Review of the Year

For the last six months I've been posting a weekly Facebook link to my highlights of the week in popular culture. Or maybe unpopular culture would be better? You know me.

On balance it is worth doing this as well though. I like trying to work out what was the best of the year, especially last year which didn't have many bests in it.

Music

My favourite individual tunes of 2020 are on this link to Spotify. It seems to have been a year when my spirits were raised by three chords and jangly guitars. Nowt wrong with that.

For album of the year I often struggle. New music is simply music you haven't heard before. As I do not listen to much radio I quite often 'discover' music that's been around a bit. Which meant it was great to find the Billy Franks' back catalogue and Man Alive by The 4 of Us (which I had on cassette in the car in the 1990s) make their way onto Spotify. But that said I enjoyed:

EOB - Earth

Foals - Collected Remixes

HAIM - Women in Music Pt. III 

Khruangbin - Mordecai

Surprise Chef - All News is Good News

Westerman - Your Hero is Not Dead

Zapatilla - Zapatilla

Reading

I read more books in 2020 than any year since records began (1988). But how many were written in 2020? Not many. Plaudits to:

Fiction

Andrew Hunter Murray - The Last Day

Daisy Johnson - Sisters

Catherine Lacey - Pew

Fact

Adam Rutherford - How to Argue with a Racist

Screen

In TV/Film I caught up with many box-sets during lock-down using a Prime subscription and latterly Netflix. Like many others our favourite film of the year was Armando Iannucci's spirit-lifting The Personal History of David Copperfield.

But I found the year much-improved by Better Call Saul, Peaky Blinders, Bones (plots become increasingly improbable by Season 5), The Good Fight and Brokenwood.

Food

Wapping Wharf

I only had three or four meals out all year but all were nice. My usual haunt of WB at Wapping Wharf is always good but Gambas Tapas just along from there is also excellent.

I missed my couple of times a year at the Pony and Trap at Chew but found the yurt version at Breaking Bread on the Downs very acceptable for a wedding anniversary. In April the Pony and Trap at Chew is changing its focus to a foraging and training centre with meals for volunteers on the estate. But they are opening a restaurant in Bedminster. Hooray.

Clifton Downs Yurts

On a north Wales holiday I discovered that Cadwaladers ice-cream in Criccieth was as good as ever. Also that Grasmere Gingerbread can be mail-ordered.

Here's to better things to review away from home in 2021.

Last Week

I have such a collection of random thoughts knocking about in my head after last week that this will be a bit more like a journal entry.

One of the reasons it is said that the English are such a creative bunch is that we need to respond to a huge range of climatic conditions. When we get several centimetres of snow we are often mocked because the infrastructure can't cope but if the last snow and extreme cold was six years ago not many people can remember where they put their snow-clearing equipment. I think we do pretty well. Obviously the person who thought long boiler condenser pipes to the outside world were a good idea will eventually be dealt with harshly, but it's not too big a demand on your life to pour a kettle of hot water over a cold pipe every couple of hours for a day or so.

I spent a bit of extra time path-clearing and preparing some musical worship because my worship leader was trapped in Portugal. But I had two meetings postponed. Swings and roundabouts.

Chatting to someone in church yesterday about the fact that I had become the musician he invented a concept of 'emergency gifting'. I like that. I don't often play keys and lead musical worship at Trendlewood Church because others can do that. Likewise members of the church who teach often choose not to do that on a Sunday as well (but will in an emergency). Some of our IT experts tend not to become our laptop/projector operators (but will step in). What is your emergency gift?

I advise all clergy not to have emergency gifts of knowing how the heating system works or running the tech desk. Have some areas of ministry where you deliberately choose to be ignorant and cannot possibly help.

Houseparty talk scheme

We are preaching a series through Lent on sin and forgiveness. Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak about the sin at the heart of King David's reign - his adultery with Bathsheba and the arranged murder of her husband. The sermon lent (excuse me) itself to the pattern of a houseparty talk from way back:

• Sin spoils
• Sin spreads
• Sin separates

I asked for a show of hands as to how many people had heard this talk before. Out of 50 adults the score was 4 (including me). It prompted me to deliver the talk with a feeling of freshness because it was new to the congregation. In a post-service review conversation a number of us noted that the pattern of CYFA (Church Youth Fellowships' Association) houseparty talks might be due a revisit in our church.

