Thyme and history

We've just got back from our annual holiday in Greece. We went to the island of Kefalonia, the biggest of the Ionians.


On arrival I was surprised at how modern and prosperous the island looked. I had forgotten to swot up from my book of Greek islands and didn't know the island had suffered a terrible earthquake in 1953 which destroyed 90% of the buildings. So it lacks the little white houses of Greece, but strewn around the hillside you can see the ruined buildings.

It's a very lush and green island, heavy with the smells of thyme and rosemary which grow everywhere.

Our base was the beautiful hotel Regina Dell Acqua in Skala, built on a hill with a stunning infinity pool.

We learnt a lot of the history of Kefalonia when we took the ferry to nearby Ithaca, the smallest Ioanian island. Odysseus is believed to have very strong links with both places and we saw a bust of him in the square of Stavros village. There we also sampled the Ithacan speciality, rovani, a sticky honey cake. We learnt the origin of the phrase "beware of Greeks bearing gifts." When Oddyseus built the wooden horse to reclaim Helen of Troy, it was assumed to be a gift from a defeated army. The "victors" went off to celebrate, the horse opened and out ran Odysseus and his top soldiers who overran the Greeks and claimed victory after a 10 year war. 

On an outing to the capital of Kefalonia, Argostoli, we happened to be there for a ceremony to mark the Special Olympics which take place in Athens in July. With a great deal of fanfare athletes ran by, a torch burned and Kefalonian dancers entertained us.

Our return home unfortunately coincided with the Greek national strike. The tiny island airport had queues of people snaking around the building. The problem appeared to be that all the check-in PCs were down. I'm not sure if this was strike related. The pilot referred to it as a "bit of a kerfuffle" at the airport. It was an amazing achievement that everyone was checked in manually, laboriously, with hand written boarding passes.

All in all a fabulous holiday! I'll add some photos when Blogger gets over its picture problem - I have tried with two different browsers but no good.

Eligible Royals: a shopping guide for Pippa Middleton

Pippa Middleton, sister of the Duchess of Cambridge (formerly known as Waity Katie) is no longer with her banker boyfriend, according to The Sunday Times. I hope the split wasn't too traumatic for her, given that she had the major disappointment this week of being beaten by Carol Vorderman to the title "Rear of the Year."

The tabloids and gossip mags will work themselves up into a frenzy over who should date the fragrant maid of honour.

No doubt we will be told that she fell for Prince Harry and it was only a matter of time before the banker (deemed a bit boring by the gossip mags) was history.

My own theory is that she looked round on royal wedding day at the assembled royals, minor and major, and the various monied chinless wonders, all fawning over her, and thought "I'll have what she's having." 

May I suggest she draws up a list of eligible bachelors, starting with royals. Prince Harry should top the list: it would be truly fairy tale (if not vaguely sinister) to have two Middletons married to the heirs. New fascinators all round, and a new trousseau from Royal Warrant holders Reiss.

Prince Albert of Monaco is due to marry in a month, but a determined attempt could see off the wide shouldered swimmer. Failing that, Caroline's son Andrea is extremely good looking, though may have a long wait before he becomes king.

Then there's Prince Carl Philip of Sweden, although as he's unlikely to become king unless disaster should befall his two sisters, so probably of less interest.

If heirs are a priority, may I present the Crown Prince of Jordan, Hussein bin Abdullah (pictured). And Jordan is so handy for Dubai with all that glittering duty free shopping! He's only 15 so Pippa may have to play the long game, but hey, anything her sister can do....

Finally, if she'd rather just marry for money, I suggest Arpad "Arki" Busson,  the playboy financier, who has an on and off relationship with Uma Thurman. Or perhaps Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou,  As an added bonus, he lives in Monaco, so Pippa could start socialising with the Grimaldis, particularly Caroline's very attractive children, and all those F1 drivers. Plus a private jet could come in handy, even if it is orange and based at Luton.

On my bicycle

I saw a 70s bike propped up against the wall yesterday. Memories came flooding back. When I was a kid, the Raleigh Chopper was the bike to have, although I preferred the dainty Raleigh Twenty (pictured). I didn't have a bike until I was about 10. It was my brother's cast-off, and he had had it second hand.
I was very excited to take my bike to the Cycling Proficiency Scheme, where first of all a friendly PC was going to check our bikes for roadworthiness. Unfortunately mine fell at the first hurdle! I came home in tears, and then something brilliant happened. My parents weren't very well off, and we did something unheard of: we went to Halford's and they bought me a new bike. It was a Tri-Ang Golden Arrow, not a bit cool, but I loved it anyway. I managed to pass the cycling proficiency.
The years went by, and bikes and me were not mutually compatible. I tend to want to get off when there's too much traffic around. And in London you're constantly afraid someone will steal it.
Anyway, in 1999 I went to live in Munich or a short period, and having a bike there was a must. I went to a specialist shop and bought a beautiful ladies' bike for 500 marks, which was quite a lot of money then.
I would cycle along the Isar and go to the Englischer Garten on Sundays, or down to my friend's house. It was idyllic.
The bike came back to the UK with me but hasn't had many sorties since. A lot of cycling goes on in nearby Epping Forest but you need a mountain bike for that.

On our cycling holiday

Five years ago J dragged me and his equally unwilling daughter on a cycling holiday: five days in Shropshire / Wales.
It was a revelation, cycling along unclassified roads in the countryside with hardly any traffic. In the evening we would arrive at a hotel, our bags having been sent on by road, and it was very rewarding to have a bath and big dinner after cycling for 30 miles.
How about you and bikes?

Alice's bucket list

Something extraordinary happened on Twitter last night. In between the tweets discussing The Apprentice, a tweet appeared saying that Alice, a 15 year old with terminal cancer, wanted to trend on Twitter: please re-tweet. I did - as did everyone else - because an hour or so later when I checked, #alicebucketlist was in the top 10 global hash tags.

Alice created her bucket list a few days ago: the things she wants to do before she dies. She wrote in her blog last night that she and her mum were overwhelmed by all the messages, and she had only started the blog for her friends and family, never expecting it would be seen by such a huge audience. She currently has over 2000 comments and her bucket list wishes will all be fulfilled, except the trip to Kenya which she can't do because she is too poorly now.

Her wishes aren't particularly grandiose like those in the film "The Bucket List" where Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman went round the world ticking off the items on theirs. She wants a picture with her dog Mabel; she wants someone to do her hair (if they can); she wants a purple iPAD, although her mum had told her not to post that one. She wants to go to Cadbury World and eat lots of chocolate. And she wants everyone to donate bone marrow.

If I'm ever tempted to complain or grumble I will think of Alice and her bucket list.

How to do customer service - by Amazon

There was an article this week about the chap who's taken over as MD at ailing UK bookstore Waterstones. He was confident that reinvigorating the shops would send shock waves reverberating across Amazon. His assessment was that we're not brand loyal to Amazon.

I think his view is a little naive and misguided. Amazon have indeed built brand loyalty and in the good old-fashioned way, by being excellent at what they do and making it easy to do business with them.

I was astonished by their superb Kindle customer service this week.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new Kindle because my original model, the DX, looks a bit big and old-fashioned now (and doesn't fit in a handbag). Unfortunately it stopped working, so on Monday - note, a bank holiday - I contacted Amazon UK, or rather, they rang me. You enter your phone number on the website and ask for a call back. They rang immediately, and had all my details to hand. And, joy, it was a British call centre. A small thing to ask for, but it makes all the difference.

I was promised a replacement Kindle the next day and sent an email describing how to return the defective one. This included a link to DHL, so that I could arrange for them to collect it at a time convenient to me   and the pre-paid label to use.

