"Revenge of the Food Fascists"

A new film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Calgary Avansino and Inga Dirzuite!!!

(or at least a couple of books, where they make loads of money)

 

 

The papers are full of the food fascists today. Probably a good ten years after dear old Gillian McKeith urged us to embrace spelt and agave, the big new food thing is eating raw with no carbs at all, no cow's milk and no wheat  (makes sign of the Devil).  

 

The Mail today has someone called Inga Dirziute clainming that her family's ailments have cleared up since she imposed a raw food diet on them. And it does sound quite tasty, the lunch of chilled soup, salad, stuffed tomatoes and "burgers" made from walnuts and mushrooms. How does today's harried working mum find the time to either learn how to cook like this, or shop for the ingredients? Dirziute spent £4,500, as you do, on a month-long residential course in the US to learn how to do it.

 

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times offers up someone called Calgary Avansino, who boasts about her breakfast smoothie for all the family which contains in excess of 20 ingredients. And some days, the children only take a sip! You need to be Croesus himself to dine like this. No wonder they're all writing diet books.

 

I wonder about the substantiation for the lies perpetuated about cow's milk and wheat. I'm sure a few people are intolerant. But not many mums can afford coconut water or milk, almond milk, coconut yoghurt - all the things Avansino trots out.

 

Some of her advice is good. Parents should educate their kids about balance. When Avinsino's children go to the parties of mortal children, they eat ordinary (ie bad) food, but expect to have raw vegetables as a penance for tea.

 

The goddess of fascist food is actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and the Mail today includes more of her recipes day from new book It's All Good.

 

I'm a bit disappointed with Gwyneth.  I honestly thought that with her website Goop, her personal trainer and macrobiotic diet, she'd been living clean and healthy for years.

 

But in last week's intro in the paper, she said that a fainting exercise not so long ago, where she thought she was going to die, led her to create the recipes (no doubt with a nutritionist and personal chef). Hmmm. I remember a book by someone else called "Spent" where Gwyneth babbled on about how she had felt completely exhausted, nay spent! And promptly changed her diet. That was a few years ago. To mix my metaphors, I suspect Gwyneth has not been eating her own dog food.

 

A good message from all these pious utterings would be to try to make a few small changes.

 

But really, the facts are thin on the ground about the dangers of cow's milk and wheat. And for most of us, life really is too short to source coconut water, frozen kale, chia seeds,  green powder, baobab powder, lacuma powder and maca powder -- just a few of the ingredients in the Avansino smoothie.  I very much doubt if they are all available at Holland and Barrett!

 

I leave you with one sobering thought. Remember all the fuss about aloe vera juice and how cleansing it is?  Clinical trials were halted when it was found to give rats cancer.  Chew on that!

 



Good news for Pigeon Fanciers

A few weeks ago I wrote about Lieutenant Pigeon, the lone pigeon who has been a daily visitor to our garden for the last two years.

He's not so lonely.

Lt Pigeon now has a pigeon fancy who has accompanied him for the last couple of weeks. Their visits have been less frequent:  I can no longer set my watch by them.  So J believes they are building a nest. Our garden, he rightly points out, is a bit low on nest materials.

Here they are, looking for dropped seeds from our bird feeders. Lieutenant is on the left, but I may be mistaken.

Where have all the good laughs gone?

Nothing on TV seems to make me laugh. Titter ye not, said the late and great Frankie Howerd, and I don't.  Miranda occasionally provokes a titter -- "such fun!" and "bear with," but it's also a little overdone. It tries too hard.

The last times I spluttered with mirth were watching Father Ted, The Office, One Foot in the Grave, Phoenix Nights and the early episodes of The Royle Family.

Monty Python was before my time but I inherited my brother's albums and videos and can recite many of the sketches word for word. Many of the phrases are used endlessly in my family: "Be fair, Pascal;"  "the comfy chair" and "no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition."

I don't want to sound like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, but what passes for humour these days courtesy of Judd Apatow and the Coen Brothers, and even Sarah Millican, seems to revolve around bodily functions and bottoms. Funny to male adolescents. Do we really still laugh at it when we're grown ups?

How I long for the wordplay, the bathos, pathos and character development that symbolised some of the truly great comedies: Porridge, Steptoe & Son, Dad's Army, Citizen Smith, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Open All Hours. Some of the characters exhibited greed, sloth, meanness, frailty, foolishness, thwarted ambition, lust. But sometimes we felt sympathy for them. Sometimes they made us cry.

Some of the longer running sitcoms today -  I am thinking of the inexorable My Family and My Hero - have that self conscious, shouty "am I on stage?" thing going on, a bit like a farce but supposed to be masquerading as real life.

Most of the "comedians" seen on TV occasionally leave me cold: Lee Child, Jimmy Carr, James Corden, Stephen Fry. And they say women aren't funny! Michael McIntyre, John Bishop and Milton Jones have gentle humour without resorting to bodily functions but they don't make me titter much. Peter Kay used to be wonderful but he's run short of new material over the last few years.

