Hobbies
Cruising From Malta, Part One
I won’t bother taking you through all the preliminaries for this cruise except to say this time I choose to fly to Malta to pick up the cruise ship, P&O Azura. It cuts out a [more…]
Food
Health
A diary of a one week fast
Introduction My thinking is that a lot of religions have rites requiring fasting about this time of year. And that when you unpick the word of God stuff, there is some imparted wisdom that has [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Twenty
Monday Hi folks, well that was a bit of a wild night here in London, but it looks to have been a lot worse in the North and I have heard on the radio that [more…]
Cooking
Sous Vide for dummies
So what exactly is Sous Vide? If you have ever been served the most perfectly cooked steak, piece of chicken or fish in an upmarket restaurant, the chances are that it has been cooked sous [more…]
Arts
The Staffordshire Oatcake: a regional delicacy
When someone mentions the word ‘oatcake’, what is it that you first think of? I’d be rather surprised if many of you will not, like I used to do, immediately think of the commercially produced [more…]
Culture
A View From The Greenhouse (ish); The Rise of The Islamist “Talking Head”
Firstly Postaliers, allow me to apologise for not supplying the usual bi-weekly fix of ramblings and inanities on the 5th of December. Life got in the way a bit, but I’m back (for the foreseeable), [more…]
Cooking
The Christmas Cake, Part Two
In the previous weeks you’ll have been diligently nurturing, talking to and feeding your cake creation with some fine brandy or Armagnac using the timeless cook’s measure of “one for me, one for the cake”. [more…]
Cooking
The Christmas Cake, Part One
It’s a somewhat inclement Sunday morning approaching the end of October, the lawn which just a few short weeks ago was dead and brown is now lush and green but under an inch of water [more…]
Cooking
Homemade Sweet and Sour Chicken
This is so superb, trust me. You may (indeed may not) like your local Chinese Sweet and Sour, but after you have made this, you will probably stick to homemade. This is for four adult [more…]