Review of the Year 2021

Bit late for a review of the year but whilst there may be a tradition about these things there is not, to my mind, a rule that says January 20th is too late. Anyway I've been busy.

Annually, I find the same problem. Things I discovered in a particular year were often published before then. So, trying to keep it all vaguely contemporary, here are the arts and culture stuff I enjoyed most in 2021:

Television

Having someone culturally aware come and live with us was helpful and top of the incoming list was our discovery of Succession. If you've missed it then Brian Cox (actor not physicist) plays Logan Roy, a hugely successful businessman trying to stop his dysfunctional offspring from inheriting and ruining his empire. Very sweary. Three seasons available.

If major infrastructure programmes have a fringe benefit it is that they let loose the ubiquitous Alice Roberts to share details of archaeological discoveries under the road, pipeline, railway. Digging for Britain ensued and educated this household muchly. In the same vein, plaudits to BBC2's Stonehenge - The Lost Circle Revealed and the archaeology of back gardens disclosed in The Great British Dig.

Mobeen Azhar's Hometown - A Killing started as a podcast but became a BBC docu-series. Investigative journalism at its best.

I continue to be a sucker for food shows such as Great British Menu, Masterchef and Professional Masterchef. The celebrity versions of these shows can go hang, though. In fact I enjoyed most shows where people demonstrate brilliance at something I can't do, so stand up and take a bow Pottery Throwdown, Bake Off and Great British Sewing Bee.

Clarkson's Farm surprised me by being educational.

Ghosts continued to be lovely and very clever.

Gone Fishing was nice slow tele. Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have delivered public service broadcasting gold.

Music

Squid promised much with their first few singles. Their debut album Bright Green Field was only three stars from me but the blending of maths rock and shouty punk was a fine mash-up and continues to promise much.

Jangly guitar fans could get their fix with The War on Drugs - I Don't Live here Anymore. Album of the year.

For joyful story-telling pop my guilty pleasure was Demi Lovato's Dancing with the Devil ... The Art of Starting Over.

Honourable mentions for Floating Points collaboration with the LSO on Promises.

Twitter

Henry Sotheran Ltd is an antiquarian bookshop, which I will probably never frequent because of money and that but @Sotherans is a delight of a Twitter feed. Sample:

'...we've been around longer, on average, than most empires last. We sell old books and other stuff but mostly books, and definitely not opium anymore because it got banned. Wednesdays are not for talking.'

Films

The Trial of the Chicago Seven was a favourite. Bond a bit disappointing. Didn't see enough as cinemas felt unsafe.

Podcasts

Lost Hills told the story of an apparently random killing in more detail than the cops seemed to have gone into with Dana Goodyear finding out more and more connections and coincidences. From Pushkin.

Books

My wokeness was polished a little by How Not to be Wrong - The Art of Changing Your Mind by James O'Brien.

Good novels included Catriona Ward's Last House on Needless Street - a murder mystery that pulled all the rugs from under both your feet at various times. Very diverting and more than a little odd.

What happens once the easternmost house falls into the sea? Juliet Blaxland's follow-up is a bit more metaphysical, but also keeping alive the stories of those who will crumble next in The Easternmost Sky.

Alice Roberts' (her again) pre-history of Britain in seven burials is exactly that. Who should live in Britain? Who came first? Who are we? Read Ancestors and stop hating immigrants.

Food

Pintxo (tapas) and Appleton's (fine dining) in Fowey made a holiday in this country great. Pony Bistro in Bedminster delivered everything you'd expect a Josh Eggleton enterprise to do (including a Valentine's finish-at-home meal in a box). For tapas in Bristol try Gambas on Wapping Wharf.

Good pubs included Bedminster's North Street Standard, The Salamander in Bath, WB at Wapping Wharf, The Priory at Portbury and Coates House, Nailsea.

Art

We enjoyed wandering around Bedminster's street art festival Upfest and being under the Moon in Bristol Cathedral.

That's about it. I've saved you from the format 'Stuff I found this year that everyone else has known about for ever', which would have included an updated review of experimental German electronica from the early 70s which I'd miss-dissed. Belated apologies to Faust, Can and Amon Düül II. Although for some reason I always liked Tangerine Dream.