The only ray of light in recent times has been the wonderful Getting On, with Jo Brand. Set in an NHS hospital, it has a gentle humour and doesn't resort to cruelty to get a cheap laugh.

What do you think?  Have I turned into Victor Meldrew?  Or are we currently in a desert when it comes to clever comedy?

The blizzards of 1963

It's snowing.
As usual, the UK is grinding to a halt: there have been angry scenes at Heathrow airport.
But it all pales into insignificance compared to the blizzards of 1963.
If you get chance to see it, BBC2 showed an amazing programme from then entitled "Winterwatch: 1963."
That winter, the snow came in December and didn't disappear until March.

With temperatures so cold the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record.
It began abruptly just before Christmas in 1962. The weeks before had been changeable and stormy, but then on 22 December a high pressure system moved to the north-east of the British Isles, dragging bitterly cold winds across the country. This situation was to last much of the winter.
Many people didn't have central heating. People were literally trapped in their houses, with snow piled in drifts up to the roofs.
My parents were living in St Budeaux, Plymouth, and my dad was unable to get home from Bickleigh Barracks for four days. My mum couldn't get outside the door. Eventually a truck brought my dad home and he dug us out (I was two years old). My dad still went to work the following evening. He put on his great coat and boots and walked to Bickleigh, several miles away.
The TV programme showed scenes you would never imagine seeing in Britain. The sea, frozen. People "commuting" to work across the Thames on skates. Trains so buried under snow, it took teams of dozens of men days to liberate them.
 The snow was so deep farmers couldn't get to their livestock, and many animals starved to death.Several people died as a direct result of the weather.
This snow set the scene for the next two months, as much of England remained covered every day until early March 1963
The first thaw was gentle and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. But just a few days later, the freeze was back - and the second thaw was fast and brutal causing floods.

Me out in the snow today

John sets off early this morning

A great day in broadcasting history

Viewers of BBC Breakfast News today will be aware that today marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of breakfast TV in the UK.

That's not the only milestone. This day, 30 years ago, two new local radio stations were born, BBC Radios Devon and Cornwall.  I was hired by Radio Devon as a fresh faced reporter called Gail Tyler, and I was proud to be there on launch day.

When the station launched it came from Broadcasting House in Plymouth. The studio complex in Exeter was still being built, and two Portakabins were being used on the building site.

We all came together a few months before the launch and spent six wonderful weeks in London training. I was the youngest, and the only one with absolutely no radio experience. So there were quite a few memorable faux pas along the way. One of our training projects was to "find" someone interesting and interview them.  My great friend Julie Skentelbery, who was also in London with Radio Cornwall, facilitated a meeting for me with one of her former colleagues on the Sunday Independent:  Alastair Campbell.

He had played the bagpipes as a busker in the underground.

We recorded the interview at Marble Arch underground. Alastair didn't have his bagpipes. I was not in full control of my equipment (a Uher tape recorder) so used the Auto setting, and the sound quality was terrible.  Worse still, I had about 20 minutes of Alastair rambling on and I didn't know how to edit. Fortunately Julie seized the razor blade and saved the day.

The fledgling radio station played host to the Director General, Alasdair Milne, who sadly died last week.  Mr Milne is seated on the right, looking as if he might go for a spin on the turntable. I am "at the controls" in the Plymouth studio. My colleagues in the picture were Mary Saunders; the late and great Reg Henderson Brookes (second right), and the wonderful David Bassett, whose booming voice would announce "Bon bons for all, this day!"  He always came into the office with a great flourish, and if we didn't pay enough attention he would go out and come back in again.

Alasdair Milne was mentioned on the very popular Treasure Hunt quiz show presented by Douglas Mounce.  The question was: "who wrote Winnie the Pooh?" and quick as a flash the listener replied "Alasdair Milne."

Other memories:

• My first live news bulletin, which went out on a Sunday and was four minutes long.  Mike Gibbons, our Programme Organiser, was on the beach in Weston-super-Mare and managed to pick up the transmission. He called me to say it was very good, but I'd forgotten to say who I was.
• As a more experienced newsreader, I became adept at editing copy as I read it. During a bulletin Allan Urry rushed in with "news just in," and as he and David Willis were great jokers, I didn't trust the copy and ended up saying "The dead man....is not thought to be seriously hurt."  I came out of the studio with great poise, hoping I had got away with it, but then picked up the phone to a listener who said "tell your newsreader she made my day"  (I had denied being the newsreader).
•  Evelyn the cleaner had her favourites and fortunately I was one of them; one of my colleagues had to suffer the indignity of Evelyn Hoovering outside the news cubicle as she read the 10 minute bulletin.

David Bowie: Where Are We Now?

Goodness knows how it was kept a secret, but when millions of Davis Bowie fans woke today they learned that their hero, 66 today, had come out of retirement and issued a single.

Not only that, an album is to follow in March and can be pre-ordered!

Friends will know that David Bowie has been an obsession of mine since I was 12. I've written about him several times on this blog. In 2007, I was worrying why we never heard anything about him.

I've downloaded the single, of course. It is a gentle, dreamy, poignant evocation of Bowie's time in Berlin. The accompanying video shows his face superimposed on the body of a puppet.