One of the things I find valuable in keeping my sanity is to have tickets for something coming up. The tragedy of cultural imprecision means that there can be barren months when I don't want to do anything and then several gigs at once.

And so it came to pass that on Saturday night we enjoyed an excellent Tobacco Factory Macbeth. A sombre ambient-industrial soundtrack and strobe lighting during the ghostly scenes added to the atmosphere. The floor of the performance area was covered in pieces of chopped up black rubber (car tyres?) to a depth of about a foot. The cast used this to bury and discover props. Brilliant, brooding and bloody.

Juxtaposed with Reginald D Hunter the next day made for an interesting weekend. Those who speak in public seeking advanced delivery tips should go to as much stand-up as they can. I joked on the journey that the mileage should really be paid for by the diocesan training budget. I still think so. Reg's use of pause was awesome. It is a terrible risk to use pause if you are a stand-up in the environment of possible heckle. He must have had so much confidence in his ability to deal with such, although none happened. We enjoyed the pauses and waited for the punch-lines. I love the Everyman at Cheltenham but it was designed in the days when people were shorter. My limbs will unfold by tomorrow lunchtime I'm sure. Honourable mention to Wild Beer at Jessop House for services to pre-theatre food and drink.

Gigs coming up include Field Music and Calexico and then a debate evening at the Bath Festival.

Tonight I take my role of Assistant Rural Dean and Acting Dean to Portishead enhanced Deanery Synod with the Bishop of Bath and Wells. That makes the last three nights Tragedy, Comedy and Deanery. Good afternoon.

Restaurant Review

When London broadsheet newspaper food critics are allowed out of the capital they are normally pretty scathing about the places they visit. And what us ordinary folk, who go to nice, expensive restaurants once in a blue moon, always have to bear in mind is that the sorts of places they are scathing about are the sorts of places we go to all the time. And the sorts of places they are nice about are not for the likes of us.

I wonder what they would make of a place we had lunch last week. Possibly they would see it as attempted murder.

On the A40 between Carmarthen and Llandeilo is a pub called The Half Way House. We stopped at it for lunch because it was cold and wet and we were hungry. There are no pubs round here in the Good Pub Guide. Not even in the lucky dip section. We used to think this was because the inspectors were too lazy to come out here.

We chose to stop because it was announced by a large brown sign on the main road. In England a large brown sign usually means historic coaching inn, or charming place worth visiting. Not so in Wales apparently.

There are many half-ways about this place. The first one is that it feels like a crash weld between a 1985 Little Chef and a Wetherspoons in a town where the only industry has closed.

We should have been more observant. In the warmer months it is the guardian at the gates of a caravan park, a place currently devoid of caravans and not even looking very parkish. It's second bit of halfwayness is therefore that it is between being a restaurant and a shop. It has a deli counter although today the cold cabinet held only wax-covered Snowdon cheese. The sort that is quite nice as long as you don't keep it too cold. I expect in the summer you could buy other stuff.

'Table for two?' This is not a normal greeting in a pub. I asked if we could see the menu first. It had a reassuring lunch sandwich menu as well as the à la carte. I am wary of à la cartes in these places as they are normally microwaved straight from a freezer. But it is hard to mess up a simple sandwich so we agreed to sit. We could have had two tables each and not crowded the place but we were shown to one of the two tables for only two people.

Do retain the phrase 'It is hard to mess up a simple sandwich'. We will revisit it.

There was one real ale which turned out to be local and not awful but I wouldn't have wanted two. The current Mrs Tilley had a glass of red wine and drank some of it, an act she regretted.

Our food order was a ploughman's and a coronation chicken sandwich, working on the basis that we both know what these things probably ought to taste of.

Surprise number one. The ploughman's was a sandwich too. Well it had been listed under the sandwich section of the menu but still. It was a cheese sandwich. It was surrounded by something that makes cheese wetter in a sandwich. Maybe something that evolved from mayonnaise. 'I wondered why they gave us forks' said TCMT. It was accompanied by chips, a green salad that included coriander and a pot of something red. More on that later.

We noticed that the piped music had moved from George Michael and other dead people to 'It's a wonderful, wonderful life.' It felt as if even the backing track was giving us the finger today. Our co-diners had smokers' complexions, the gait of the under-exercised and the build of people who ask for thanks to be sent to the chef for the wonderful gammon and pineapple.