Thought for the Day

I pre-recorded this one for BBC Radio Bristol on Tuesday and then the story I based it on was bumped from the Breakfast Show because of a rescheduled balloon mass ascent. So it went out today. Apologies to my fan who I misinformed on Sunday.

We had an interesting discussion in our house. I was gently nursing our ancient dishwasher through its final few tasks before it went to the domestic appliance graveyard. My family laughed at my efforts to turn the water off as the programme finished, which involved squeezing into the cupboard under the sink with a pair of mole-grips and a torch.

After a few days without our labour-saving device our privileged position is to be able to afford a new one. But washing up by hand was annoying because we'd filled the labour-saving time with tasks, not leisure. More fool us.

Once my ancestors would have fed the scraps to the animals, washed up in the river and hunter-gathered the next meal.

Today I look at relative scarcity on the supermarket shelves and remind myself how fragile our grip on life is.

'As for people', the psalmist said, 'their days are like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.'

Pretty bleak thought. Good job the next verse says:

'But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him...'

Good news. Good God. Good morning.

Advent Thought 20

I swear we only really get to grips with the fridges and the freezer at Christmas. Today, answering the question 'Do we need to get some more butter?' rather than simply putting 'butter' on the shopping list, because you can always use butter, we actually bothered to check.

Well it turns out we don't. We have enough.

In trying to survive whatever version of the apocalypse comes our way next March I feel sure that there will be enough in already opened jars and packets in the corner of the fridge to keep us going.

We've become quite good at not wasting food, but clearly not good enough. We are so wealthy there is food we forgot we had.

What do you have too much of?

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol Breakfast with Emma an hour ago. If you click on the link you can go to 'Listen Again' if you really want to and hear the intro and outro badinage and repartee:

The Bible has a lot to say about food - fish, bread, red wine, wedding feasts, great banquets - but I had to think for a long time to recall references to exercise.

It's that time of year when our TV schedules are about to challenge us as to what sort of couch potatoes we are? Watching people making bread and cakes or getting strictly exercised on the dance floor?

Sit and sponsor Emma as she gets running? Or be encouraged to run too?

Take our places at the roadside as the lycra-fit guys on bikes come through? Or take up our cycles and stretch our legs?

Regular listeners to this spot may have heard me a lot but never seen me. I am of slender build although pretty fit for a man of my age. I had the blessing of not putting on weight in my early and middle years. One friend told me I wouldn't get fat if I ate a greased pig. Another that I only wore clothes so people could see me. Well with friends like that...

In his wonderful book Sapiens (A Brief History of Humankind) Yuval Noah Harari says:

'Consumerism has worked very hard ... to convince people that indulgence is good for you, whereas frugality is self-oppression.'

He has a point. Al Murray's pub landlord is fond of saying that people who think they have slow metabolism actually have a fast pie-arm.

In fact the biblical material about exercise is indirect, but blunt. Look after your body. Treat it like a temple says St Paul. That way, say I, you'll, maybe, give your friends and family the gift of living with them longer.

Bread

I have written before about the difference between bread with presevatives in and a more natural product. Find my piece about Gozitan bread here. It's only short.

Recently I have noticed that we are not eating so much bread in the house again and our home-made stuff tends to deteriorate before we have finished a loaf. We solve this by making a new loaf and freezing half of it each time.

But another first world problem has appeared. We are the destination of choice when Lakeland bread-making packs approach their best-before date. And as the yeast has a few problems of ageing the packs often require a double knead and prove. Even this is not quite enough and some very solid products have appeared recently. Toasting a slice can take longer than a normal adult male has in the morning. So imagine the trouble I have. We play scissors, paper, bread in my gaff now.

I feel I need to crawl back to the lovely Colin at Nailsea's Tuesday Market and buy some of his soudough and rye creations. He calls them campaouille or something like that. Pronounced in broad Somerset the French would have no idea it is their language he is mangling.