The new Kindle arrived as promised the next day - and how many companies would send out a new gadget to replace an old one they haven't had back yet? They give you 30 days to return it and if you haven't, your credit card gets charged again.

DHL collected the defective one today, as arranged.

Amazing service. What could be easier?

I was soon up-and-running with the replacement because all the books I have bought (99!) are easily transferred between my Kindles and other devices.

So to get back to my opening paragraph, I will still pop into Waterstones occasionally. But I'll be "Waterstoning"  (a new verb) - ie, making notes of books that look interesting and then buying them from Amazon. I'm told Waterstones will launch their own e-reader but they have a very steep hill to climb to better either the Kindle or Amazon's customer service and number of e-books.

Getting ready for Greece

Now....are  you a last minute holiday booker, or do you book a long time in advance?
I am very much in the latter camp. The summer holiday is always booked in January, when it's a bit flat after Christmas, and I then have several months to get ready. And progressively more excited. Preparation includes losing a few pounds (I buy clothes in a smaller size to make sure I do it) and accumulating various items and clothes. 

Top of the list:

- a new basket. It goes to the pool or beach with me along with a towel, ipod, earphones, sun lotions, comb, Kindle, etc. This year's basket  (left) was bought on a visit to my Mum's in Plymouth and was produced by the RHS.





- a new set of matching sponge bag and cosmetic and make-up bags

- At least 12 books: I usually read one a day on holiday. Thank goodness for the Kindle. It was no fun carrying 12 books.

- new flip flops and silver sandals.

- three new Saress(es) with a matching hat and hat band  (yes I know.....) These are  a great invention and ideal for wearing from pool to lunch. Unlike pareos or sarongs, these are very easy to put on and always look nice.



This year's wash bag



- sun lotions when they are two for the price of one, or half price. They're a complete rip off when you buy them abroad.

Once at the resort the first thing we buy is a lilo.  It gets left behind at the end of the holiday for someone else to enjoy.   I wonder what this year's lilo trend is?

I did a last minute holiday once, when I was living in Munich. A friend and I went to the airport and bought a holiday to Crete which was departing in three days. It was very cheap and the view from the room was the air conditoning plant. After that I resolved I would always try to book early when you have lots of choice. What's your approach?

Sublime dining at Dinner by Heston

A new entry in the Gail Top Ten Restaurants is Dinner by Heston - straight in at number two. Quite surprising when you consider that I am no lover of molecular dining. But this isn't Heston Blumenthal's normal gig. I've been to the Fat Duck, his Michelin two starred restaurant at Bray, and while the tasting menu is a fascinating experience, I will not, on Death Row, ask for smokey bacon ice-cream or snail porridge as my final repast.

What's different about Dinner, his new venture at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London, is that he has lovingly recreated old English recipes; giving thrilling twists to some and simply enhancing others, while using the best produce.

What makes the restaurant so special is the combination of wonderful food with a beautiful room; a fantastic view of Hyde Park, and the most passionate and knowledgeable staff I've ever encountered.

So many fine dining restaurants are spoilt for me by pretentious legions of snooty waiters. At Le Gavroche, for example, you have a whole flotilla of people serving you: someone for the bread, the water, the wine, the food. Woe betide you if you ask the bread waiter for water. Meanwhile, at the other scale, there are restaurants where you are left languishing. Where, for example, the next course arrives before the plates have been cleared away. None of that at Dinner.



For starters, I should have chosen what's quickly become the star of the menu -Meat Fruit (left), circa 1500, which contains mandarin and chicken liver parfait. How stunning it looks (and tastes, I was assured) - this mandarin shaped feast of smooth parfait. Instead I chose marrowbone, circa 1720, accompanied by parsley, anchovy and mace and pickled vegetables (right).

I was evidently so carried away with the main course I forgot to photograph it! I had a recipe dating from 1830 of roast turbot with cockle ketchup and chicory. And chips. Because here you are allowed to have chips and it's not a disgrace: also butter. I was recently at another place where the waiter snootily informed me they didn't provide butter "for health reasons." Unbelievably pompous given that a lot of people (myself included) only indulge in butter when we're in a restaurant.

Anyway, I digress. For pudding it had to be the baked lemon suet pudding, circa 1630, (left), with lemon, caramel and Jersey cream. To be honest, this was the most disappointing course. I remembered suet puddings from childhood being quite light. This had more the texture of pastry than sponge. I wished I'd perhaps had tipsy cake or summer tart instead.

With pudding we had a delicious rosebud tea. Instead of the usual menu of dessert wines and coffees, we were offered a tea menu. It reminded me of the challenge on The Apprentice where they had to source camomile flower tea and were offered a crate of it for £900. To the credit of the Dinner waitress, she explained that the most expensive tea was quite smokey and a definitely acquired taste. Such honesty is rare in the pursuit of filthy lucre. The rose tea, fat with rosebuds, was wonderfully delicate, and they refill the pot with hot water as many times as you like.

So - Dinner with Heston. So good I will go back with J, very soon. Or as soon as we can get a reservation. It  is booked solid for months.

Gail's Top 10 Restaurants (with links to my blog where I reviewed them)
1. Gidleigh Park, Devon
2. Dinner by Heston
3. Scott's
4. Caldesi in Campagna, Bray
5. TheWolseley
6. Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons
7. The Orrery
8. Benares
9. Hix Oyster & Chop House
10. E4

Some flotsam and jetsam

Hoorah for Princess Beatrice!
Showing the judgment and humour that has sadly eluded her parents all their life, Princess Beatrice has sold her much maligned RW hat on eBay, to raise money for charity. Could it be that Beatrice is going to show common sense and realism, in spite of her parents? Only a few days ago, Sarah, Duchess of York, was still spouting incomprehensible psycho-babble. "If I had a brand identity, it would be as a global mother." ??? Beatrice said she hoped whoever bought the hat would have as much fun with it as she had.

And hoorah for Twitter while we're about it
So many amusing tweets about the Premiership footballer and his affair with a Big Brother wannabe. There was talk that Ryan Giggs' solicitors were going to sue the 30,000 people on Twitter who had breached the Super Injunction (yep, that includes me). Another wag wrote that Ryan Giggs appears to be the only celebrity not being sued by the "mystery Premiership footballer".

I can't imagine the US owners of Twitter are quaking in their boots knowing that a few plummy English lawyers are apoplectic about their new cash cow, the Super Injunction, being proved worthless.  What can they actually do? They can hardly force the closure of Twitter. I for one am laughing at the way we, the good old British public, is having a laugh at the foibles of a foolish man who tried to cover up his folly by splashing the cash.

The unpredictable nature of cosmetic surgery
No wonder Sarah Jessica Parker has said she won't have cosmetic surgery because she doesn't want to end up looking mad. This week's photos of Marie Helvin, who has always maintained she's had nothing done (yeah, right) show her starting to look somewhat deranged. You'd think that with access to the best plastic surgeons that California has to offer, some of the maturing filmstars wouldn't look quite so dreadful. Faye Dunaway, for example, or Melanie Griffith  (although thankfully she is a little more restrained these days). It seems a bit of a lottery. You can either look wonderful, like Jane Fonda, Sharon Stone or Demi Moore, or rather weird, like Madonna, Cher, the Bride of Wildenstein and Ivana Trump. It's a pity they don't have a ratings system, like guest houses or Trip Advisor. Maybe that's a great idea for a new website.

From Vanda to Valderma

I was whiling away an hour, not drunkenly like Morrissey, but playing a favourite game which is: Googling nostalgic names from childhood.

