Double bubble and a cuppa tea luv.......

Heston Blumenthal, of snail porridge fame, if turning his hand to the menu of the Little Chef chain, and i sense a disaster coming on. The red sign of the Little Chef has been a beacon for me and the family on our many trips along the A303, A38 or A50, and always under the beacon, like a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow, is the renowned all day breakfast, the highlight of which are the saute potatoes.

Now Heston knows alot more about food than ever I do, but I think he needs to apply the Honda principle to the all day breakfast. if it aint broke don't fix it! The thought of it changing and by so doing sacrificing the tatties and fried bread is a thought I cannot bear. Its the best way to eat a lump of lard, known to man.

I always remember staying at the Gleneagles Hotel some years ago, and was disappointed that their breakfast was not made to order, rather it was kept in trays under those ghastly heat lamps. we were quite later down, so had pretty miserable dried up fayre, which prompted a letter to the general Manager on my return home.

'Sir' I indicated ' I would consider an establishment such as yours well able to provide a breakfast worthy of your status. On the last occasion I visited, it came a poor second to the Little Chef.' Needless to say the offer of a complimentary week in the hotel did not materialise, just a standard acknowledgement of the letter. If the Little Chef start offering snail porridge on the menu, then Gleneagles has no chance!

...on the day nothing new happened.....

All my regular readers deserve an update, and I apologise for the lack of stories over the last few weeks, so here goes......

Work in Edinburgh is no longer fun, the client is over aggressive and arrogant, with demands for 24 x 7 working being pushed forward. The poor bastards who work there do just what they are asked as they are looking over their shoulder expecting banner headlines highlighting job cuts, any moment. One does have certain sympathy for them. Our team are going down like flies, with sickness, stress, and general pissed-offness. we are all waiting for the 'you will be working Christmas Day won't you' comment....in your dreams pal!!!

The housing market remains fairly quiet in Chis, although I have had a couple of joker offers recently. I can't complain as I would probably try it on myself if I was a buyer at the moment. The mortgage rate reduction should help people moving forward, but I can't see much happening until March now really.

Other than that, I am expecting the worst at Twickenham on Saturday, but as always, the game tends to be the low point of the day, and this one will probably be no different.

So thats where we are, my car was not recovered so Iam now sorting a new one of those, which will give me something positive to do, when I have the time to drive it...stay tuned, I will try to be more frequent in the build up to the festive season.

Prunus pendula

After a few days away with 'the lads' playing golf in Portugal, I was faced with another 50th birthday at the weekend. They seem to be coming round like 18th and 21st did all those years ago. Great excuses for a few beers with people you generally see all the time.....anyway it allowed us to stay in a new hotel attached to the Talbot Inn in Ripley. Very nice it was too as it was only a short cab ride to the restaurant where the gig was being held. The present theme at these things is often odd, and on this occasion it was 'old gits' gear, anything from slippers and a pipe, to incontinence pants and pile reduction cream!!

At one party we went to everybody had brought salt and pepper sets for the poor victim. His mum and dad did not see the funny side of it!!

Ripley is a pleasant little village very close to the RHS gardens at Wisley so it was a perfect excuse to wander down there and have a look around. The weather became a bit inclement while we were in the new glasshouse, so we took the opportunity to dive into the library and do a bit of research on one of my relatives, John Weathers.

John was a bit of a gardening character, and a market gardener in Isleworth in Middlesex, and for eight or so years he was assistant secretary to the RHS, when the Reverend W Wilks was secretary. It was he who discovered the Shirley poppy, which was the emblem of the team I used to play rugby for in Croydon. Some co-incidence eh.

John left the RHS under a bit of a cloud according to his obituary, as he released an incorrect list of Gold medal winners to the press, to much embarrassment. John also did not suffer fools gladly and was outspoken in many areas of the gardening community, he was however much admired for his illustrations, gardening books and knowledge of French, Latin and German, from which he translated a number of gardening novels. When he died suddenly it was considered a great loss to the horticultural landscape of West London.

I was unaware that John had a brother who shared his talents. Patrick was curator at the Manchester Botanical Gardens in Old Trafford until it closed. He then returned to Isleworth to work along side his older brother.

I am sure there is much more to find out about these two particular characters, but for now its good to know my gardening interests are strongly embedded in the Weathers family tree.

I just said 'Blow the Bloody Doors Off'

Have you ever got out of bed in the morning and wondered where you have parked the car? Well that happened to me today, except I had not moved the car for three days, and it was not outside where I thought I had left it.
'That's strange' , I thought, I am sure it was there last night. So some entrepreneur of low moral fibre had tea leaved it for purpose or purposes unknown.
It will be used in a ram raid, or just driven round and dumped when it runs out of fuel said the local old bill I on the other hand had conjured up the image of it being stolen to order and already being resprayed, getting fitted with new number plates and shipped off to Cuba to star in a new James Bond film.