Food Labelling

The Prime Minister's speech to the Tory Party Conference was, like Grace Brothers, pretty terrifying on all levels. Having stayed quietly in the background during the EU referendum campaign she is now leading a party of her own making which I think can only be called Conservative Lemmings. As one commentator said, having jettisoned the methodology of Norway and Canada our closest model for existing in the free world will be North Korea.

Economists will tell us what this all means as long as there are some still around who haven't been attracted by the bright lights of retraining as trade negotiators.

So let us talk about something I have a vague familiarity with - food labelling. Living with two vegetarians, one pretty strict about avoiding meat in any form, I have become familiar with searching through the small print on food labels. The EU recognised food-labelling system at least means that the symbol/information for which I search is readily identifiable on all products.

If we go back to deciding how to label our own food then I'm sure we will still have to use this format to export to the EU.

What are the choices?

1. Claim we have taken back control of our food but do absolutely nothing to change and continue to live in a world where food safety standards are shared. May well happen.

2. Have higher standards than the rest of the world. Great to be an example, but if we simply make it harder for people to sell to us then we should not expect great trade deals when the roles are reversed. File under unlikely.

3. Have lower standards than the rest of the world. Then end up importing a load of dodgy food that can't be shifted in the other nation's home market. At home, unscrupulous food producers will no longer have to add the awkward 'may contain horse' to their beef mince label. Hope not.

4. Quietly withdraw this ridiculous promise on a fast news day. Very possible.

We always had the right to label our own food. We chose to do it in co-operation with other countries to make the EU a better place not just formerly-great Britain.

If Brexit means brexit then it does exactly what it says on the tin. Always read the label.

Sauce?

If you haven't read volume 1 of an autobiography series that is going to run and run then head off now and get a copy of Danny Baker's Going to Sea in a Sieve. You'll not regret it and, if you don't laugh, I'll consider giving you your money back. Shouldn't cost me that much as only people too stupid to work out how to contact me will fail to laugh.

I am reading Going off Alarming which is volume 2. I was unable to wait for the paperback or Christmas.

If you are unfamiliar with Danny Baker the broadcaster then, seriously dude, what is the matter with you? Radio Five Live on Saturday mornings - make that an appointment.

But if you are that dude you may not know that he offers a segment called 'The Sausage Sandwich Game' in which callers attempt to match the answers of celebrities to various questions, the last of which is about the colour of sauce that person would have in a sausage sandwich.

Now in chapter two of the book Danny Baker (calling him Danny sounds like I know him, calling him Baker sounds too formal, my entire life consists of these minor dilemmas) introduces the idea of a sausage and egg sandwich.

It is funny what catches your attention. Where do our prejudices come from? A bacon and egg sandwich would be good (no sauce at all). A bacon and sausage sandwich would be lovely (brown sauce, although my former colleague Mark insisted, and argued well, that the sauce should be red as it needed to match the bacon, the purer meat product - I can't agree but the logic is compelling). But a sausage and egg sandwich is just wrong. I was so bothered by the idea I had to stop reading for a bit and post this.

If forced to eat a sausage and egg sandwich or die I wouldn't go to the grave, although I would resist firmly any suggestions of sauce with same.

I expect my reader will have stronger opinions on this than any of the recent political or social matters I have attended to.

Volume 3 is promised and I expect the tweets from @prodnose will be entertaining during the wait.

Live Below the Line - Final Thoughts

We finished. 'I woke up this morning and I could eat what I wanted' will never make the blues archive but it sure felt good. Thing is. I woke up hungry, but I didn't mind. I was off for a good cooked breakfast with a load of other guys. I could wait. A huge amount of the craving for food is psychological.

A few concluding thoughts from the week:

1. It would not take much more to make me happy. I didn't really miss alcohol (which was a relief). If I doubled my food budget this week I'd feel it was a luxury.

2. Just because I can afford to save time with pre-prepared food doesn't mean I need to quite so often. My home-made bread was nicer than about 90% of the loaves I could buy.