It usually starts with long forgotten beauty products that dimly ring a bell. For example: Anne French cleansing lotion, which was the first cleanser I ever used. You can still buy it and it's cheap as chips. That got me thinking about Anne French Glow 5, a face mask. And then a luxury brand that disappeared in the early 80s, Charles of the Ritz.  My first ever eye cream, bought in Exmouth, was a Charles of the Ritz.

Then I looked up Vanda Beauty Counselor. (One L, it's American). Goodness knows how I remember this, but when I was about seven, I heard my mum saying that one of the neighbours was a rep for Vanda Beauty Counselor. I have Googled them previously and it was as if it was a figment of my imagination. But they must have got Internet savvy fairly recently because I found them! (Very poor website by the way and unlike Avon they don't sell online: you still have to see the rep).

Next up was old perfumes - discontinued ones. I'm obsessed. My mum's favourite was Memoire Cherie by Elizabeth Arden. Then they come in rapid succession: Yardley Prelude (I bought her a Prelude talc from the local chemist when I was about 10), Helena Rubinstein Apple Blossom, Avon Elusive, Moonwind and Occur!  (I just loved the exclamation mark).

From scent to soap, and I was thrilled to find you can still buy Valderma and Cidal soaps, which I tried as a teenager to get rid of spots. But not Albion Milk of Sulphur Soap. Lemon Delph cleanser has long since disappeared, as has Linco Beer shampoo (do you remember, it came in a barrel?).

I mentioned all this to my mum - we're frequently texting - and she challenged me to find a drink that my Gran was very partial to. "Odds on Cocktail."  I found an ad for it. It's always a bit of a eureka moment, isn't it? Whatever did we do without the Internet?

In search of a grubbing mattock

A "before" shot

When we bought our house six years ago, the back garden didn't need too much attention. The previous owners obviously knew their stuff and had created a wide border with a few trees and shrubs to shelter the garden, a decking area and a small lawn.

After

Gradually though the trees had become too big - particularly two awful leylandii - and part of the garden was subsequently always in shade. Ivy was rampant, no matter how much we tried to hack it back. So we decided to rip everything out.

Quite a shock when it finally happened. It's amazing how much bigger the garden looks. But also very bare and unwelcoming. The fence in particular is suddenly exposed, without its ivy coat, and looks ghastly.

The plan is to keep it fallow for a year, except for planting two trees in the autumn. Two small trees: I'm thinking an apple tree and a medlar.

In the meantime we'll be building up the soil and removing the ivy as it reappears. Which requires a special implement. Today J was on a mission: he wanted to get a grubbing mattock  (which I was mistakenly calling a grubbing matlock, as in Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols). We visited B&Q, Homebase and Focus, but no such tool to be found. It eventually turned up in Wickes. Resembling a pickaxe, it was used by the professionals when they removed the roots.

Rose "Scepter'd Isle" from front garden

I'd love to create an English cottage garden, with delphiniums, lupins, hollyhocks, stocks, Sweet William, lobelia at the front. I'm also very taken with Monty Don's "jewel garden." And for me, you can never have too many roses. Our front border is looking splendid with the rose bushes groaning with blooms. Example on the left. Those roses are all pink, but in memory of my dad Stamps, I would like to acquire an old rose he loved, a red rose called "Ena Harkness," and plant it at the back.

Leave Eugenie and Beatrice alone

Will it ever stop? The endless jokes and tittle tattle about Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, ever since they wore slightly less than flattering outfits (Eugenie) and headgear (Beatrice) at the Royal Wedding last week.

Today hatter Philip Treacy justifies the title "mad as...." by defending Beatrice's titfer.

The wretched hat has several Facebook sites.

Jibes about the hat are more or less fairly benign and humorous. But I imagine the girls - both very young - are hurt by the comments about their oufits and everything else that has been coming under attack. They both wore sensational outfits at the party following the wedding. Eugenie in particular looked stunning in a corseted black Vivienne Westwood number.

Remember we've all made style faux pas, particularly in our 20s. I've shared photos of mine on this very blog. So give the girls a break. The last thing we want is that they get lumbered with hideous complexes as their poor mother was. My only advice to the girls would be to find another milliner. One with their best interests at heart.

Fletcherising and fossils

The Internet has been an absolute gift to me as an inveterate searcher of trivia and facts. I'm able to satisfy any cravings for knowledge at the click of a mouse, and with my trusty smartphone, can even do it in the middle of the night as has been known.

Last night, for some reason, I remembered an elderly man I once interviewed when I was working as a gauche young reporter at BBC Radio Devon. His name was Edwin Beer and he was over 100. His great age, and the secrets of longevity, was the reason for the interview.

He was the first to use the disabled lift at our newish Exeter headquarters and was a fantastic raconteur. He told me that the secret to his longevity - and he was the second oldest man in Britain when he died at age 107 in 1986 - was Fletcherising.

This is the practice of chewing your food 32 times before swallowing, made popular in the early 1930s by Horace Fletcher.

Well, having remembered Edwin Beer, I began feverishly searching the web to see what I could learn about him. To start with I wasan't doing very well. There was a famous urologist called Edwin Beer and a famous sculptor called Edwin Beer Fishley. But recalling that he had told me he was involved with the invention of the fake silk, rayon, I broadened my search and found a reference to him at the Devon county council website, where it named a book he wrote in 1968, The Beginning of Rayon: Corrigenda and Supplement.

Knowing now that his full name was Edwin John Beer, formerly of Paignton, I discovered an article from an issue of Geology Today in 1989 which described the Edwin Beer Collection.

Leicester University had become the lucky recipient of a large collection of geological specimens. The collection was formed over a long period by Edwin Beer (1879 - 1986) and was donated by his widow Phoebe. "Beer had led an active and eventful life. He was by profession a chemist and was a pioneer in perfecting the process for making artificial fibres."

Searching Leicester University turned up no additional clues. My search on Edwin Beer's remarkable life seems to have ended for the time, with no photographs gleaned. Stay tooned for the next instalment.

10 MINUTES LATER
I've just bought the book for £6.50 on ebay!

The story behind our bank holidays

As we prepare for another bank holiday tomorrow, I was musing on the history of bank holidays. 

May Day may have its roots in ancient pagan rites of spring, but its place in the calendar as a bank holiday is fairly modern. It was the creation of Michael Foot in 1978. Britain was one of the last countries in Europe to celebrate May Day. It's a big deal in other countries. When I lived in Munich, I enjoyed the May Day revels in a town called Wolfratshauzen. Everyone dressed in leiderhausen and a good number of steins were consumed.

Bavaria has some of the most elaborate maypole traditions. Trees are cut down a day or two before the festival, stripped of bark and polished. Sometimes soap is added to make them extra slick. Men then race up these 40-foot poles to retrieve pretzels and sausages hanging from the top. The climbers can only apply ash, pinesap or tar to their hands to get a better grip.
Bavarian villagers also try to steal another town's maypole while protecting their own. If a maypole is stolen, it is held for ransom until the victimized village offers kegs of beer for its safe return.

Read more: Maypole Traditions in Germany | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5445553_maypole-traditions-germany.html#ixzz1L5C0e8XX

Each village has its own community maypole which is decorated with icons signifying the history and main occupation of the region - for example brewing. The poles are fierecely guarded because if a neighbouring village "steals" your flagpole, the penalty is having to buy everyone a drink.

The future of our own May Day is looking doubtful. The government is considering scrapping the May Day Bank Holiday and creating a new public holiday in April or October.

The second bank holiday in May, now referred to as "Spring bank holiday", always used to be known as Whitsun when I was a child.
 