There have been rumours for years that Bowie is not in good health. There is something of a farewell about this song and the video, where he seems wistful and almost tearful at times. I just pray that isn't the case.

Lieutenant Pigeon

Introducing the sad, lonely pigeon who lives in our garden.

I'm afraid he's a bit camera shy, so he doesn't pose very well for photos.
There is he, enjoying the rare flash of sunshine that we had on New Year's Day.

This plump wood pigeon has lived in our garden for the last couple of years. We didn't realise it until we got rid of the previous owner's leylandii trees and started to notice the pigeon roosting on the fence. He came back day after day. When spring came, a year later, he was still on the fence but occasionally joined by his mate.

Now he is solitary again.

He turns up every day at 8.30 and spends the hours pecking hopefully beneath the bird feeders, picking up the seeds that smaller birds have dropped. I imagine he must have several gardens he visits because I doubt if he would be so plump on the strength of our dropped seeds.

When the sun comes out, he perches on the garage roof and his head droops to his chest as he enjoys the warmth on his feathers.
When it's windy and wet, he sits gloomily on the fence and his plumage gets ruffled.

I've grown attached to "the pidge" and look out for him during the day when I'm working, with my view of the garden. He could be around for quite a while. I'm told they live between 3 - 5 years, occasionally up to 15.

The real reason we put on weight after a diet (it might surprise you)

Are you on a diet?  It's that time of year. 

I am a little smug, having lost a stone and a half in the run - up to Christmas, and not having put any weight back on. That meant that there were no festive niceties in the house. No cheese, no Christmas cake, no trifle, no chocolates.  J didn't mind - he still had his favourite items, nuts, beer, cheesecake and cream.  I enjoyed a normal Christmas dinner; I just didn't have anything else that day. And I treated myself to a couple of mince pies over the break, outrageously calorific at 250 each. I painstakingly worked them into my weight maintenance target of 1400 calories.

Yes, 1,400 calories. That's the MAX number of daily calories I need to keep my weight stable.

I discovered this by having my metabolic rate tested courtesy of Alizonne. Using a device called a MedGem, I discovered that far from the generous 1,878 calories quoted for my daily needs by Nutracheck and other diet sites, I require no more than 1,400.   Astute dieters among you will know that 1,400 is actually the number quoted for weight loss. It's the target Nutracheck set me when I said I wanted to lose one to two pounds a week. I stuck to it and couldn't understand why the pounds wouldn't budge.

I'm now convinced the main reason why we put the weight back on is that we're not given a realistic picture of how little we should eat in order to keep our weight stable.

No wonder Joanna Lumley talks about mainly eating lettuce.  Her words "don't eat that cupcake, you'll get fat, you fool" ring in my ears. I've decided I don't want to put on weight again. I hate having to wear clothes in a larger size, and it becomes harder and harder to lose weight as you get older. Do the maths:  if I gain weight on more than 1400 calories a day, I'm going to have to drop to 900 calories a day to lose weight.  Each pound gained is equivalent to 3,500 calories. If I was blissfully unaware and keeping to 1,878 calories a day, I would have gained a few pounds already.

I'm still using Nutracheck daily but now I use it to ensure I don't exceed 1400 calories a day. If we're going to the pub on Friday, I eat frugally during the day to ensure I can have scampi and chips. (The pub doesn't offer many healthy options - and life is too short to always go for poached fish!). Occasionally I do what I call "an offset" to have something I like. A very long walk on Monday meant I could have one of those mince pies.

Now you can see as well why people start to see exercise as a necessity. Elizabeth Hurley and Nigella Lawson have both talked about taking more exercise in order to be able to eat more. If I exercise more, my metabolic rate will rise. I look forward to warmer weather when I will happily get my bike out.

So if your New Year's resolution is to lose weight, I wish you luck ---- and recommend very strongly that you get your metabolic rate tested at the end of it so that you have every chance of success in the harder science of keeping the weight off.

Christmas decorations remembered

Watching "Wartime Farm: Christmas" and seeing Ruth Goodman making paper lanterns, I was catapulted back into Geasons Primary School and our messy endeavours to make decorations every Christmas.  One teacher had us painting tree branches white, and hanging baubles from them. Another had us making paper chains. Everyone had them - strips of coloured card that formed a circle.

When I was a child, we hung paper streamers across the ceiling and bunches of balloons in the corners. The decorations looked like these (right) - they were made by a company called Harlequin and were intricately cut and bright colours. These gave way to similar "drop downs" where several metres of coloured foil cut out decorations were concertina'd between two end plates.

Our first artificial Christmas tree arrived around 1969, courtesy of Freeman's catalogue. It was very tall, right up to the ceiling, and turquoise with silvery bits.

We had a faithful old collection of baubles that came out year after year, and long plumes of tinsel and strands of lametta. Mum liked to hang lametta from the chains across the ceiling, which used to constantly drop down and drive my dad mad.

Some of the baubles were those delightful old-fashioned ones with the side cut out. I've seen similar ones on eBay. We had a couple of glass birds. I loved them and was thrilled to find a very similar one at one of the Christmas shops in Oberammergau.