3. The recycling box is commensurately less full of food packaging than usual.

4. I had rice, pasta and oats left. Every last drop of protein and fresh vegetable had been squeezed out. If I could have found the package size to buy fewer carbs and save money it would have been good to have more carrots, onions and cheese. Low budget shopping is dull and store cupboards cannot be built up. Maybe foodbanks should include some things people never buy on a budget - stock cubes, spices, pestos etc

5. I worked hard to plan how to make the best of the last drops. For what it's worth, on the last night we had a vegetable risotto. Our box still contained:

1 carrot
1 slice of onion
Loads of frozen peas
Half a cauliflower
Rice
Half a packet (about 250mls) of pasata
1 eating apple and one old windfall from 2013
Cheap margarine/spread
Some bread
Four sachets of white sugar and one of brown

Soften a little chopped onion, carrot and cauliflower in a little oil. Set aside. Save the carrot peel, cauli leaves and stalk and onion skin. Make a vegetable stock with water and salt.

Add rice to another lightly oiled pan and mix well. On low heat slowly add strained stock and pasata to make risotto, stirring all the time as with low oil content it will stick easily. Keep adding until rice will absorb no more liquid and is cooked. Then add frozen peas to softened vegetables until all is hot. Finally add vegetables to rice, stir well, and top with fresh herbs from garden.

Serve at once.

I softened the peeled and cored apples in a little spread. I lined two small ramekins with spread and a little sugar then bread. I filled the bread cases with apple and then topped with bread, spread and brown sugar. Cooked in oven for 25 minutes to maker mini charlottes. They were lovely. A bit of cream and spread not butter would have made them dinner-party standard (and come out of the ramekins more easily).

5. A person who had not tried the week told me 'What you should do next week is work out how little you need to spend on food...'

This was infuriating. If you've not been on the battle-field don't tell me how to win the war.

6. I'm really, really glad to have had this challenge and am sending the money saved on food to the Hunger Project.

7. My cooked breakfast in the pub today cost the same as last week's food budget - £5 - but I didn't enjoy it that much.

Live Below the Line

What is it like to have only £1 a day to budget for food? Many of us have found out this week by doing just that and I have been tweeting and blogging my reactions.

I'm eating a boiled egg on toast for my Friday (day off, final day) breakfast then am off to the gym. Will be interesting to see how my usual workout feels today. Probably a little cheese on toast for lunch and then a vegetable risotto for supper. One coffee, free, from Waitrose. Have had the last sachet of tea. It turned out to be Earl Grey. Bit of a surprise first drink of the day.

For me this has been quite emotional and private, although I have enjoyed the conversations with people, raising awareness of how it feels to be food poor.

But there has been another side to it, for me. Those who know me personally and have met me will be aware that I am relatively thin. I have a high metabolism and don't put on weight easily. I have never dieted in my life. A rude friend once said I wouldn't get fat if I ate a greased pig. This guy had eaten all the greased pigs himself anyway.

I've heard all the jokes. I disappear when I stand sideways. I wear clothes so you can see me coming (I wrote that one). I run round in the shower to get wet. And so on.

So what is it like to diet? I look at the obese and wonder why they don't simply eat less food. I am not sympathetic. So the chance to have to do it was a personal challenge.

Some of my friends have taken the challenge whilst consuming biscuits and cakes at meetings. Church life is full of meetings with biscuits and cakes. I have often made a point of objecting but that ship seems to have sailed. Put fruit on the table not cake. Don't have pudding parties every week. Last night at our Archdeacon's Visitation the table was loaded with cake. We run some of our children's groups with cakes seeming to be the target. We don't breed healthy Christians.

So I wondered what it would be like to wander round a room full of biscuits and not have one. I specifically asked members of my church to bring nice biscuits to a meeting on Wednesday knowing I was going to arrange them on plates, pass them round and not have one. I avoided the cake last night.

My challenge to me was to identify with the dieter. And of course, I stop the diet tomorrow. But I have done it. No cakes. No biscuits. Minimal sugars. No alcohol. No chocolate or sweets. I turned down offers of food from neighbours, didn't eat at a leaving do and refused lunch with a colleague and left after accepting a single coffee (very nice one though).