Whitsun, old English for "White Sunday", is the forty-ninth day (seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. In the Christian calendar, it is also known as Pentecost -commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples.

A little-known fact about bank holidays is that there is a fixed number of them - six  in England plus the public holidays of Christmas and Boxing Day - and we don't have an automatic right to paid leave on these days. Any right to time off or extra pay for working on a bank holiday depends on the terms of your contract of employment. That's why small businesses tend to get quite annoyed when "new" bank holidays are granted, like the one on Friday for the Royal; Wedding, and everyone assumes it's another day off.

When the usual date of a bank or public holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, a 'substitute day' is given, normally the following Monday. For example in 2009, Boxing Day was on Saturday, 26 December, so there was a substitute bank holiday on Monday, 28 December. This doesn't always happen in other countries. In Germany, they often have a bad year for public holidays when they all fall at the weekend. They don't then get a day off in lieu. Unusually bad organisation for the Germans!

 

Next year the late May bank holiday will be moved to Monday 4 June 2012 and an additional Jubilee bank holiday will be on Tuesday 5 June 2012.

Myrtle and tiaras: the count down to the royal wedding




Even the most cynical of us is now looking forward to Friday's royal wedding. I have to say, until fairly recently, I found Prince William and Kate Middleton very dull and would quickly turn the pages in Hello! looking for more interesting royals (eg Princess Stephanie of Monaco).

But since the engagement was announced, they seem to have stepped it up a notch. I'm very impressed with how confident and polished Kate looks. And the constant TV programming about royal weddings is helping to stoke the fervour.

I particularly enjoyed Sophie Raworth's two part programme. I was amazed that so few photos remain from the Queen Mother's wedding. And I loved the Queen's Hartnell dress with all the amazing detail. Part two, which featured the weddings of Charles & Diana, Anne & Mark and Andrew & Sarah, was illuminating in that all of those marriages ended in divorce.

With the benefit of hindsight you could see that Charles & Diana's marriage was never going to last. The body language was excruciating, particularly compared with how relaxed and supportive William and Catherine were of each other.

Now for a few curious facts about the Friday wedding:

• Kate will carry a sprig of myrtle in her bouquet, a tradition for royal brides. The meaning of the flower is love.
• She will probably place her bouquet on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Westminster Abbey, a tradition started by the Queen Mother;
• 
  When she arrives at the abbey she will not be wearing one of the royal collection of tiaras, but as soon as she is married, the Queen may make her a gift of a tiara. The Duchess of York wore flowers on her way up the aistle, and a tiara on the way out. Diana had her own Spencer family tiara. It's thought Kate might inherit one of the Queen Mary tiaras. If you Google this, you'll see that Queen Mary had several. My favourite is the Cambridge knot tiara made in 1913 (right).  It included 38 pearls that were a wedding gift to Queen Mary.
• She won't enjoy the bride's tradition of arriving late. A royal wedding is so tightly choreographed she may only be allowed to be 30 seconds late
• After her marriage to Prince William of Wales, Kate Middleton's title will be Her Royal Highness Princess William of Wales. On the engagement announcement, Kate used her full name, Catherine. So she will likely be known as Princess Catherine of Wales. If Prince William receives a dukedom following the marriage, she will be known as Duchess as well as Her Royal Highness.

How are you planning to mark the day? Will you be watching on TV, having a champagne celebration or even going to a street party?

Two bluebell woods for the price of one

Every Easter or thereabouts we take a stroll to a wonderful bluebell wood. We made the trip today and unfortunately the bluebells were past their best. But J is nothing if not resourceful, and he had another bluebell wood up his sleeve. There the bluebells were in better shape (and we saw some rabbits.)

Hasn't it been a wonderful bank holiday weekend? The best Easter weather on record.

Blood sweat and tears

The 2011 London Marathon was hot. Too hot for many of the runners. Even the spectators got a bit hot under the collar. But it was all in a day's work for J as he ran his 23rd marathon (and eighth London Marathon).

As in previous years, I was fortunate to be able to park my shooting stick at one of the elite runners' drinks stations, manned by John's running club The Orion Harriers.

Opposite St Paul's church in Shadwell, this is a perfect position because not only do I get an unobscured view, but I see the runners twice.

The first task for the marshalls was opening the box of drinks and setting them out on the right tables and in the right order. The elite runners have their own special bottles, some decorated, some with a gel attached, some only half full. Here's one of the most attractive bottles (left).

The elites run past at such speed it's quite difficult for them to grab their drink as they barely pause, but very few bottles were dropped.



The elite runners dealt with, it was time for the "ordinary" runners, in their thousands. J trains diligently for the marathon, six days a week, and his training includes hill running and speed work. He tests gels, different shoes (and socks: he was wearing his long compression socks) and anything that will help him to the elusive Personal Best. This year he also lost quite a lot of weight. Every pound counts.

It all paid off. Not a PB this year because of the weather, but nonetheless, J still finished in the top 200 for his age group. Here he is at looking remarkably fresh, indicating that another Orion runner was not far behind (Kym). 

When we saw him for the second time, at 35km, he was lively enough to spray us all with water he'd been keeping for the purpose.

Having escorted him on many of the world's top marathons, including Berlin, Paris, Toronto, New York, Chicago and Boston, I can say hand on heart that London is the best. The most spectators; the most noise and eencouragement; the most friendly atmosphere. There's nothing to beat it. So well done to all the runners, including the ones who really struggled in the heat, and see you all next year! (And before you ask, I will still be snapping and not running!).

The constancy of a cat (or dog)

This weekend my brother's family is welcoming a tiny kitten, Leo, into their home. And it got me thinking about how having a dog or cat is a delight that never changes. When we had Holly, our first cat, and I was nine, the experience was no different than it was when Molly came along in 2005. Each cat has its own character and personality, but the experience of having a cat is exactly the same.

They don't get stroppy or have an iPhone pressed constantly to their ear, or moan about austerity measures. They don't complain they didn't get a big enough pay rise, or that they're being bullied on Facebook. They just bring us joy and remind us of the simple things. Like basking in the sun, or on top of a warm radiator in the winter.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

I've been enjoying the BBC 4 series "The Agony and the Ecstasy - a Year with English National Ballet."

It's been a real eye-opener.

A lot of the dancers earn £23k or less and it's such a hard life. They are forever rehearsing and being corrected by their repetiteurs. Injuries are rife, some of them career threatening.We met a male dancer, aged 36, who was still a soloist and desperate to advance, but probably in the autumn of his career. He was returning after injury and dancing in a new production of Romeo and Juliet along with Max, aged 20, who had been chosen for his first lead role as Romeo. A poignant contrast.

Both men had to dance several roles in the one production, because ENB is short of dancers and starved of funds. The new govt has already imposed cuts of 7%, equating to just under £500k. ENB could save this if it stopped touring. Every tour costs £100,000 just to start with. But, in a catch 22, they would then lose their Arts Council funding which is given for touring. It's very sad. So they have to cut down on the number of dancers or skimp on their productions, maybe doing fewer of the big classical extravaganzas.

I have loved ballet for years, although it got off to a bad start. The deputy editor on the Plymouth newspaper where I was a trainee reporter threw some complimentary tickets at me for "La Fille Mal Gardee" in the big top. I took my mum; it was the first ballet we had ever seen, and we hated it. Fortunately we tried again with "Manon" and this was much more to our liking. We have since always hated any "Freds" (Frederich Asheton) as they tend to involve nymphs, fauns and dancing bears. We have seen the Kirov (Maryinsky), our favourites; the Bolshoi, the Royal Ballet of course and various touring companies. I saw the first ballet to be performed on the tiny stage of Swindon's Wyvern Theatre, a modern production which brought forth titters in the audience.