The fairy lights were big and chunky, some of them with a sugary texture. When one bulb failed, the whole lot stopped working.  They looked similar to those on the right.

And at the top of the tree was a shabby fairy who resembled a ballet dancer. Her white crepe paper dress became a dirty yellow over the years.

One thing I've found is that there isn't much on the Internet about Christmas decorating traditions. I'll come back tomorrow with an update.

A Tudor Christmas

Last year I wrote about the Christmas traditions of other countries. This year I thought I would step back in time to look at the Tudor Christmas.

I'm fascinated by the Tudor period, and knowing how devout they were, I imagined their Christmas would revolve around church with the rich enjoying a "bird within a bird within a bird" roast.

There would be no Christmas trees - this didn't start until Prince Albert popularised them in Victorian times - or "Father Christmas," who came along courtesy of the Coca Cola company.

The Tudors' Christmas festival lasted from December 25 to January 6. Some fasting was required as preparation, so on Christmas Eve they didn't eat meat, cheese or eggs. As a bonus, they didn't work during this period except for those who had to look after animals. Flowers were wrapped around spinning wheels to stop women from working.

Christmas Day was a busy time for Henry VIII. He had to go to Mass three times and was expected to wear new clothes. He banned any sports taking place on Christmas Day except for jousting and archery.

Feasting

During the 12 Days of Christmas people visited friends and relatives and shared "mince pyes,"identical to the mince pies we enjoy today. They had 13 ingredients representing Christ and the apostles.

They did indeed enjoy a bird within a bird ---- in the form of a Tudor pie. This was traditionally a turkey stuffed with a goose stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a partridge stuffed with a pigeon. It was made into a pie. Turkey was made popular by Henry VIII who was one of the first Britons to eat one at Christmas.

Feasts were accompanied by the "wassail bowl" of punch. A piece of bread was soaked at the bottom and always given to the most important person in the room, becoming the tradition of toasting.

The Tudors also had a Christmas pudding, but it was shaped like a sausage and contained meat and spices.

Presents and carols

Gifts were not exchanged until New Year's Day. Carols were popular in Tudor times as a way of spreading the story of the Nativity. Celebrations came to an abrupt end in the 17th century when the Puritans banned Christmas. Carols became extinct until Victorian times.

Other traditions

The kiss under the mistletoe harks back to the Tudor period. In the 15th century it became customary to create a "kissing bough" made of a bendy wood. An effigy of Christ was placed inside and the bough was hung in the house where the local priest would bless it. Anyone visiting the house would embrace under the bough to show they brought goodwill.

The silly world of Claridge's

A programme on BBC Two took us into the hallowed portals of posh London hotel Claridge's last night, "for the first time ever!"

In this old-fashioned, fusty looking place rooms cost around six thousand pounds a night.

The guests are the uber rich:  Arab royalty, little known US designers and popstars  ("Mr The Edge" has lost any edge now we know this is where he holes up).

No guest's request is ever refused. It's as if the abundance of money has rendered common sense and good manners redundant.

Some of these rich guests demand for their room, nay suite, to be redecorated! At their own expense, of course. It reverts back to beige blandness afterwards  (the uber rich are not very tasteful - look at the Trumps, the Ecclestones). One imagines an Arab princess stamping her foot like Veruccae Salt and demanding a new carpet for her stay.

Talking of Arab princesses, Claridges' staff were hard at work transforming a whole floor into an Arabian palace. They weren't sure when the retinue was arriving: the guests were too busy flitting around on planes and no-one had the decency to lock down on an actul date  (how suburban!). In fact it was possible they could cancel. But in this fiercely competitive world, Claridge's just has to grin and bear it in case the spoilt family went somewhere else. So bedrooms were turned into banqueting halls and kitchens, and two rooms were set aside just for the shopping.

The rich guests sometimes stuff safes or carrier bags with wads of cash, we were breathlessly told. And leave it behind! Hmm, I would be a bit suspicious of that. The late Michael Jackson carried cash because he was in such debt that anything paid into his bank account would have gone straight to creditors.

Does all this money buy you happiness? Well, no-one does much work, it would seem, and they spend their time flitting from one gilded cage to another. Paris today, London tomorrow. The only one who seemed content was Sammy the dog, whose Botox'd owner told us that he liked coming to Claridge's where he has his own bowl and basket. The concierge was probably less happy when she gave him what looked like a coin for the privilege of walking Sammy.

This hushed and hallowed world seemed very vacuous and silly. These people can teach us nothing about humility and good manners. They should take a leaf out of the book of Bill and Melinda Gates, who have dedicated their lives post-Microsoft to spending their fortune on good causes. They travel a lot too but it's not to race tracks or fashion shows. They travel to places where women are forced to give birth to children one after the other because their corrupt governments don't spend on women's health or contraception.

I suspect we would not find Mr and Mrs Gates arguing about their carpet being the wrong colour or needing a room set aside for atrocities purchased in the Egyptian room of Harrod's.