Throw in a bowl of fruit and a little protein and I swear I could live like this if I needed to. It has been more interesting than hard. A bit like an early pre-anaesthesia surgeon operating on him or her self. Ignores pain; enjoys outcome.

If you look back at my week in detail I am sure you will find failings in budget. Stuff I used and forgot to count. Cooking oil (I used my cheapest and not the nice stuff). A little salt and occasional pepper. Probably spent about £5.20 all in.

But I am pleased with myself. Thanks for talking about it with me. That has helped.

Psychologically, I have kept busy this week. The thinking time I normally love has been hi-jacked and I have found myself, when able, starting to think about food.

Our nation is becoming obese. We need to stop being cakeocentric and chipaholic.

Thought for the Day

On day three of my Live Below the Line week I delivered this thought at BBC Radio Bristol today:

The prophetess Joni Mitchell said 'You don't know what you got 'til it's gone.' She was right.

They may not have paved paradise and put up a parking lot - who knows how much they would charge for parking there - but we do take lots of things for granted. Then if we lose them life is difficult. Power cuts. Computer crashes. Washing machine break downs. How we miss those things.

So I, along with many others this week, am trying to live below the line. Can I live on £1 a day for food for five days?

I'm on day three. I'm carb rich and protein poor.

My wife is in on it too. That makes it easier. Larger quantities are cheaper than small ones.

Eye-opening for me has not been the actual doing of the task but the research. Pasta, rice, pulses and oats all give meals bulk. I won't starve. But getting a bit of taste into it with meat or cheese - gosh that's hard.

We have six apples for the week and a little cheddar. We foraged some wild garlic and a few leaves for a salad to go with my frozen peas. Green food just looks healthier. I have some herbs in the garden. I bought two carrots.

40 fish fingers for £2 would be nice but how good for you are fish fingers that cheap? Are they really fingers or some less noble part?

On Saturday I have booked a cooked breakfast, a lunchtime pint and a cake. And I spare a thought for those who don't have the luxury of that choice. Give us each day our daily bread. From now on I'll mean it just a little bit more.

Live Below the Line

If you haven't visited here before I am a well off, middle class clergyman. I live with my wife and have enough money for food never to be a problem, I can choose what to eat, eat out regularly and if I spoil something in the cooking can do it again.

We have decided to try and live for five days on just £1 each per day. This has involved careful planning, shopping and portion control. Breakfast porridge is being weighed. Sugar is in sachets from the supermarket where we get a free coffee each day (but don't take sugar).

We have a pint of milk only for the week, a small block of cheese and a few fresh veggies. Lots of carbs (pasta, oats, rice and pulses) but little protein. Six apples for the week. Also six eggs.

Obviously no chocolate or alcohol can be afforded. Working from home in a house with a wine stock and chocolate in the cupboard is a bit tough.

It's been an interesting couple of days. Not having the luxury of spare cash for even a biscuit between meals I have found myself thinking of biscuits far more than usual. This is all part of the reverse psychology going on I think. I have just enjoyed a plenty big-enough meal of a Spanish omelette with fresh herbs, some peas and bread and knocked up a home made biscuit to follow. But an hour later I am hungry. There is no reason why I should be.

Today we celebrated a colleague's farewell with four glasses of sparkling water, which she bought, at a local pub. There will never be a totally convenient time to have a Live Below the Line week but an austerity leaving do felt hard.

The photograph is of today's breakfast. Boiled egg on toasted home made bread with a free coffee.

Live Below the Line

Weekly shopping accomplished. Nipping between Iceland and Tesco gives us a carb-heavy week with a bit of cheese, tomato sauce and a few hits of fresh fruit and veg. One coffee a day from Waitrose and a couple of free meals will be welcome. The nature of my job means it is quite hard to keep within the letter of the law - thin vicars are always on parishioners fattening-up lists.

Live Below the Line

So me and Mrs T (previously referred to as Mrs Mustard and Mrs WWA, which is the problem of changing the blog's name) are tackling the Live Below the Line challenge next week, Monday to Friday.

The aim is to live on £1 a day each for food and give away what you would normally spend. Thank God it isn't wine delivery week. I will be posting some thoughts along the way.