It had a bit of stuff in the boot, and cd's and electrical gismo's, but as I am off to Portugal tomorrow for a spot of golf, my passport and most of my equipment was luckily safely indoors.

So if any of you see a 5 Series blue BMW sticking out of a shop front near you, it could be mine!

Gone with the Wind

Chicago was a very interesting place. I don't know the middle of the States well at all so it was interesting to have a chance to visit. My work colleagues and most of the people i met spoke with a fairly light accent which was unexpected, and contrasts strongly with the y'all accents of the deep South.

The city itself is dominated by the Sears building and the nearly completed trump tower, which will relegate the Hancock into third place in the high rise stakes. otherwise to the North is the vast stretch of Lake Michigan, and elsewhere the endlessly flat plains of Illinois and Wisconsin.

Its called the Windy City, because, many think, its so exposed to the weather that it is always blowy. Not true, its called the Windy City because everybody talks bull!!!

Nowhere is this more profound than at the junction of Rush and Diversity, an area of bars, restaurants and blues clubs, known locally as the Viagra Triangle. Its where silicone implants meets the grey pound. The police patrol the area in a low key style which our man on the beat could learn from, and everybody is there for a good time, but engage somebody of either sex in conversation and its spot the brain cell time!!

The work progressed pretty well but I managed to find time for a bit of sightseeing and added to my expansive collection of golf clubs while on a shopping trip. I was hugely disappointed with Macy's, but Filenes basement continues to throw up some bargains in a way which puts TK Maxx to shame.

I used to collect Monopoly sets from various country's, and have the original USA version based on Atlantic City, but I noticed in a games shop i visited that there is now a baseball version, an American Football version and popular TV shows like Cheers, Friends and The Simpsons all have their own. Its definitely a case of brand dilution for the benefit of capitalism. Pity,I can't see myself passing Go with any of those versions.

Wherever I hang my hat......

My alter ego, Scoop, aka Dick, has written an interesting article on the housing market, on his blog, here. I feel I am a prime example of the blinkered house seller who thinks the whole price crash will pass him by. Yes I put it on at a lumpy price, but I expected people to be willing to haggle, but in London that does not seem to be the case.

I started the blog 18 months ago as a chronicle of my house move, and unfortunately the whole experience has been blighted by the worldwide economic disaster which commenced with the collapse of the US subprime housing market, embraced the failure of Northern Rock and well, the rest is history.

I can relate to the fact offers are few and far between, and yes, I turned down an offer which I would jump at accepting now, but, hindsight, and all that....... so I still have a house to sell, and await the chance to negotiate a price with somebody willing to at least make an offer.

I am currently in Chicago, and it is interesting to get the natives view of the world. First they don't see a housing problem, and second, they don't see the world economic challenges as anything they have contributed to, but then the man on Main Street USA has always had a narrow view of the world.

I was surprised, however, that the rescue package put together by the smoking gun, George Bush, was initially rejected by the Senate and has only today been passed by the House of Representatives. I suspect they are afraid that they may become a third world country themselves if they are not careful. Their reluctance to protect the rank and file American citizens though was something I thought they would jump at the chance to do.

Still its all sorted now, lets just hope our Gordon has made sure we get a fair percentage of the $700bn to regenerate some interest in Chiswick real estate. Fingers crossed.

Jersey Royals

I was in Jersey at the end of last week for a friends 50th birthday. He had arranged a team of ten Londoners to play a team from the Island over two days for the Wyder Cup, a statement on our expanding waistlines I suspect.

The rounds were played over Le Moye and The Meiolles courses in jersey, under beautiful blue skies. The first day was a triumph for the London team as we held a 11.5-3.5 lead. We were followed round the course for a few holes by Ian Woosnam, the ex-Ryder Cup captain, but he quickly disappeared further up the course after on of our higher handicap golfers hit his buggy with a wayward approach shot!

After a dinner and prizes in the clubhouse we were entertained by one of the home side players who was a bit of a magician and showed us a few of his party pieces. As an aside, I went out with a magician once, when I drove her home she would put her hand on my knee and I would turn into a layby!!!

Day two saw Jersey fight back, as they pulled in a few different players in a battle to close the gap. It worked, but not quite well enough, as they beat us 9-6 but the Wyder Cup became the property of the London team.

El Tel, the birthday boy, had a great two days, and had it been my 50th i would have looked back fondly at the event. I hope he does two.

The boys returned to London Saturday morning so I took advantage and flew SWMBO down for a long weekend. The weather continued to be fine, so we saw most of the island, including the Durrell zoo which has the brief for breeding endangered species, and the beaches of the North coast. We saw sea swimming races, wind sailing and para surfing, together with the traditional sand sculptures for which St Helier, the capital, is famous. All in all a good run ashore, and a continuation of our island focused 2008.