Now. Coronation chicken is not that hard. It has about four ingredients but the recipe does involve the application of heat to some of them at some point. It was less of a surprise that this was a sandwich but the surpriseometer went into the red as I considered how little resemblance the product placed on my plate had to any sandwich I had ever eaten. Granary bread normally puts up more of a fight to contain the filling. As I lifted the thing to my mouth everything fell out of the bread. Again the provision of a fork was essential. The fries were not awful, only over-cooked and sliced too short suggesting that they had been cut from potatoes that were not completely ready for the compost heap, but the uncooked curry powder in the sandwich rendered it unfinishable. There are about three occasions in my whole life when I have failed to complete a sandwich.

My green salad was also based on micro-herbs. I suspect they had been over-ordered. Oh, and red onion. There was a lot of red onion about.

Which brings us to the pot of red stuff. I had one too. We turned our attention from finishing lunch to identifying the red stuff. Now red stuff is a narrow playing area. Our first guess, made well before tasting, was that it might be beetroot. Strike one. This pot - did I mention it was plastic and not unlike a communion glass in a free church - contained very unusual things. A few slices of cabbage, not red cabbage but cabbage that had become red, were in there. As was some dried fruit, maybe sultanas. There was an orangy taste. It had the consistency of under-set jelly. It smelled of pot pouri. Our final answer, Chris, is that it was the contents of the sink trap which neither citrus nor pine cleaning fluid had managed to disperse.

£19.45 in case you wondered. As we left the heavens opened and as we entered the car the Archers theme music began to play. Only the company and the laughter we were both holding desperately in, stopped it being the worst lunch ever.

More food critics should experience this sort of thing. 'Restaurants to avoid this month.' I'd read it.

Oh, and Good Pub Guide folk. You know what you're doing. Apologies.

2016 Review of the Year

So here we go with a look back at 2016. And it will involve a bit of  'Apart from that Mrs Lincoln what did you think of the play?' Elephants in the room, even if they stand quietly, tend to leave dents in the floorboards.

Album of the year? Well I remain of the view that in a year when Radiohead put out a new album everyone else should fight over second place. This is indeed the case. A Moon Shaped Pool is an astounding, magical, soulful, dramatic, creative and haunting piece of work. Best of the rest was Steve Mason's Meet the Humans.

Film of the year. Didn't spend as much time at the cinema as I would have liked which meant that much watching was last year's. Rogue One was excellent fun. Jack Reacher ignored the advice of the title Never Go Back and went back. People got hurt. I really enjoyed The Accountant though. I like maths, dialogue, thrills and espionage. All boxes ticked.

As previously noted I also have trouble reading books in the year of publication. So nothing from me about works that were actually published in 2016. My two favourite books of the year were as pictured.

Paul Mason was the only person I read who wrote a realistic guide to why Brexit might be a good idea - he then advised against it because the timing was wrong. In Post-Capitalism, he asserts that the era of the technological revolution has gone on too long and soon not everyone will need to work. But we will need to contribute and the world needs to work out how to pay us. I reviewed it here.

Everything Magnus Mills writes leaves me convinced I am being taken by the hand and led slowly somewhere very profound. At the end I wonder if I have read something deep, imaginative or a simple children's story. Any piece of writing that lets the reader decide what it was all about without comment - you read or hear few interviews with Mills - is a job well done. Reviewed here.

Eating out? It was the year we discovered Maitreya Social in Easton. As a seasonal, organic, local-produce, vegetarian restaurant in an ethnically diverse part of Bristol you might want to beware of catching right-onness. But the tastes are amazing. And if you don't contract a hipster beard there you certainly will do at WB at Wapping Wharf. Fish, chips and craft ale. I might have been its greatest fan/evangelist this year. By Saturday I will have taken almost everyone I like, who has visited the south-west with a mealtime to spare, there. (Takes quick break to issue another invitation.) Their Smokin' Barrels was my beer of the year.

Some honourable mentions. @porrdidgebrain entertained me on Twitter on a daily basis (sometimes hourly). Eddie Mair on Radio Four's PM made broadcasting seem an absolute breeze. As Did Danny Baker, both on Radio Five of a Saturday morning and as @prodnose on Twitter. Nacer Chadli restored my belief that there are players who will make a lung-busting run for the cause of West Brom (See his second goal in the 4-2 defeat of West Ham.)