First observation is how much time and research it all takes. How much easier to simply pop into Iceland and buy 40 fish fingers for £2. I have deliberately tried to make the week's meals interesting and tasty. Protein is a problem. Cheap carbs are easy. Five a day is almost impossible.

I have also resisted the urge to drive to Clevedon where there are cheaper supermarkets. Walking distance has been my benchmark.

I am struggling with what to do about a long-standing lunch invitation on Tuesday. I may keep it as it is an important friendship and a colleague's leaving do. I will eat frugally and avoid alcohol.

I think I will solve my caffeine withdrawal by easing off over the weekend and having a free one in Waitrose each day (so middle class). Will bring some sugar sachets home to help the porridge along.

Also going to head out looking for wild garlic and other edible leaves.

Someone once said that a good sex life takes 5% of your time. A bad one takes all your time.

It is true of food poverty too. I have spent far more time thinking about food this week than usual. Which is a good thing.

Apologies to the gang at Riverford from whom I have had to cancel my weekly delivery.

Customer Feedback

Sometimes, when you write a short and simple question to a company, the length and breadth of the response tells you that a nerve has been touched.

Cawston Press apple juice cartons are extraordinarily PC. A long list of the non-ingredients appears on the side of recyclable packaging. Having time on holiday, and realising that the package gave the impression of a home-grown product without mentioning sourcing, I sent off a web-site customer enquiry:

Do you have orchards abroad? The source of your apples is not written on your packets or web-site?

Here is the reply in full:

Hi Steve,

Cawston Press has been producing pressed apple juice for over 25 years. We use all our combined expertise of apples and blending to produce what we believe is the very best tasting pressed apple juice that has a consistent blend which can be enjoyed all year round. A key factor to achieving this is the care and attention we take in selecting specific varieties of apples. To produce the long acclaimed Cawston Press Apple Juice we always include some English Cox Orange Pippin and Bramley apples - the Cox delivers a rich full flavour, and the Bramley provides the 'bite' and sharper refreshment that we look for in our signature product. Other apple varieties used will be mainly Jonagold, Braeburn, Gala and Golden Delicious and for reasons of availability of just picked fruit we source these varieties from Europe. The exact proportion that we use of each variety will be decided by taste and will depend on the level of sweetness and acidity that will inevitably vary with each batch of apples

The approach we take to sourcing and combining these specific apple varieties is unique to Cawston Press but it enables us to produce a consistently great tasting juice for our consumers to enjoy all year round. Unlike other leading brands all the apples that we use for Cawston Press are 'picked and pressed' rather than held in what can be many months of long term storage prior to pressing (as is the case with fresh apple juices pressed all year round).

In producing the other blends in our range we select the sweeter apple varieties to balance the sharper taste of the other ingredient –for example the Rhubarb or Blackcurrant. Alternatively we will select the more delicate flavoured varieties to blend with ingredients such as Elderflower to ensure that the lighter tastes come through.

It is the careful selection of the best apple varieties available for a particular product blend, the belief that it is best to ‘pick and press’ the apples direct from the orchard, and our skill in blending the juices to achieve a consistent range of blends all year round – that together make Cawston Press the very best tasting juice whatever the time of year.

Kind regards...

You will note the actual information I sought in six words I have highlighted towards the end of paragraph one. It could have been edited still further, down to one. 'Yes'. It is delightful juice and I am not against importing apples as they are a seasonal product. Never defend yourself before you are sure you have been attacked.

Thought for the Day

As delivered at Radio Bristol an hour ago:

 

What do I have that Moses, Elijah and Jesus never had?

 

There was a bishop, many miles from here and some years ago, whose wife regularly catered large gatherings in their house.

 

It was noted, over time, that several people were taken ill following such events.

 

Investigation revealed a tendency for the woman to cook meat dishes early in the morning, leave them in the kitchen all day to cool where her cats showed occasional interest in them, and then re-heat them for dinner. Dodgy lasagne - dire consequences.

 

She was taken on one side in that gentle way that the Church of England does so well and invited to do a course. It was too late to improve the acceptance rate for her dinner party invitations but the casualty-count fell dramatically.