Art for Art's Sake

Good art, like good newspaper columnists, should divide opinion.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and it would be a sad world that didn't encourage diversity, variety and controversy.

So I was amused when the Daily Mail in its usual heavy-handed, "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" style launched a broadside against Damien Hirst this week. The writer told us gleefully that Hirst's works are falling in price, and that the adulation around him was Emperor's New Clothes, because he can't paint or draw and has dozens of minions who churn out his works.

Tracey Emin wasn't free from the broadside either, as the writer poured venom onto her "dirty bed."

No, real artists are the likes of JMW Turner, said the writer.

Hmmm. I admire the works of JMW Turner but I'm afraid their...well, sludginess, and high percentage of ship content, does not induce any sort of emotional response in me. Nor does the work of Damien Hirst, but I wouldn't be so naive as to criticise one artist over another. Indeed, the Bishop of Chichester has defended Hirst this week, saying he is an agent of Jesus Christ, a man of substance whose "exquisite" work draws us to a contemplation of Heaven.

And that is as it should be. Everyone perceives art in a different way and has a different reaction to it.

A few years ago, I had an encounter with the three Rothkos in Tate St Ives. I was completely floored; sat transfixed, feeling myself consumed within those boundless colours.

I'm sure that Daily Mail writer would sneer at the work of Mark Rothko. He would probably say a child of six could do something similar.

This writer even sneered at the wonderful "A Bigger Picture" David Hockney exhibition a few months ago. I had a less emotional response but nonetheless I was breathless and awe struck at the energy and passion that resonated through the galleries. This was not the work of an elderly man, and in this lies the beauty of art. Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon were still painting just before they died, and their work had lost none of his power or vigour.

Art makes you immortal.

The garden in November

This has been the first year that our garden truly became "mine." We had a lot of work done and I planted from scratch. I have loved keeping the garden tidy and buying new plants and spring bulbs, but it's come at the expense of my crafting hobby. I'm not sure everyone appreciated the hand-made cards anyway!

I have been keen to put the garden to bed ----- pruning the perennials and putting down manure to improve the soil composition (very claggy clay) ---- but the garden has other ideas! The phlox, hostas and ferns are the only things showing signs of going dormant. The dianthus, nemesia, salvias and fuchsias are still going for it, as shown by the photos taken on Sunday.

Looking forward to next year now when the snowdrops that I planted in-the-green will be the first to emerge, along with the hellebores and then all the crocus, hyacinths, daffodils and tulips. Happy times!

Strictly: the story so far

After two shows in the new season, everyone has danced and we've had the usual handful of strategic injuries  (eg Denise Van Outen with "whiplash" yet still managing cart wheels and a stunning jive); a new judge with an irritating habit, and Tess wearing dresses that lead everyone to ask if she is pregnant.

Yes, Strictly Come Dancing is back and the formula is the same:  someone from a boy band, someone from a girl band, someone from EastEnders, someone from ITV, a  low league filmstar, etc.

Gratifyingly it is beating X Factor by around a million viewers. I'm surprised people still watch X Factor, given that it's such a cynical exercise in making money. The phone lines open before anyone has even performed, and the judges are told who to put through.

Anyway. Aside from that. My views on #SCD and in particular:

1) The return of the dance-off
Bad news! It means that judges can cling on to their favourites when quite rightly the public have decided they should go.  I'm thinking that this time it might mean that Denise Van Outen gets a ticket for the final when most of us are incensed that she's in the show in the first place. As her jive showed, she's virtually at professional standard.  She can argue all she likes that she hasn't had Latin and ballroom experience, but when you're a natural dancer, and you've danced in two musicals, it's irrelevant.She will pick up new steps much faster than someone like Victoria Pendleton or the ousted Johnny Ball who haven't had stage school training or West End stage experience.

2) Darcey Bussell
The new judge brings some more technical expertise to the panel, even though it seems to be limited to contestants' arm placement and finger finishing. But she has a really irritating habit of saying "yah?" at the end of the most sentences. She reduced this in the latest show, but there was some yah leakage.

3) Judges with favourites
It's very obvious this time who's a favourite with the judges. They were very harsh on Colin Salmon, Kimberley Walsh and the bloke from Westlife.  But they're disproportionately kind and effusive with Van Outen, Dani Harmer, Victoria Pendleton and Fern Britton. Victoria deserves some support: she's never danced before and she doesn't have much confidence. But judges need to remember the word BALANCE.

Tess in one of last year's dresses

4) Tess's dresses
Last year Tess wore a succession of dresses with one shoulder and a side split. This year she is sporting tight satin numbers. Last week's white dress was cheap looking; this week my mum was asking if Tess was pregnant, so uncompromising is the tightness of the satin. We need to notice the Tess and not the dresss. At the moment it's the other way round. On the subject of Tess, the animosity between her and Sir Bruce is all too apparent. I think Tess is fed up with being his Anthea Redfern foil. She's totally different when presenting with Claudia. Bruce has upped his game this time. I've sniggered at a couple of his terrible jokes, and I laughed when he rushed over to kiss Craig after James and Van Outen.