I saw Rudolf Nureyev twice. Both times he was over the hill, but what a performer! He obviously lived for the acclaim. Unforgettable.

I would loved to have seen the great Nijinsky (not the horse) - the subject of a recent post. No footage exists, surprisingly, as there is footage of Anna Pavlova.

The Agony and the Ecstasy is on tonight - check it out on iPlayer.

Brands that make you shudder: 1. Boden

Boden. Online purveyors of strangely shaped 'fun' skirts and embellished cardigans to the chattering white middle classes of the UK.

Their marketing makes your teeth curl.

As if it wasn't bad enough that the ferocious Mumsnet group invited their members to a meet with the dress code "Boden", we now see that "Johnnie" - the MD who infuriatingly emails you as if he's known you all his life - has created a Boden community with blogs and aimless chit chat.

As you might imagine, all the Bodenettes who have signed up so far have sickly sweet little names like Passion Flower and Secret Star, and they're all busily exchanging tips about cup cake makers, flowery pinnies and villas where you can take the kids.

Now I do possess a few items of Boden clothing, but I order a lot fewer these days, ever since they started posting reader reviews. Now you can save yourself the trouble of ordering a skirt or dress and being mystified by its cut, a classic Boden problem, because you can read about it before you order.

But I don't buy into the sugary halcyon image that Boden likes to portray. The whole thing is a bit creepy. Boden women have straight figures with no waist or bust. Notice how nothing is ever vaguely low cut because surely that would be offensive to the children. The label is now aiming for global domination, with various new lines including a less garish women's line and kids' clothes. And, I hear, they're targeting the US.

I suppose I should say "respect" to Johnnie as he seems to have hit the magic formula for reaching a particular demographic, but unfortunately the whole thing just makes me shudder.

Back to the 70s

I went clothes shopping last Saturday and was pleasantly surprised.  I saw so many clothes I could buy. So many colours I liked. It was not my experience of the previous two years, when I despaired of finding anything to wear. Those empire line tops and dresses, baggy tunics, cigar pants and harem pants, did nothing for me.

The new season trends of florals, colour blocking, all-white, stripes and "70s vibe" are very much me. Perhaps not the colour blocking. And really I shouldn't do florals, though I can't resist (occasionally) a floral dress or skirt  (I found a divine floral skirt in Coast - left).

The discovery of Biba, exclusive to House of Fraser, was a revelation. I loved everything! Which I didn't when Biba was an iconic brand in the 70s. It seemed a bit hippy-esque then. I bought a high-waisted skirt (left)  and a ruffle shirt, (below right) although I am less convinced now about the shirt.

But not only is Biba back. The Times reports today that Chelseas Girl, which used to be as ubiquitous on the UK high street as, um, Dorothy Perkins or TopShop, is also coming back. It became River Island a few years ago and they are launching a new Chelsea Girl range of vintage fashions for young girls who like vintage but not the price tags or fusty old smell that goes with it.

Today's Times also carries a glum piece about the challenges of wearing the latest waist-high (or higher!) flared jeans. We have been resisting them for a few years, apparently, and sticking to our low-rise jeans, but now the high waisted jean is de rigeur.

The writer was very pessimistic about them though, saying you have to be very tall and very thin. Phooey. In my youth, flared jeans and trousers were everywhere; the bigger the flare the better.  I remember being awe struck when my 15 year old best friend, Susan Payne, produced a pair of cream trousers that had the biggest flare I had ever seen (to this day). Our jeans were by Brutus, Lee, Levi, Lee Cooper and Easy. And they are easier to wear than low rise, where a muffin top inescapably falls out over the top.

Wedge shoes, gipsy tops and big floppy hats are also back, which makes me a little nostalgic, but also suspicious, because didn't I once read that if you wore a fashion first time round, you shouldn't do it when it comes round again? What do you think - will you be embracing the 70s revival or giving it a wide berth?

Respect to Kate Middleton as she doggedly rejects the fashionistas

I wasn't too keen on Kate Middleton at the start. She seemed a bit vapid, too suiting of the "Waity Katie" epithet the press gave her. Even when she did work, her family's business - party "stuff" for kids - seemed very superficial, encouraging the one-upmanship of middle class parents and their infernal party bags.

But, a few months into the engagement, I'm thinking that Kate rocks!

The snooty fashionistas have been dishing out advice. She needs to get a stylist; she should cut her hair; she should stop wearing fascinators, and she should stop wearing knee length black boots. Even Vivienne Westwood stepped in and said Kate wasn't fashionable enough to wear her clothes  (sour grapes if ever I heard them, because she hasn't been invited to design The Dress.)

But Kate has doggedly resisted all this "advice." On her first official appearance last week she not only wore a fascinator, but a coat she had had shortened  (a five year old coat, gasp!) and her favourite knee length boots. She looked happy and serene, not anxious or nervous as most of us would look in such a situation.

I think she will do for the fascinator what Kate Moss has done for the trilby. And who's to say Kate Moss is any more trendy than Kate is, apart from a clutch of bitchy male designers and middle-aged magazine fashion editors?

She has fabulous hair and skin and a great figure, and looks a great advert for the "English Rose." And I loved the way she wore Reiss in her engagement picture. That white dress looked amazing and we would all have thought it was designer if we hadn't been told. The Issa dress she wore for the big announcement was also a great choice. Expensive, but not in the realms of fantasy. And it suits every figure, so replicas have been appearing in the shops and everyone can feel good about it.

I think Kate is going to be a very canny lass. You won't see her splashing the cash on unnecessary items like £1,000+ "IT" bags. She will spend money when it's important, like beautiful evening gowns for state occasions, but she will continue to mix designer with high street. I look forward to seeing her style journey evolve, preferably without the help of a "stylist." And Kate, although you don't listen to advice, one word of advice from  me. Don't get too skinny!

Winter begone - the daffodils are here

Daffodils by Ted Hughes

The Tete-a-Tetes in my garden

Remember how we picked the daffodils?
Nobody else remembers, but I remember.
Your daughter came with her armfuls, eager and happy,

Helping the harvest. She has forgotten.
She cannot even remember you. And we sold them.
It sounds like sacrilege, but we sold them.
Were we so poor? Old Stoneman, the grocer,
Boss-eyed, his blood-pressure purpling to beetroot
(It was his last chance,
He would die in the same great freeze as you) ,
He persuaded us. Every Spring
He always bought them, sevenpence a dozen,
'A custom of the house'.

Besides, we still weren't sure we wanted to own
Anything. Mainly we were hungry
To convert everything to profit.
Still nomads-still strangers
To our whole possession. The daffodils
Were incidental gilding of the deeds,
Treasure trove. They simply came,
And they kept on coming.
As if not from the sod but falling from heaven.
Our lives were still a raid on our own good luck.
We knew we'd live forever. We had not learned
What a fleeting glance of the everlasting
Daffodils are. Never identified
The nuptial flight of the rarest epherma-
Our own days!
We thought they were a windfall.
Never guessed they were a last blessing.
So we sold them. We worked at selling them
As if employed on somebody else's
Flower-farm. You bent at it
In the rain of that April-your last April.
We bent there together, among the soft shrieks
Of their jostled stems, the wet shocks shaken
Of their girlish dance-frocks-
Fresh-opened dragonflies, wet and flimsy,
Opened too early.

