Why is the mayor chumming around with British food critic Giles Coren?

City Hall was at its zoo-ish, three-ring-circus best today, what with the release of more documents tied to Project Brazen 2, the police investigation with Rob Ford at its centre. In a video published by The Star, Ford can be seen making a beeline for his office while brushing off questions from reporters about the documents and, specifically, if he contracted pal and sometimes-driver Sandro Lisi to retrieve the infamous “crack video.”

But the real story of that Star video? It appears that Ford was entertaining a special guest, notoriously nasty British food critic Giles Coren. Coren is perhaps best known for a widely publicized 2008 incident in which he dressed down a group of editors at the British newspaper The Times in a lengthy e-mail for removing a definite article from one of his reviews, thus ruining a gay joke. He also once made a tasteless joke on Twitter about having sex with, and then murdering, his 12 year-old neighbour. Besides the evidence in the video itself—Ford audibly says “Giles” a few times—we were able to get independent confirmation that Ford’s companion was Coren, thanks to Toronto writer (and Toronto Life contributor) Corey Mintz, who spoke with Coren outside city hall just before the incident. On Twitter, Coren confirmed being present at the mob scene. Apparently the mayor bought him a hot dog.