What's cooking with David Cameron

With the election only a few weeks away on May 7, senior politicians are so well-coached by their minders that they give little away in set piece interviews with political correspondents. But we learnt quite a bit about David Cameron's personal life when he gave a relaxed interview to Women & Home magazine.

Of course, he wants women's votes. Nevertheless, he comes across as a normal family man who does ordinary things at home, while doing daft ones at work - such as sending British soldiers to Ukraine to help train its forces to fight more effectively against the Russians.

Clearly, he has learnt nothing from bombing Libya, upsetting the delicate balance between its various tribes in the post-Gaddafi era and leaving the country in a much bigger mess than it was previously. It was only the Labour Party which stopped him from bombing Syria where minority groups, such as the Christians, are at much greater risk than they were before.

He obviously knows little about the first law of foreign affairs which is leave well alone - military intervention invariably makes a bad situation worse.

At home, though, we learn the Prime Minister loves to cook after an 8-mile bicycle ride in the cold with his wife, Samantha, and two of their older children. Also, he much prefers to be at his personal home in Oxfordshire rather than at 10 Downing Street, or the prime minister's official country residence at Chequers in Buckinghamshire.

"I love cooking; it's a very good way to get your mind off things," he tells the women's magazine. "Yesterday I made roast chicken and all the trimmings, and my signature dish is probably something slow-cooked - like belly of pork or shoulder of lamb. I'm also an obsessive barbecuer; one of the most exciting moments of the year for me is when the cover comes off the barbecue!"

He lets Samantha choose his clothes, usually somewhere ordinary like Marks & Spencer or Gap (this is a way of revealing he does not have £2,000 bespoke suits tailored in Savile Row). "I'm not really interested in clothes, mainly I like wearing clothes that don't make me stand out... I do get put in the changing room at Gap and clothes are passed to me under the changing room door - a bit like feeding time at the zoo!"

I am sure he has a pinstripe suit or two but none with his full name, David William Donald Cameron, actually making up the stripes.

This England

It is through little stories that we often get to understand a country. The funeral took place last week of a 66-year-old tramp who collapsed and died on the streets of Swansea where he was a familiar figure.

His name was Brian Burford though he was born Brian Bothwell. He carried his few possessions in a black bin bag and was known to everyone as "Tea Cosy Pete". He had once been at school with Rowan Williams, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Nearly 150 people attended his cremation, where Pastor Sean Stillman said: "He was as intelligent as he was sober and could talk about music, the arts, literature at great length. A man's life should not be judged by how much he has in bag or what he stores in his mansion - but what he carries in his heart."

What endeared Tea Cosy Pete to local townspeople was an incident many years ago when he found a wallet stuffed with hundreds of pounds. He walked 12 miles in the rain so that he could return the wallet to its rightful owner. Not a penny was missing nor would he accept a thank you reward from the stunned owner.

A fundraising appeal to pay for his funeral, organised by the local paper, The Evening Post , raised £3,500.

Turban tension

Sikh builders wearing turbans may help to build sporting centres - and often do. But the law was effectively described as the proverbial ass in the House of Lords last week when it emerged that Sikhs in turbans were banned from participating in sports that required the wearing of safety helmets. This was on health and safety grounds.

Now, a number of peers have called on the government to do away with this restriction.

Labour's equalities spokeswoman Baroness Thornton said there may be a "turban-wearing Olympic talent" who was unable to get training.

The Lords has two Sikh members with turbans.

Lord Inderjit Singh, a broadcaster, said: "I have played cricket and rugby to an acceptable level without mishap."

And Lord Ranbir Singh Suri pointed out: "Sikhs have been allowed to drive motorbikes with the turban, Sikhs have fought two world wars without wearing any helmets."

They could have added: "Most dangerous of all, a turbaned Sikh has even been a prime minister and survived brickbats thrown by his wretched media adviser."

On the motorcycle front, I was the reporter assigned by The Daily Telegraph many years ago basically to support the Sikh campaign to wear turbans instead of crash helmets on motorbikes. I remember one Baldev Singh Chahal was arrested 49 times for breaking the law. In the end, legislation was introduced to give Sikhs special dispensation to wear turbans on motorbikes.

Maybe my circle of friends is limited but most Sikhs I know prefer to be driven around in their Bentleys. Most are too busy to go to a leisure centre though occasionally there is time for a hearty luncheon at the Bombay Palace (owned by US Sikh and good friend of the Clintons, Sant Singh Chatwal).

For optics

What they said about England and America now applies to England and India. They are two countries divided by a common language - English.

Once "polity" was much used in thoughtful edit page pieces in India about Indian "politics" - the word still preferred in England.

The latest word, which I noticed Arnab Goswami using, is "optics" - as in, "is this more than just optics?"

I think I know what he meant - "is this just for appearance's sake?"

England hasn't caught up with Indian usage of "optics" yet - I found my school textbook on optics last week and it was about old fashioned scientific stuff about light going through prisms and such like. Maybe I have the book decorating the shelf for the sake of optics.

Off limits

Dev Patel, of Slumdog Millionaire fame, is giving lots of interviews to promote his new well-received film, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. But questions about his split with Freida Pinto are banned.

Tittle tattle

Normally, Madonna has problems keeping her clothes on. But at the Brit music awards in London last week, she suffered the mother of all wardrobe malfunctions when her tightly worn cape refused to come off, as it was meant to, with the result she fell backwards off the stage. She suffered whiplash to her head and it wasn't a publicity stunt, she said later.

She received precious little sympathy, though, from former tabloid editor Piers Morgan who wrote a gleeful article about Madonna after tweeting: "This is God's way of telling you to stop cavorting like a hooker, Madonna".