We piled their frailty lights on a carpenter's bench,
Distributed leaves among the dozens-
Buckling blade-leaves, limber, groping for air, zinc-silvered-
Propped their raw butts in bucket water,
Their oval, meaty butts,
And sold them, sevenpence a bunch-

Wind-wounds, spasms from the dark earth,
With their odourless metals,
A flamy purification of the deep grave's stony cold
As if ice had a breath-

We sold them, to wither.
The crop thickened faster than we could thin it.
Finally, we were overwhelmed
And we lost our wedding-present scissors.

Every March since they have lifted again
Out of the same bulbs, the same
Baby-cries from the thaw,
Ballerinas too early for music, shiverers
In the draughty wings of the year.
On that same groundswell of memory, fluttering
They return to forget you stooping there
Behind the rainy curtains of a dark April,
Snipping their stems.

But somewhere your scissors remember. Wherever they are.
Here somewhere, blades wide open,
April by April
Sinking deeper
Through the sod-an anchor, a cross of rust.

 

Courtesy Poemhunter.com

May The Best House Win

If you're looking for a TV show that will become BIG, then look no further than "May the Best House Win." Hidden in the afternoon TV schedule on ITV,  it's a reworking of the successful Come Dine With Me format.

Four strangers visit each other's homes and secretly score them, leaving comments for the owners. The winning house wins £1,000. I have taken to recording it (although it doesn't seem to be on this week).

What's fascinating about it is not just the glimpse of other people's homes, but the way the houses are scored.

You might think that the immaculate stylish homes decorated in the manner of magazines, with gleaming kitchens and minimalist design, would win every time. But quite often they are soundly beaten by lived-in houses that the contestants usually describe as "having more character."

To give you a couple of examples, a young eco warrior's barn house was the winning house. And I don't mean a barn conversion. He literally lived in a barn with no luxuries: just a bed, a composting toilet and a rudimentary kitchen. But he won because he was enjoying his home and living a carefree, truly green existence.

Then we saw a wonderful but terrifyingly weird fantasy home, the work of a Cornish artist. Called the Pink Chapple, it was a confection of pink themed around Alice in Wonderland;  immensely cluttered and like something out a fairy tale. But it scored highly because it reflected the owner's whimsical personality.

A home last week that must have cost millions, which was featured in Footballer's Wives and sported lots of marble, chandeliers and a swimming pool with fountains, was not deemed homely and didn't win.

Then there was the stunning, architect designed house in Cornwall with amazing sea views. It did come first, but joint first with a tiny terraced house filled with home-made cushions and pictures. 

This sort of programme gets you thinking about your own abode. We have been in our house for nearly six years and every year we tackle a big project. Unfortunately these have tended to be boring - eg painting the exterior; replacing the central heating; putting in a drive. This year is no exception: the project is replacing the 30 year old lean-to, which leaks like a sieve. But I am determined to make improvements to the dining room and living room, albeit on a shoestring budget.

It's quite tough to get J to buy into my choices, even though he has to admit that the pink and green bedroom worked very well. He is very conservative. He has already instructed "no more distressed furniture" but I was at great pains to persuade him that the proposed dining room table, while white in colour, has not been distressed in the least. I will struggle to get the multi coloured chandelier past him.

How do you approach decorating and what's your style?

A life spent dieting

It's sad but true. Looking at my online calorie counting guru, Nutracheck, and idly pinging up random data, I found that I first used the site in 2006. For the last five years, the depressing yoyo pattern presents itself: January: start diet to lose half a stone in time for June holiday. June: succeed (phew). September: weight going up. December: oh no....! And this year it was worse, a whole stone to lose, and currently slow progress, barely a pound a week, despite keeping rigidly to the calorie count, exercising and imbibing cidar vinegar in water.

Kim Cattrall recently said she is permanently on a diet, but at least with Kim you can see the visible results of that Herculean struggle. Like most women I am constantly trying to cast off a stone, or half a stone. I guess I'm lucky in that when I was young, children weren't under pressure to diet like they are today. I was a thin child but as a teenager I was a size 14  (US 10) and conscious that I couldn't wear certain clothes. It didn't cause me any angst until the night of the leaving school party, when a teacher and someone else made a reference to my weight, which caused me to storm off early and start my first diet.

I already knew all about dieting because my mother was always on one. In those days, diets were Limmits or Bisk meal replacement biscuits, that looked a bit like Chappie dog biscuits; PLJ, a very sharp lemon drink, and Ayds, squares of toffee that were supposed to have magical weight loss powers. She also bought Slimming Magazine which I would pore over, becoming very knowledgeable at a young age about calories, metabolism and the wisdom of Professor John Yudkin.

I remember that I ate a lot of sild on toast in that first diet, and that I very quickly lost half a stone. My friends came to meet me to go to Wood's (the nightclub de jour) and gasped when they saw my reveal. I suddenly had a waist, which I had proudly cinched in with a wide pink belt. 

Over the years I have tried many diets. The F Plan, with that sawdust-like "fibre filler", pease pudding and Granny Ann biscuits. Atkin's, which left me revolted after six weeks of meat, cream, sugar free jelly and no fruit and veg. South Beach. Perricone. More recently, Dukan, which is like Atkins but with a little fruit and veg, and the "Spent Diet," for the exhausted, which had such an overwhelming list of must buy's, none of it readily available, that a person would feel even more exhausted.

And of course, the only thing that works is eating less and exercising more, whether you do it with low carbs, high protein, low GI, Weightwatchers or calorie counting.

I finally cracked it in 2004 when I lost two and a half stone and got to a UK size 12  (US eight) which is where I am happiest. Since then, I have largely kept it off, but foolishly allowed a few too many pounds to creep up after the wedding last year, so now I am battling with a stone. Two pounds off this week, hurrah!

It's depressing how it has become our way of life. For me, I wake up happy when I am dieting. There's no guilt, unlike when I eat the "bad" things I love, like cheese, quiche, crisps or Scotch eggs. But I dread going into restaurants lest I am tempted, as the prospect of fish with vegetables is never very appealing. Today was a good day. A pub lunch, but my king prawn salad turned out to be a very low calorie option (no dressing) and so I had enough calories in the bank to savour some "real" food this evening. What are your dieting stories? Can anyone honestly say they have never dieted?

A few basics of online marketing

I buy nearly everything on line. I hate going into shops. Holidays, clothes, flights, groceries, books, cosmetics, you name it. So I'm quite a savvy online shopper, and know what makes a good site. If a site is bad - slow, cumbersome and badly designed, or allowing you to order without having goods in stock - then I don't go back to it.

A couple of things really annoy me because they are so basic.

The first is that you're prompted to go to a website by a newsletter, flyer or magazine article. But then you can't find the items you're interested in: they're not in stock and there's no facility to ask to be notified when they're back in stock. A flyer for a company called AWear.com fell out of Grazia today. I liked the look of some of the new trends. You would think that seeing as Grazia comes out on Tuesdays, AWear would have been ready for some interest. I searched for two of the items. Neither came up. I discovered that the Harriet skirt, shown in camel in the flyer, was only available in navy or black. As for the pin tuck military shirt in sand, well, the search using its reference number delivered no results, and I couldn't see the shirt in the gallery.

Which makes me think AWear is guilty of the second thing I hate: failing to update their website at the same time as a promotional campaign goes live.

I had another example of this last week. I received a brochure in the post for Peony, whose silk flowers my mum likes. She adores bluebells, so when I saw their new spring collection featured bluebells, I went immediately to their website, only to find it still featured the winter range and bluebells there were none.