See you at the end of 2017.

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.

Review of the Year

For many reasons it was a tough year for both me and Mrs A professionally, none of which need concern us now. It was a year that started for me with surgery and ended with many drives up the M5 to support my Mum through her hip replacement. It also included the first bad holiday we have had for years and ended with us both being ill at Christmas. 2012 is already being better in many ways.

January 31st is perhaps a little late for a review of 2011 but, in my defence, I'm really slow. I started it and forgot I hadn't finished.

These things made 2011 bearable.

Album of the year. Worthy mentions for Atlum Schema's four EPs, Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. All good and at least one belting track on each. The lad deserves fame and fortune soon. Loved the second Battles album, Gloss Drop, Metals by Feist, Glasvegas' Euphoric Heartbreak and 4Ererevolution by Roots Manuva.

But for sheer vocal virtuosity, a skill which the Apprentice rarely acknowledges, Claire Maguire's Light After Dark gets the prize. She can sing so you hear Florence Welch, Annie Lennox, Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks and Joan Armatrading; yet all melanged uniquely.

Harry Baker's slam poetry at Cafe Create, Nailsea was beathtaking. Find him, see him live.

Bonobo Live at Bristol 02 was a good evening out; not least because the family came and we have few areas of cross-over. Last time we tried it was Herbie Hancock and I don't think I've quite been forgiven.

Comedy gig award to a rambling, and not especially sober, Dylan Moran. I wish I could be as erudite and amusing without rudeness when pickled.

Source Code was my escapist film of the year. Didn't quite take me where I expected and left a few things open at the end. Let's just pray they have no plans for Source Code II.

The i Paper improved my life immensely. If  I didn't fancy reading in bed there was a choice of three puzzles to do.

The New Battle Axes at Wraxall offered fine services to mid-week evenings off with Mrs Apprentice. Slightly pricey (you pay for the refit) but their two local real ales Flatcappers and Battle Axe are to die for. As is their way with a fruit crumble. Alcoholic pick-me-ups at home provided by New Zealand sauvignon blancs. Hard to find a bad one.

Escapist book of the year was Robert Harris' The Fear Index. A day in the life of a risk-taking banker. A bad day.

The New Inn, Backwell

Excellent, and fine value, lunch at the New Inn, Backwell today. Lamb bacon with red cabbage and dauphinoise potatoes followed by vanilla rice pudding and prunes, accompanied by a pint of Timothy Taylor's most excellent Landlord. Local food and drink definitely looking up.

Goldbrick House

Half way up Bristol's Park Street on the left is a bistro-like café bar called Goldbrick House.

We have eaten in the ground-floor shop window café before although only coffee and cake or a quick lunchtime snack.

Last Saturday was a sunny day and as we were walking past we noticed that there was a special offer of a two course meal for £10 in the rooftop restaurant. Well why not?

Friends, it's a gem. Whilst the view from the rooftop is mainly of other rooftops, unless you stand on a chair and gaze out towards South Bristol, the food and service is outstanding for the price.

I had a hake and squid salad with cumin-dressed rocket; Mrs M linguine with parmesan, pine nuts and, I think, basil. Then we both had excellent summer pudding and ice cream. Two glasses of wine at £6 each (there were cheaper), a bottle of sparkling water and a small service charge (to which we added) took our bill to £37. Still an absolute bargain.

To reach the rooftop involves climbing several staircases and negotiating a couple of corridors. There were two private parties going on in separate rooms and, all in all, the place is much bigger than you might expect. Unlikely to be many more days when eating on the roof is sensible, but it is lovely.

Murrays Restaurant

If you haven't found Murrays in Hill Road, Clevedon it is a gem. It continues to offer fine Italian food made with good local ingredients. Last night I had an excellent starter of squid with rocket, lemon zest, olive oil and a hint of chilli. Followed it with a main of beautifully cooked venison with potato cake (layered, with mustard seeds in the mix) spinach and girelles. Had to have a chocolate tart for pud. It was there. Good bottle of chianti too.

My companions had equally lovely food of which a main of braised rabbit with Tickenham potatoes, peas and tomato gravy looked fabulous and the pick of the things I wanted to taste.

