trekked halfway across the country to judge the Best of the Best in a Ludlow car park. He drove to Suffolk in 2011 for the Awards at Harvest at Jimmy’s (above, enjoying the company of Bob Fox from NCASS). We weren’t sure if he was going to be available in 2012, what with ‘The Incident’ and all.

But now he’s declared himself in. “I didn’t molest a child” says AWT. “I didn’t beat up my wife. I just made a mistake. And I feel very sorry for that. I’ve been seeing counsellors about what happened, and they’re trying to establish why a chef would need to steal three onions and a tub of coleslaw in the first place.

A year on — and several thousand pounds worth of therapy later — one of the conclusions is that I need risk in my life, but they feel I should be jumping out of planes rather than stealing onions and coleslaw.” As always, he shows a good sense of humour, although he’s clearly contrite about the whole matter. But, as he says, life must go on. In fact, he’s thinking of approaching Specsavers; coming up with a line for a possible ad which finishes with him tiptoeing out of a supermarket, saying “I could have sworn it said ‘Buy One, Get Six Free'”. Welcome back Wozza.