The Smoking Gone
First let me say this: I’m not really the sort of fellow who believes that we can or should look to The Market to do solve our social problems.
It looks like a smoking ban will be imposed in UK pubs before very long. Big Tony […]

Patrick who? For anyone who’s interested, it looks as though the Dwayne Lee transfer mini-saga we mentioned a while back is reaching its conclusion. Do I sense an unseemly note of glee in the Exeter Express and Echo’s coverage?
“A d[…]

Don’t fear the cheese
Tom’s right: London doesn’t have a dead centre preserved in amber and only useful for tourists. I think this is a good thing: that London’s ‘attractions’ are spread out and exist inside and al[…]

Extrusion cooking: technologies and applications
Here you are Dave! Order your copy today of this key reference to the methods of extruded snacks. That is if you want to go into the spiral chip (aka curly fry) business. Edited by a well-known authori[…]

The Best Spiral Chip in the World Ever!

It had it all – a perfect curl, even, tight, long. More spring made from potato than chip.
This chip prompted a pub debate about how on earth spiral chips get made? Do they liquify spuds then squeeze the[…]

The Problem With Tourist London
(This was an ‘insight’ I had last night in the pub, and we know all about those. I am not convinced of it but I throw it open to discussion.)
Most major and middling European cities from Bilbao to Tallinn h[…]

GAY GO UP AND GAY GO DOWN
Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements
You owe me five farthings say the bells of St Martins
When will you pay me say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be say the be[…]

Thank you, Wales
One of the only, in fact, now I come to think of it, the ONLY good thing about our local Safeways transition to a Morrisons is that they have started stocking laver bread. So that’s what I had yesterday. On toast. With cockles […]

This song is Diamond N’s version of Descartes Cogito Ergo Sum. In Descartes version he proves that even if he doubts all of the world, there is still something which is doing the doubting, the unshakable belief that he is a thinking thing. From[…]

The problem is not that there is no magic in King Arthur. It is that there is no King. By all means do your spurious archeology nonsense and to the wilds of the borders, though the Scottish scenes seem to be taking place in the Alps. No, King Arthur&[…]