Good ice creams and sorbets as a dessert alternative, wonderful cheese board and a fine pizza menu for faster eating. Prices mid-range but some quite expensive wines on the list.

The Walnut Tree

A year or two back, the Walnut Tree at Llanddewi Skirrid (near Abergavenny) featured on one of the Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares programmes. I recall that in attempting to do fine dining the team had over-reached and the local population had voted with their feet against the over-priced menu. Cue our Gordon banging his head against a wall as the advice to declutter, brighten up and serve simple local produce was ignored.

Now Shaun Hill has taken on the restaurant and offers a choice of 6-8 starters, mains and desserts for around £36 plus wine and coffee. Appetisers are home-made, delicious and free, as are the truffles served with the coffee. Produce is largely local and sea-food and offal feature highly. In other words Gordon's advice has been taken and the place is going well.

I had oyster baignettes followed by wild duck (I even got a bit of shot to prove it). Mrs T had a roast winter vegetable salad with quails eggs and then skate.

They were doing about 20 covers on a wild Thursday evening in October. It's only about an hour from Nailsea.

The Old Farmhouse

Went to the local last night for supper so Liz and I could talk without being distracted by work. Did end up being distracted by fried pollock on a bed of chilli noodles (me) and home made crab-cakes (her) which were wonderful. Then we both had bad-for-you puddings. Sticky toffee always beckons me in and I follow trance-like.

One main, one starter, two large wines, two desserts and two coffees = £35.40.

Old Farmhouse Food is now pretty consistently excellent and I would recommend it for the Good Pub Guide tomorrow if the draft beer was any good. Sadly I am unimpressed and either go for bottled or wine these days.

Town Mill, Lyme Regis

You walk through the door of the Town Mill Bakery in the morning and discover you are in a sort of artisan canteen. Two lengths of table face you, each with a huge bowl of butter and marmalade. Instructions hand written on a sheet of paper say:

Adults £2
Children £1
As much toast as you want.
Toast it yourself.
If you want a drink shout at a waiter.
Try to remember to pay before leaving.

As we left (remembering to pay) they were gearing up for a simple lunch. In the next door bistro two days later for the evening we found equal simplicity (wine comes in two colours, red and white and three sizes, small £10, medium £15 and large £20). The three course meal had two choices for starter and dessert. Mains were all pasta with about four different sauces to choose from. Each course cost £5. It was a lovely evening.

For me the test of a good meal is how much water I drink during the night which follows. The answer was a lot so I guess that takes it down from 8 out of 10 to 7, but pretty remarkable three course meal for what turned out to be £50 including a tip. Big up to the waiter who told us where we were in the queue regularly and how long it would be before he took our dessert order.

I don't think you can book unless you know the staff so we decided to eat early. Recommended.

The owners used to be in advertising and marketing. They have learned well.

The Chef's Table

Hugely impressed by this restaurant in Tetbury where finker and I lunched today. Click on the title to follow a link to their site.

Lunch only. Bistro food. Simple ingredients. Blackboard menu. You can sit at a huge table/bar with the kitchen in view watching the staff work, which is what we did.

I had haddock chowder with a crisply toasted, oily slice of melba ciabatta. The chowder had only about five ingredients - lovely fish, oil, creamy milk, carrots, spuds and parsley. Beautiful.

You can't book so get in early and have a coffee, then segue into drinks then lunch then more coffee.

I know there were six ingredients. Six is about five.

Review of the Year

Welcome to the Mustard Seed Shavings review of the year. Hope this list of achievements and under will be edgy, a word which, as acknowledgment number one, MSS believes it has learned to spell correctly this year. Since it was a favourite word this is a good thing.

In the words of our song of the year, Heavyweight Champion of the World by Reverend and the Makers, 'If you're not living on the edge you take up too much room.' Quite. Which along with realise, just, appears and seems are the overused words of the year. We will try to remove them next year and are quite (oops) sure you will help. We will also be trying to get the hang of cadence before taking a long walk onomatopoeia. By the way watch the good Reverend's video and hear the tune by clicking here.