 

Moses fed people in the wilderness. Elijah produced bread from nothing to feed a hungry widow. When feeding miracles began to be associated with Jesus, the crowds wondered if he was one of the great prophets returned. Who else could feed 5,000 with just a little bread and fish, the people asked.

 

He offered life-giving physical and spiritual food.

 

Well the identity of Jesus is a question for all of us, but to return to the opening question. It occurred to me, a few years back, that as I entertained lots of people in my vicarage, I ought to be certain I had no bad habits that might jeopardise health and safety.

 

So, what do I have that Moses, Elijah and Jesus never had?

 

A Food Hygiene Certificate. The course is cheap, especially if you get together with friends to do it and it may save a life.

Sausage Sandwich Game

I have posted before about how 'one with brown and bacon' was a school tuck-shop order. Since then I have to say that a sausage sandwich as a late breakfast, followed by some fruit, has been my comfort food of choice at the start of a day.

I have, over the years, been assembling the ingredients for this meal with diligence, seeking the perfect combination. Here's the current favourite.

1. Go to the Forest of Dean and ask your friend Richard to walk round to the neighbouring pig farm with you and select a beast. Wait a few months and then have the animal butchered and bagged. Select two small sausages. In this recipe 'small' means by comparison with the other sausages, not with any sausages you have previously experienced.

2. Go to Nailsea market of a Tuesday and ask the lovely Colin for a campouille. It is a round loaf with some rye flour in it. Freeze it, if you are not eating your sandwich on that Tuesday.

3. Buy a pack of Waitrose slow-matured sweet back bacon. Select one rasher.

4. Also purchase a bottle of Wilkin and Sons Tiptree brown sauce. After years of tests I have concluded that this is the only one to give HP a run for its money.

5. Collect and defrost ingredients.

6. Cut loaf in half. Then two further swishes of your blade will produce two slices, one from either side of the centre.

7. Grill sausages for 16 minutes giving a quarter-turn every 4. Add bacon after 8 and turn after 4.

8. Cut cooked sausages in half lengthways and lay flat side down on slice of bread. Place bacon on top and dribble with sauce. Cover with other slice of bread and cut whole sandwich in half.

Cost, about £50 including petrol. Preparation time 8-9 months. Available in our restaurant once retired from current day job.

View or Food?

There are great restaurants in Valetta. There are also restaurants with wonderful views. Haven't found anywhere that does both yet.

Three weeks ago, on our first night in Valetta before travelling over to Gozo, we tried a new restaurant with a fabulous view of the Grand Harbour at dusk.

The style was Italian - pizza and pasta - and the courtyard in which we ate was lovely.

We should perhaps have left when the extensive wine menu was revealed to be a front for a fridge containing two bottles of local white and lots of local chardonnay. We don't much like chardonnay. Opting for a glass, not a bottle, of  'La Reserve' we heard a voice from the kitchen shout 'Two house whites.'

My chair wobbled. I changed it for one from another table. This one also wobbled. I realised the floor needed changing, not the chair.

The three parts of our meal - a side salad and two pizzas - were delivered to our table at roughly five-minute intervals.

The light faded. We asked for some illumination on the table (another table had a lamp) and were provided with a candle with the official power of one hundredth of a glimmer. We got the giggles.

I was unable to identify the sauce that lay between my cheesy pepperoni and the pizza base - it may have been based on bottled tomato paste.

Mrs T had asked for a thin-crust pizza. This brief had been achieved by hitting the centre of a normal-crust pizza with a mallet. Her margarita seemed to have no base whatsoever in the centre of the pizza giving her just a pile of tomatoey goop which fell off each slice as she lifted it.

The la Reserve and the sparkling water were hard to tell apart in the dark (the candle blew out in the breeze but we didn't really notice the difference). I would guess that the water had the hint of lemon and the wine the hint of apple. In fact the wine may have been diluted cider.

We watched the lights in the harbour glow, pretending to still be eating long after the desire to consume any more than the outer crust (which was pleasant) had gone. We picked at the salad, which turned out to be the most expensive thing we had ordered.