5) My favourites

Colin Salmon

Like Brucie, I have my favourites. Colin Salmon is gorgeous, smooth, silky voiced. Sid from EastEnders is much better than anyone expected and fun. Lisa Riley is lovely and I'm so glad she made a stand about not wanting to be the comedy turn because she's a larger lady. My fear is that as we get near to the final, if she's in dance off with Van Outen, the judges will probably put Van Outen through, even though the public will vote in droves for Lisa.

I'm taken by the cricketer too, Michael Vaughan. He comes across very well. Kimberley Walsh looks beautiful and not irritating, unlike some of her other Girls Aloud colleagues  (Sarah Harding, Cheryl "Chav" Cole).

6) Get Them Out
The one dancer I hope to see the back of quite quickly is Fern Britton, for reasons you can read here.
I wasn't surprised to read in a gossip rag that she's unpopular with the other contestants because of her bitchy remarks.

I'm not very keen on Louis Smith either. There's a bit of petulance there, don't you think?

And I'm thinking that Anton du Buerk is well past his sell-by date.  His celebrities do badly because his choreography is terrible. Plus he doesn't boss them around enough. Jerry Hall is more than capable of dancing properly, from what we've seen, but she's lazy and Anton has given in to her. Let's have some new British dance talent next year.

Tea leaves and sore knees: life Below Stairs for my Grandma

Taken from the Memoirs of my Grandmother, Kathleen Lovis, 1906-1991

    When the spring came my sisters would find jobs in hotels. My sister Win was going to a hotel in Newquay, Cornwall. It was called "The Headland" and was on a cliff overlooking the sea. There was a beach just below. Win had worked at Newquay the previous year in a smaller hotel called "The Beachcroft." She was going to the Headland as a parlour maid. This meant she had to wait on the servants, maids and valets of the rich guests.
      Mother and Win must have talked it over between them and it was decided that it would be a good opportunity for me to work there too. The only problem was that I had to be 16 years of age. But being 14 at the time didn't stop them from getting a job for me, and I duly became 16 overnight.

   I became a corridor maid. I had no say in it: I was told I was going to work in a hotel with Win and that was that. It was a really hard life for a girl of 14. I shared an attic with two or three others, all older than me. I was the youngest there. We were woken up at 6am and had to be washed, dressed, hair up in a bun and with our equipment ready by 6.30. 

   I had a small cupboard where my polish, dusters and, most important, my Eubank carpet sweeper, were kept. I had no mop when I first started and of course no electric cleaner. There was a sheet of paper on the wall telling me the different jobs I had to do every day. The first week I worked with another girl who "showed me the ropes" as they say. After that I was on my own. I didn't even have a cup of tea to start the day with. Win did. In her job, which I think wasn't as manual as mine, she was able to make herself tea. 

    Before breakfast I had a lot to get through. I started downstairs. First I'd clean the two drawing rooms, or lounges as I suppose they'd be called now. Then I had the billiard room to do. This was a large one and had two huge billiard tables in it. After this I had a smallish corridor to do in which there were some long umbrella stands. Most of this was carpeted with a nice red carpet with a brown lino surround. I had to go all round the carpet with the sweeper, then get on my knees and rub up the lino. This had to be polished twice a week. I had to make sure there were no cigarette ends in the grate. I forgot to remove them once and the assistant housekeeper fetched me from my breakfast to do it. 

   We had half an hour for breakfast and after that my real work began on the second floor. The first floor was the best one, most elaborate, and kept for the richest guests. The second floor had ornate ceiling carvings and was definitely better than the third floor. 

    The stairs was one of my afternoon jobs along with polishing all the brass door handles. I had to thoroughly clean all the bathrooms and toilets every day. On Friday mornings I had to go to the kitchen and collect used tea leaves, which I had to scatter all over the carpet. This was supposed to trap the dust and keep the carpet cleaner. 

    We had dinner at midday for half an hour. I finished around 4pm and had a couple of hours off. My idea of relaxing to buy a few mints and lie on my bed eating them and perhaps reading. We'd have an evening meal about 6.30pm and then I had to start again. This time I'd have to go all round the bedrooms with a chamber maid. We would tidy up and sometimes beds had to be remade. I was also given the unpleasant task of taking mystery bundles downstairs to the boiler room where they were burnt. 

    After a few weeks my knees began to get very sore. I must have mentioned this to my sister and she wrote to our mother how bad they were. She told Win to give in my notice, which she did. It was a surprise to me. The funny thing was, the week I was serving out my notice was the first week we were given cedar mops to use. This meant we'd only have to kneel when  we had to polish the floors. 

 

We go to Edinburgh

It was a bit of a bus man's holiday for J but for his birthday we spent a few days in Edinburgh.

We were blessed with mostly sunshine, although it was a few degrees colder.

From our hotel roof garden we could see some interesting buildings - I thought they were follies - not too far away, so we scrambled up to Calton Hill and took some pictures.

Next we ventured across the Forth Bridge  (no painters in evidence) and across beautiful countryside to go to Crieff, and the Caithness paperweight centre attraction.