Book of the year? The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson was published in November 2006 but we read it this year. Likewise Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer which was published in 2005. Both of these were terrific. For a book published this year, which MSS read, heads had to be scratched a lot. Christopher Brookmyre's annual offering, this time The Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks was brilliant and Ian McEwan's, On Chesil Beach emotive. But just pinching it was Adrian Chiles' We Don't Know What We're Doing. It's the story of the people he met in a year spent attending games with West Bromwich Albion fanatics. We're not that normal. The moment he, dressed as the Baggie Bird (West Brom's mascot) greeted Birmingham City's Croatian captain in his native tongue was wonderful. Chiles has a Croatian mum.

Album of the year. Reverend and the Makers are pdg and that was a 2007 album but we think Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed (2004) was our discovery of the year. Our vote goes to The Shins for Wincing the Night Away. Radiohead's download only In Rainbows was too good to count in the normal system. It was simply the best Radiohead album of the year, a category of its own.

Restaurant of the year? We do go on a lot about Bordeaux Quay but it is hard to be unimpressed by their consistent brilliance. I know someone who got too slow a coffee once, about a year or so ago, but otherwise everyone I've taken has said yippee. But our nicest meal was served at a place we only went to once - The Hambrough Hotel and Restaurant on the Isle of Wight.

TV? No thanks. But if we must, how about Heston Blumenthall's series on classic dishes. You can do this at home if you make a mini cement mixer out of a coffee tin and attach it to your powerdrill, heating the contents with a hair drier the while. Oh yes you can. Don't stuff your goose; simply rear it on sage and onion.

Film of the Year? We think Hot Fuzz gets it for the sheer joy of seeing Somerfield in Wells being trashed and the bishop's lawn being used for a sort of seance. The Golden Compass was pretty good though and we enjoyed Breach and Michael Clayton very much.

Man of the year? Can we look any further than the Archbishop of York, a guy who has got the hand of the prophetic gesture. Hoodie wearing? Kipping in his chapel? Open air baptisms? Cutting up clerical collars? Tick, tick, tick, tick. MSS would follow that sort of leadership but sadly finds itself in the wrong Province. (We're in Canterbury, he's in York for non-initiates into this anglo-jumbo.) Woman of the year is Fi Glover. Her Saturday Live show on Radio 4 did something we thought impossible - made us get over John Peel's death at last. Thanks. We might stop pretending there's more than one of us soon but it just feels like the right voice for the moment. Happy New Year.

One night in Brum

Great night out in the company of 5,000 others at Birmingham's NIA to hear and see Bill Bailey, the reigning king of musical comedy. Read my review here.

Worth also praising the food at the Handmade Burger Company in Brindley Place. Fantastic, quickly prepared meals with great vegetarian choices. My beef, horseraddish and rocket burger was excellent and the chips are to die for. Five minutes walk from the NIA, canalside at Brindley Place.

We also experienced staying in a pod hotel for the first time. This is a hotel where the rooms are barely larger than a double bed and a half plus a wetroom but they contain said bed, a desk, tea and coffee making facilites and a giant plasma TV. In place of a window you can watch the world outside onscreen via a roof cam. Wanna try it? Nite nite is the place, in Holliday Street behind the Mailbox.

Cwtch*

On the main street in St David's, a place that has far too many restaurants of far too low a quality, some friends recommended we try Cwtch*. It's pronounced cutsh and that asterisk is important.

Well we went twice and would have gone every night. It's a lovely, deceptively large, restaurant (rooms at the back and upstairs not obvious from the road) which does loads of simple stuff well. Offered a drink within seconds of arriving. Supplies of home made bread provided while the freshly cooked food is prepared. Tap water without fuss.

We particularly enjoyed, as the late Jeremy Round was fond of saying, everything. Potted crabs, courgette and fennel soup, scallops, belly pork, lemon sole, rib eye steak, tagliatelli with goats cheese, lemon posset, strawberry plate, creme brulee and bara brith and butter pudding. Fine wine by the glass, local beer and good decaf coffee. £35-£40 a head.

147 miles to go again tonight. I'm tempted.

General Guff

This will be a bit of a selection of tosh. You've endured the band name competition for long enough now and there are some things you need to know if you follow this blog a bit. If you're dropping in randomly then try earlier posts. Some of the good ones are listed in the sidebar. On though:

1. This tense, nervous feeling will only be gone at final whistle tomorrow afternoon, to be replaced either by elation or depression. If you don't understand why football can do this to a person you need to work on your empathy.