I emailed them and they replied that the website was being updated "as we speak." Perhaps I would like to ring through with my order instead?  No way Jose. I would never give my credit card details to a stranger. Believe it or not, computers are far safer if you keep them up-to-date with security and virus software, and don't fall for silly scams.

Now that we're all used to shopping online for everything,  we've come to expect the highest standards. Delivery on a nominated day is vital. Who can take time off work to sit in all day, on the off-chance? Here I must single out Laura Ashley. Not only do they give you a definite time slot, their delivery people ring you on the way to your house to let you know they'll be here in xx minutes. Then they unpack the item so that you can inspect it  (and return it there and then) and they don't inflict all the packaging on you. Now that's the sort of service all online retailers should aspire to.

A few of my favourite things

1. Reading the bulb catalogue in winter
2. Decent cup of tea after a trip abroad.
3. Making a playlist.
4. My Radio 4 podcasts.
5. The anticipation around programmes like Strictly Come Dancing.
6. Getting dressed up on holiday.
7. Blue sky and sunshine on a cold winter's day.
8. Bluebell wood.
9. Looking at the menu in a restaurant.
10. The first stocks of summer.
11. The first morning in your holiday destination.

The Tragedy of the Nijinskys

As the title of my blog would suggest, I am an inveterate collector of facts and curios. A few years ago I read a review of a new book about the legendary dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Reader, I bought the book, and a great many others about him, and if I were ever to appear on Mastermind, this would be my specialist subject.

I have just finished a biography by his daughter Tamara. If she is still alive, she is  91 years old. She barely knew her father. His brief brilliant career ended when he was in his 20s and went mad. For the rest of his life he lived in asylums.

Nijinsky's life was tragic, but reading Tamara's book, I was transfixed by the tragedy of the Nijinsky women. This would make a fascinating film in itself.

Polish born Nijinsky, variously described in books as shy and sullen, transformed himself when he applied his make-up and elaborate costumes and danced. Although no footage exists, he was capable of remarkable feats of dancing and could apparently hang in the air as he performed entre chats. He was also a skilled mime and actor.

His lover was the famous impresario Diaghilev, who made his charge world famous as they travelled the world with the Ballets Russe.

Diaghilev was terrified of water so he didn't join the company on a long cruise to South America. And that was where Romola de Pulzsky, an ambitious socialite, the daughter of a famous Hungarian actress, saw her opportunity.

She relentlessly pursued Nijinsky, and, although they didn't have a language in common, succeeded in marrying him before the end of the voyage.

Diaghilev was stunned (as was the world) and Nijinsky's career took a deep nose dive. The first of his two daughters was born, Kyra, and he and Romola were trapped in Hungary at the start of the First World War. He then lost his mind, writing his famous diary as he did so.

Romola never gave up on a cure for her husband, or on trying to keep the legend of Nijinsky alive. She tirelessly roamed the world, serving lawsuits and meeting impressarios, trying to get books and films produced.

Nijinsky died in 1950 and was buried first in London and then later interred in Montmartre, Paris.

Romola continued to try to get her mother's villa back from the Hungarian government and to get Mikhail Baryshnikov cast in a film abnout Nijinsky. Meanwhile she was scarcely speaking to her mother or either of her daughters, now living in America, and they weren't speaking to each other. Tamara was estranged from her own daughter Kinga for years on end.

When Romola died, she was buried in a different country to her husband when she had desperately wanted to be buried with him. Tamara didn't go to her funeral.

Her dream of a film about Nijinsky was fulfilled in 1980, two years after her death, but it was horrendous and sank without trace. Baryshnikov was not in it.

She would have been happy to have been at London's V&A museum recently. An exhibition about the life and times of Diaghilev featured many original drawings and costumes of Nijinsky, and these drew the largest crowds. His legend still lives on.In April I will see his famous ballet, L'Apres Midi D'Un Faun for the fourth time in London in a Diaghilev Festival, plus the role he made synonymous, Le Spectre de la Rose (top).

Further reading
Nijinsky: Richard Buckle. The definitive biography.
The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky
Nijinsky, a Leap Into Madness: Peter Ostwald. A modern study of Nijinsky's madness and how it would be treated now.
Romola and Vaslav: Tamara Nijinsky
Early Memoirs: Bronislava Nijinska. His sister's autobiography which portrays a different Vaslav, mischievious and fun loving.

Tea and Toast

I am fortunate enough to be in the sunshine this week, albeit on business. Yes it's the annual sales and marketing conference, this time in Anaheim, California. I won't tell you about the conference as it's all Top Secret, but I will let you in on the tea and toast situation.

As we all know, there is nothing better than a Nice Cup of Tea and a Sitdown. So every morning, ridiculously early, my colleagues and I report to the ballroom for breakfast.

The mostly veteran waiting staff attempt to herd us in a certain way, which has given reign to military speak about digging in and not advancing forward.

We then proceed to the lines of buffet: scrambled egg, eggs benedict, ham, cereal, oatmeal (as porridge is called) and waffles. But no toast.

Back at the table, we ask for toast. On the first day a glorious plate of toast arrived, enough for everyone. Hurrah! But yesterday, just two slices.

Meanwhile we have put our request in for tea.

Yesterday it arrived, nice colour, and we were all happy. Until we tasted it. Cinnamon?! It was some sort of weird fruit tea. The waitress was very apologetic saying she had used the wrong tea bags, and was kind enough to make us a new pot. But sadly we were getting told to move ourselves to the arena so we hardly had time to drink it.

At least now we have two BKMs  (best known methods): ask for toast for the table, and black tea also known as English breakfast tea,

See you soon!

It's snowed a bit, we're not prepared as always, get over it!

I was getting increasingly irritable at the BBC footage from St Pancras station. The reporter was doing his utmost to provoke good natured passengers who had been waiting for hours in the cold.
"What do you think about the way the UK has handled this?" he probed relentlessly, but the charming Europeans refused to give way. "Has it ruined your Christmas?"

Every time a train breaks down, we're told by peevish passengers that the train company should have had space blankets and drinks on board. Well seeing as snow is entirely random, not guaranteed, and hits these islands for, oh, two weeks a year, tops, what about passengers being more prepared instead, on the off chance?

Then there are the airports.Yes they could all invest hugely in snow ploughs and de-icing rigs and goodness knows what else. But there isn't that much money sculling around, is there? Can you imagine if BAA did just that, and then their profits went down and there was no snow. The newspapers would of course have a field day, and start trotting off statistics about the likelihood of snow.

The last thing that really bugs me is when people start talking about Finland and other countries, and how well they prepare. Yes, they have winter tyres, snow chains, the full Monty. But they also know that they WILL get snow for several month. It's a dead cert. So they have to prepare for it. For us it's like a roulette wheel at Las Vegas.

Photos show those people made of sterner stuff, J's friends the Orion Harriers, on their Sunday run through Epping forest.

Strictly Come Dancing: The Glittering Finale

Tonight our three finalists will emerge from the spray tanning booth for the last time, dripping in bling and dancing their little hearts out for the chance of lifting the very kitsch glitter ball trophy.

Kara Tointon was said to be the favourite on BBC Breakfast Time this morning, but really it's anyone's game. I can't remember a final where we have had three finalists of almost equal quality.

J is convinced that Tara will swing it. She is the most consistent and is the highest scorer overall. But I can see Pamela lifting that trophy.

Strange things happen in the final. Underdogs who were "ok" during the series but never blew us away, such as Chris Hollins and Tom Chambers, end up winning. The judges tend to give out tens to everyone, and it's up to the public to decide.

The good old public likes to go for an underdog. They prefer to vote for men. So Matt has a very good chance, given that he presents Country File and occasionally the One Show, and used to be on Blue Peter. He probably has a lot of the old dear vote.