At one point I had an adrenaline-rush caused by an ugly dog which crept to my side trying to beg pizza. It sat very still but a crash-weld of a pug and a beagle is scary in the dark, especially when the pug bit is the front end. A cat wandered in. There was a brief canine/feline stand-off which ended when Puggle barked and the cat died laughing.

33 euros for the entertainment which included an easily overheard commentary coming out of the kitchen window.

Bread

Mrs T has given up bread in the morning and now goes to work on a massive bowl of gloop. This means that we have a lot of marmalade in the cupboard with a furry top and that the bread I make goes off before we can finish it.

My mind went on holiday and rested upon Gozitan bread which, fresh from the bakers, is delicious. It is crusty and the inside is moist and slightly chewy. Day two the crust can only be torn - your teeth will not penetrate it - and has an amazing elasticity; the inside is still lovely but by now very chewy and also dry. I don't know how this effect is achieved but I fear it simply demonstrates how many bad-for-you things are in my shop-bought, non-organic bread at home. On day three Gozitan bread is only of any use to the Gozitan Popular Front in their anti-authority campaigns as a flinging weapon of choice. Day four, if you leave it on the floor, the ants come up to you and complain about the quality of supper. Eat fresh bread in Gozo.

Anyway I am now making a loaf and freezing half of it.

Clash of the Seasons

The last bag of purple sprouting broccoli arrived in the same veggie box as the first bunch of asparagus.

Chop the asparagus into one inch pieces.

Separate the broccoli florets from the stalks. And chop the stalks small removing any woody ends.

Chop and stir-fry an onion in some olive oil with a hint of sesame oil, until soft.

Add the stalks of both veg. Fry for five minutes.

Add the florets of both and fry for two minutes.

Add some anchovies and a little anchovy oil plus pepper (anchovies are salty enough for most tastes). Mix for 30 seconds more.

Serve at once with crusty bread from Nailsea market.

Belting.

Barbecues - a rant

I wrote this a few years back for a men's magazine which went bust before I got published, or paid. I have refined my views since but I like the pace and the anger.

It’s the first warm weekend of the summer; a Bank Holiday maybe. Tribes of intelligent humans head to the park, where the Council, provide at divers places, small barbecues, the general public for the use of; shrines to listeria and botulism.

Apparently, one of the causes of the rapid increase in human intelligence was when our ancestors started cooking food.

Intelligent? Pah! These barbecues are concreted in; that’s right, they’re not portable. Well that doesn’t stop Mr and Mrs evolved intellect trying to nick them does it? Why? They’re in a beautiful spot already. Now some are missing and others are bent. Nobody leaves them clean.

Intelligent? My arse! Every sunny afternoon, almost without exception an argument of the, ‘You’re parked too near my barbie’, or ‘Your kids are kicking footballs into my burger’, type will break out. I’ve seen fists. No joke. Fists.

Intelligent? Oh please. These people arrive with packets of economy beef burgers. Bull seepage mangled, diluted, added to onion and served in a crusty bap. The difference between these and a cow-pat is hard to call.

Intelligent? It’s a culture desert. No-one listens to Radio 4. The left-open car doors release the strangled anti-crooning of boy or girl-band. Radio 1 eats out.

You’ve probably gathered that I am a snob; a popular culture terrorist. My barbecue consists of an oil-drum, divided down the middle and welded back together the wrong way round. This is serious cooking kit. A man can take on the world with a welded-together oil drum. I do fish. And I make my own barbecue sauce (the three reddest things in the cupboard added to a tin of chopped tomatoes and some onions – always interesting). And we have salad. We’re going to live longer than you; yes we are. I do however draw the line at tofu; or is that line the drawers with it? Never could remember.

Barbecues spoil the neighbours washing, cause the house to smell of charcoal if you leave the window open and are the one thing guaranteed to persuade the most culinarily inept male to don an apron. They are the extension of the rule that most fun things become more fun if you do them outdoors. Divisive? But of course. I have no idea whether I love ‘em or loathe ‘em. All I know is that I do ‘em. The only barbecue in the world worth being at is your own. Everybody else’s suck.