2. Today is Pentecost, the church's birthday. It is also May 27th and so it is my birthday. This conjuction happens every few years. The boys have visited and I now possess a new oak chopping board, the Grinderman album and tickets for Bill Bailey in Birmingham in November. For a short while I possessed a fine New Zealand sauvignon blanc but that is now history. I am typing under its influence, rejoicing in an evening free of clerical responsibilities.

3. I had booked a quiet week ahead to get on with admin and stuff and maybe a little decorating towards the end of the week but now have two funerals, one a bit complicated, to negotiate.

4. Last night we ate at Bordeax Quay in Bristol. I cannot recommend it highly enough and will be taking people there over the next few months quite a lot. Had a lovely smoked eel starter with a beetroot and orange salad, then duck breast with lentils and peas and finally a crème brulée with an aniseed biscoti. Liz's food was good but only the beetroot risotto tempted me to swap. Best decaf coffee I've ever drunk.

We wandered around Bristol waterfront for a bit afterwards, feeling that warm glow of physical heath and well-being you can only get by mixing with a bunch of loud, drunk, overweight call-centre operatives on their night off. Some of this insult is courtesy of the Naked Guide to Bristol, a publication which is entertaining my toilet time very much these days and I suggest you buy since you don't want to touch mine.

5. I went to Fareham on Friday, adding it to a small list of places I only ever intend to visit once in my lifetime.

6. The blue tits have fledged. One might have been taken by the ginger bas***d oops I mean cat from next door but the rest got away. Three baby blackbirds are now entertaining us with their parents. For most birds flying is a fairly speedily acquired and natural skill. Not blackbirds. Blackbirds take a while and they sometimes overshoot the garden or try to land on fences and have to pull out at the last moment. Occasionally they arrive on the lawn by a method I can only describe as crash-landing. They are trying different bits of the garden to see if they are worth eating since they have seen their parents do that. They haven't been observing closely enough since their parents eat berries not leaves and worms not lawn. Funny though.

Off to enjoy my evening now. Another bottle beckons I believe.

The Cellar

This is a lovely little wine bar in Clevedon which serves fantastic, well-priced tapas. Popped in last night without booking and Liz had a lovely rioja (in a beautiful rioja glass) and I had a bottle of Butcombe Gold (no draughts).

We had a bowl of olives and two lots of bread as a starter, followed by:

Fish balls
Chilli stuffed red peppers
Stuffed vine leaves
Tuna stuffed sweet peppers

This cost £20.28. The tapas are £2.50 each.

The link at the top will give you the address, and phone but is only to do with the wine-selling part of the business.

They also sell some of the most attractive glasses, pitchers, bowls and flutes I have ever seen. Good range of magazines if you wish to pop in alone.

They are only open for off-sales after about 9pm and are closed on Sundays, although text in the menu suggests this is being challenged. Anyway we were only there for about an hour, which is perfect for a midweek evening when you want to go out for food but don't want to surrender the whole night.

As you pay at the bar I forgot to tip the efficient waitresses. Double next time.

Commended.

Solo Restaurant, Leamington Spa

Brilliant meal. Phone 01926 422422 to book for Ian or Duncan to cook your tea. Special deals on Monday nights when they use the weekend's left overs.

Solo
23 Dormer Place
Leamington Spa
Warwickshire CV32 5AA

Liz had pumpkin and parmesan risotto to begin with. Duncan said they had the sort of vegetable supplier who phoned and said 'Ive got these great pumpkins but they must be eaten today.' So he took a couple and knocked up the risotto.

I had crab and mango salad which was simplicity itself but not two things I'd put together before.
Main course Liz had salmon, potatoes and roasted fennel. Fantastic piece of fish. Really rough, earthy, wild flavour. I had rump of baby deer. Liz said it would only have sounded worse if it had said 'ickle baby deer'. Well it was fantastic; moist, rich, gamey and pink. Served with mustard mash and red cabbage.

Desserts included creme broule (Liz) and treacle tart (me). Treacle tart was made with lemon as all good ones should be.

One glass of champagne, one V&T, bottle of Synergy pinot noir and two coffees. Less than a ton for the lot including service. A simple two course meal with no wine and tap water is £20 a head; less on Mondays.

Sensibly sized portions. Go there.