The public also likes A Journey. So in terms of journey, Pamela has the best one. She's lost two stone, regained her va va voom, and looks fabulous at 61 to boot. Plus she was always so cheerful; always looking as if she loved the dancing, even in training.

So all Kara has going for her is being technically the best dancer. Is that enough to make the public vote for her? I don't think so. She hasn't had much of a journey: as I said before, dancing is probably in her blood, having been part of her stage school training, and she was always super fit. There's the hint of a romance with him and Artem, which gives her a few extra points with the public.

But at the risk of being wrong two weeks running, I'm going for Pamela to win. Although Matt could seize it too. I am a little nervous about Pamela's show dance, having seen the sketch of her dress on It Takes Two. A very conservative number, unlike Kara's which has been engineered for lifts galore. Tonight all will be revealed! (Not literally of course - the costume designers are far too skilled for that!).

Tree Spotting

I'm intrigued by other people's Christmas trees. I love looking through open curtains to see a tree glinting away. If your tree has ancient heirloom ornaments, I am very jealous. Particularly if it has those half cut out retro baubles (you know the ones).

Our own tree went up at the weekend. Sadly there are no heirloom ornaments. I quite often decide on a new colour theme and buy accordingly. Last year I added red baubles to the gold. I have a second tree, a white one with either silver and blue, or neon bright, baubles, but this year it's staying in its box owing to the fact that my colour choices for the dining room will be red and gold, so it wouldn't match.  (It's all very complicated.)

The only ornament that is vaguely heritage is the little bird which I bought about 10 years ago at the Kathe Wohlfarht Christmas shop in Oberammergau. Imagine, a shop that sells Christmas decorations all year round! It reminds me of a tiny bird we had on our tree when I was a child. That tree was in two sections and about 6 feet tall. The lights were huge coloured bulbs, some with a sugary effect. Mum gave the bottom section to Grandma, although it was a funny shape on its own, and for years the two parts of the tree were ceremoniously decorated in two separate houses in Plymouth. Our tree always had a very shabby fairy on top with a white crepe paper dress that had become beige over the years.

What's your Christmas tree like and what's your favourite ornament?

Strictly Come Dancing: Who goes? You decide

An intriguing results show tonight as two couples are eliminated. I'm going to make the bold claim that Kara and Scott will be the celebrities finding the exit sign.

Based on the judges' scores, the two lowest scoring couples were Gavin and Katya and Matt and Aliona.

I suspect however that Gavin and Matt probably have more fans than anyone else in the contest (with the exception of Pamela, who has built a  unique fan base) so I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of them stays. I would expect Scott to be the victim, and perhaps - here's a shocker - Kara.

She was the highest scorer and it will take a massive under performance by the public, but I still think it's possible, particularly if people who don't normally vote, like me, pick up the phone for their favourites. I actually voted for Matt last night because his routines have been thrilling, he's such a talented and nice guy, and the judges have under-scored him.

Scott peaked too soon and has been struggling to regain his form of three weeks ago. His Charleston was well executed but nothing exceptional. It won't hold in the memory in the way of the Chris Hollins / Ola Charleston, or even that of Pamela and James.

Kara is an interesting one. Having thrown herself the lifeline of an alleged romance with her partner, which always does well with the public, I still remain unmoved by her. To me, she looks like the product of a stage school background where dancing is a large part of the curriculum. She is an actress and very fit  (she featured in a health magazine recently.) So her "journey", to use that dreaded word, was less challenging than that of farmer, presenter and former gymnast Matt, or former comedienne turned psychologist Pamela.

Pamela is a complete revelation. Every week she turns in sensational routines and every week she remains joyful. Even in training, we rarely see her slumped and depressed. In these ageist times where everyone over the age of 50 tends to be dismissed as past it, particularly by the BBC,  I defy anyone to fail to be impressed by Pamela's energy, vivacity and youthfulness.

Only one graduate in Apprentice final five

It's almost arrivederci for two of the most enjoyable TV programmes of the autumn, Strictly Come Dancing ands The Apprentice. I'm going to preview both of the semi finals, starting with the Apprentice.

What's striking about the five finalists in the Apprentice is that four of them didn't go to university. So, rioting students, perhaps there is no need to waste three years doing Media Studies and then saddling yourself with a debt. The internet offers far more potential to budding entrepreneurs than we had in my day.

They do seem more entrepreneurial than the usual finalists. I think people were shocked when Liz went out, but although she came across as hugely capable, confident and talented, I didn't see that spark of ingenuity. Having read Lord Sugar's autobiography, I see now what sort of people would attract him. It's not necessarily just someone good at selling, because Liz was that (although as an investment banker, I was surprised she was so good at selling.)

He wants a hunger for selling and the ability to negotiate. Also the ability to see a pile of rubbish and sell it very quickly.How else did Amstrad become so successful.

I am beginning to fear that Stuart Baggs The Brand, the 21 year old with a field full of ponies  (!I'm not a one trick pony, I'm not even a two trick pony. I have a field full of ponies") or Joanna, the woman with the most irritating voice in Britain, are the two most likely Apprentices this year.

We were all amazed when Joanna made it through the first episode, and I was appalled by the way she kept yelling at Jamie last week. She is a woman with the interpersonal skills of a sledgehammer.

Meanwhile Jamie seems quite charming and is clearly a good negotiator, but comes across as slippery as a basket of eels. He's been his own boss for four years and doesn't like being told what to do, so I don't think he would do very well at Amscreen.

I like steely Stella but even though she did a fine rendition of Knees Up Mother Brown, Lord Sugar will always find fault with her for being 'corporate".The programme last night that looked at the five finalists and their backgrounds was quite an eye-opener on the Stella front. She had a very tough upbringing and was almost put in a children's home until her great aunt decided to take her in.

Then there's Chris. He's the only one who went to university. He comes across as a well meaning posh nitwit, really. But I was surprised to hear both Nick and Karren Brady sounding very positive about him. I felt sure there was nothing "strategic" about his offer to the tourist company last week to give them 20% of his team's total winnings. He had that rabbit in a headlight look, and I don't think he knew what else to offer.

Next week's episode is one of my favourites when Sugar's business acolytes interview the finalists and tear them to shreds. I'm thinking Stella and Joanna will stand up to it best. What do you think?

FIFA: Down with this sort of thing

If there's one thing that makes me mad, it's injustice of any kind. I am seething about the FIFA decision on the next World Cup locations, and the way England garnered just one vote.

On paper England was equal top of Fifa's own technical assessment of the four bids. We were top of an independent assessment of the best commercial bids and the presentation on Thursday was widely acclaimed as the best of the 2018 and 2022 bids.

None of that mattered however because FIFA, one of the most ridiculous, inept and discredited organisations in the world, was determined to give England a lesson. Why? Because our journalists had the temerity to expose the corruption at the heart of the whole process, and the fact that FIFA officials can be bribed for money.

I would have expected FIFA to have reacted to the news by sacking officials and issuing a statement saying they intended to get to the bottom of the allegations.

As you would expect from this bunch of idiots  (remember some of their foolishness during the World Cup), they didn't, but they took their revenge by punishing the whistleblowing nation.

And this nonsense about giving Qatar the World Cup to grow football globally! Yes with a population of just over one and a half million, I'm sure it will have a huge impact there.

Let's hope for the sake of soccer lovers thast Russia is able to deliver the stadia and hotels in time for 2018. They didn't score highly on this in the technical assessment.  But I suppose when, like Russia and Qatar, you have oligarchs and oil behind your bid, money is no object.