I have been collecting paperweights for quite a few years so this was a Big Occasion for me.

Sadly it was a little disappointing. I watched two glass blowers but it felt a bit embarrassing  (I was the only one) and I'd been hoping for a tour.

On the way back to Edinburgh, we stopped at Drummond Castle to look at the gardens. This was an unexpected highlight. We were practically the only ones there, and the formal gardens were stunning! Peacocks wandered, including into the vegetable patch where I think they were not allowed.



Drummond Castle gardens



For dinner J took us to a place he's been to before, a former banking hall called The Dome. I chose haggis, wrapped in filo pastry. I have never had it before but it was absolutely delicious.

The Dome's ceiling

Haggis - yum!

Rather too much wine was consumed (we peaked too soon) and so the next day we were a little bleary eyed for our 10am appointment with The Pandas.

Yes, another highlight: the two pandas on loan to Edinburgh Zoo, Tian Tian (Sweetie) and Yang Guang (Sunlight).

The panda viewings are executed with military precision by the cheerful helpers.

Sweetie was fast asleep.

Sunlight gave us quite a performance, first chewing on the old bamboo and then, when we moved to look at his outside enclosure, coming out to pace around for us.  The helper was quite surprised at his activity saying he normally goes to sleep after eating.

The rest of the zoo was a little sad. Clearly the pandas are the big draw. We didn't see the lion or tiger and the penguins have been temporarily rehoused.

We spent the afternoon climbing what Foursquare described as "my first mountain," the group of hills in Holyrood Park. We didn't get as high as Arthur's Seat because, true to form, I only had impractical shoes. But it was high enough for me.

Another big highlight that evening, a visit to The Kitchin. I've always been impressed by Tom Kitchin when I've seen him on cookery programmes. He's the kind, curly haired one on the Masterchef chef's table. They had remembered it was J's birthday  (I mentioned it when booking, months ago) and there was a signed card on the table.

The amazing pork and langoustine

We went for the surprise tasting menu (as opposed to the game tasting menu) which included lobster and partridge. The stand-out dish was the boned and rolled pig’s head, served with roasted tail of langoustine from Tobermory and a crispy ear salad. Historic, as Michael Winner would say. A fabulous experience.

I left with a copy of Tom's new book, specially signed for me. He was there and we saw him a couple of times briefly, but sadly didn't get an introduction.

So that was it, a very memorable couple of days in Scotland's capital. A very handsome city.

The Beatles: So Over?

I was listening to a radio programme about Dame Vivienne Westwood recently (left) in which she disclosed that Malcolm Mclaren had dared her to set fire to the waxworks of The Beatles in Madame Tussaud's.

"I thought it was a good idea," she said. "I mean, they were rubbish. But I was afraid people might get hurt."

Then, a few days later, my mum, a well respected authority on popular music, said she had never liked the Beatles. I would like to say she was more of a Rolling Stones' fan but the truth was she liked the Ray Conniff Singers and Andy Williams.

The Beatles were slightly before my time, but my brother, who's six years older, bequeathed me all his albums.They were played hundreds of times on "Sid," the Alba record player.

I always listened to side 2 of A Hard Day's Night when I was getting ready to go out, age 15. At that time I had perfected the half gold, half green eye lid.

But recently, a lot of Beatles songs make me want to gurn. I can't stand Hey Jude, All You Need is Love, Back in the USSR, Strawberry Fields, Twist and Shout and Lady Madonna. Some of them sound very dated, a sort of cloying sentimentality.

It's not helped by Paul McCartney croaking out Hey Jude at large public gatherings. Really, he should take a lesson from David Bowie who retired in 2003 and has stuck to it (even though I would dearly love to see another album from him).

But The Beatles still have the power to take your breath away. I never liked "A Day in the Life" but when it was played on the radio recently, I was transfixed. It sounded so contemporary. And I still love Eleanor Rigby - that most evocative of songs; Something;. I Feel Fine; Fool on the Hill.

Where are you with the Beatles? Love or loathe?

We Venture Across the Border

I spent the last few days in Devon with my mum, who was 80 this year but still very spry with all her marbles.

I didn't take J. My view is, if a husband's natural habitat is not a garden centre or tearoom, it will only cause misery to inflict it on them. Plus I would hate to be in one of those joined-at-the-hip couples. As would J. 

When I'm staying with Mum, or Giz, there's a certain ritual to our day trips. We like tradition and continuity. The most popular are:
1) Otter Nurseries for plant buying and lunch followed by either Endsleigh garden centre  (to find  something Otter didn't have) or Buckfast Abbey, where you can get a very fine treacle pudding;
2) Exmouth and Sidmouth and maybe Budleigh Salterton. I lived near the seafront in Exmouth for a short time and love the unspoilt splendour of the beach and the ramshackle nature of the town;
3) Roadford Lake, on the Devon/Cornwall border, preceded by a visit to the Devon Paperweight Centre at the superbly named Leg O'Mutton Corner, Yelverton;
4) Goodrington, Paignton, where we spent many summer days on the red sands, watching the steam train go by (the driver was straight out of Central Casting with a flowing red beard and cheery wave);
5) Totnes for a mooch around gentrified shops selling organic this and that, and strange shops full of arty tourist tat/tut.

But this year, reader, we threw something different into the mix. A coach trip! Now Giz does these quite often. She has a social life that would put Prince Andrew to shame.When I was a teenager we often did coach trips because it was impossible to get Stamps to take us anywhere. There were two memorable trips to Newquay where we didn't even get out of the car because he couldn't find anywhere to park. He refused to pay to go in a car park so unless we could find street parking.

Boscastle

The coach trip was to Boscastle, Tintagel and Padstow.My first time at all three!

It took about an hour to do all the pick ups around Plymouth. Interminable, thanks to roadworks at Laira. Giz and I were the first to board. By the time we got to Boscastle, ostensibly for coffee, the fellow travellers were straining for pasties and many were indulging before we had chance to get our bearings.

Giz feeling the nip

It was very cold. Very very cold. A few people had been caught out and were wearing only short sleeves.

Boscastle was fairly brief. Just fifteen minutes later we were in Tintagel, for an hour and half. We had a below average, "give the emmets any old rubbish, they won't come back" type of lunch in a shabby restaurant and then wandered round trying to find a sheltered spot. Giz inevitably got talking to some of the people on the coach, including a bloke on his own - we named him "Pasty Pete," with a huge stomach and a short sleeved top. He'd been on 12 coach trips last year, he told us, and Badger's Holt for Christmas lunch can't be beaten.

Padstow

Everyone was back on board with minutes to spare; a reflection on the charms of Tintagel. I've never seen a castle so bashful or so many shops full of useless "tut:" piskeys, fairies, things connected with King Arthur, etc.

Thence to Padstow, or as it is now known, Padstein. The influence of the TV chef hangs heavy. As you arrive, sweeping into an unprepossessing car park with views of diggers and trucks, you walk past three buildings forming part of the Rick Stein empire: a wet fish shop, fish and chip shop and deli. The unsuspecting emmet is lured into buying unnecessary jars of chutney, cookery books and things labelled with the name Chalkie, the chef's late dog.

Padstow itself is a harbour with a cluster of shops, mostly selling pasties, fish and chips and tut. On a sunny day it would be glorious to sit and watch boats and people. On a cold, windy day, with two and a half hours to spare, it was teeth clenchingly awful.

Pasty Pete had his third pasty of the day. I had my first  (had to be done). We both had a pleasingly large bakewell tart in a cafe which failed the old fat test.


Back on the coach and Pasty Pete's luck had changed by the time we reached Plymstock. He had struck up conversation with a woman at the back. Regaling her with his 12 coach trips last year and the splendours of Badger's Holt, she remarked that they ought to go on trips together. "Oh yes, I am single," he declared, before adding suspiciously, "But aren't you married?"  "Yes but we don't get on," she said dismissively, before sweeping off the coach with her entourage and leaving us all dangling as to the outcome. Will there be tinsel and turkey for the two of them? A pasty a deux at Mevagissey? I don't think we'll ever know, because Giz has decided her coach trip days are behind her.

A summer to remember

All the superlatives have been said. The clockwork precision of the organisation; the warmth and optimism of the crowds; even the weather was praised.

This summmer, 2012, will never be forgotten.

The Paralympics winds to a close tonight and we will then be utterly bereft.

Today was the Paralympics Marathon, and I had a great vantage point at Cornhill watching a) the competitors and b) husband J performning in his last duties as a volunteer.

John and friend

Our first glimpse of the male wheelchair racers: David Weir is fourth

John rids the streets of London of competitors' drinks bottles and random balloons

We finally got inside the hallowed Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony of the Paralympics. The weather had taken a turn for the worst that day, and it was blustery and cold. But later at the park, the sun broke through.

I wish every person in the land had had the chance to experience the Olympic Stadium. It was the most amazing experience. It was like sitting with 60,000 friends. Everyone was speaking to each other and volunteering to take photos.  And when the Paralympics GB team was announced, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. We stood and cheered and clapped as the cavallcade slowly wound its way past.

When we left, the cheery volunteers shouted "goodbye" and "see you tomorrow" as we sped through the underground system in an ultra efficient and fast way. We were home within 30 minutes.

The wild flower meadow was amazing - as was the Orbit

We found Mandeville - he wasn't very cuddly

The royal barge was there too

In the Olympic Stadium

Our Greatest Team, left in white, make their entrance

John's Olympic Volunteer Memories

John and his running club, the Orion Harriers, were among the 70,000 "Gamesmakers" who helped to make the Olympics such a success.

John didn't get inside the Olympic Stadium: his duties were in central London at the men's and women's marathon, the race walk and the road cycling.

He took his duties to the public very seriously, "working the crowd" at every opportunity and taking photos of people.

Here are a few of his pictures. 

Here's where it all started, a rainy morning a few weeks before the Olympics. The Orions have been issued with their uniforms. John's in the back row, in the middle, with a cap on. Photo taken by me!

Doing the "Mobot"

 

A well earned drink

 

   

 

Getting their hands on some souvenirs