Favoloso Bellota Bar y Tapas!

Favoloso it is. Fabulous in English. Belloto Bar y Tapas in Brighton. Once again I enjoyed lunch here today with brother Dave and friends Graeme, Phil and Leslie. We try and get together once a month to enjoy the excellent tapas here, San Miguel beer, terrific house Tempranillo red and a few Torres 20 brandies.

Take a look at the menu. Three tapas for £9.95 and it is as much as you can eat:

The Pescado Rebozado is a particular favourite - deep fried white fish in a special-recipe San Miguel batter served with aioli and grilled lemon. The Ensalada Bellota is the perfect salad, consisting of baby gem lettuce, peppers, soft boiled egg and tomato. Add Potatas al la pobre for the perfect lunch at £9.95, washed down with San Miguel beer and house red. The addition of espresso coffee and 20 year old Torres brandy is somewhat incremental but then we weren't counting too much!

If you find yourself in Brighton do give this wonderful restaurant a visit. Great atmosphere, friendly and attentive staff and above all - great food! 

The Troubled Man

I started reading 'The Troubled Man' by Henning Mankell today. It's familiar territory like pulling on a comfortable, well worn glove. It fits perfectly, it's comfortable. It is going back to an old friend, Kurt Wallander, and it is his final case apparently. 85 pages in and I am hooked. Inspector Wallander is one of the most wonderful creations in contemporary crime writing and Mankell is positioned in the first division of crime writing.

It's a book that you do not want to put down and it is a book that you don't want to finish. I have to make it last a few days at least....

Our Trip to Medieval Rye

There is infinite pleasure in travelling by train, particularly if your journey is the 1 hour 25 minutes from Brighton to Rye, on the Sussex coast. A journey that, for several miles, hugs the shoreline from Norman's Bay, along Cooden Beach to Hastings. Shingle beach, calm sea, high tide, sea birds foraging, peace with the world for a while. My journey was with my best friend, my soul mate for 41 years, my wife Ros. There is a special contentment in enjoying her company; we share the same values, the same love of our natural environment, the same love for life and all its vicissitudes, the same love for our country, our environment... and the same delight in a visit to Rye. A visit to Rye is always full of anticipation. This wonderful, medieval Cinque Port is always full of surprises. If we did not live in Brighton, this would be our choice of domicile.

On the journey over I plugged into my iPhone and became bewitched once again by the voice of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf singing the 'Four Last Songs' (Vier letzte Lieder) of Richard Strauss. Music to calm the soul, utterly captivating.

We arrived at Rye railway station just before 11:00am. The beautiful station building was opened in February 1851.

A short walk up Market Road leads to the High Street, where the full splendour of Rye begins to unfold. Which way to go? So much to see. Ros heads for the Edinburgh Wool Mill shop and I disappear up Lion Street to my favourite Barbour stockist: The Golden Fleece.

It is not possible to visit this emporium without making a purchase. I bought a Guernsey sweater in traditional blue colour. As I browsed, my wife arrived. She found nothing of interest in the EWM shop but found a beautiful (expensive!) dress in The Golden Fleece. I guess we left happy with our new outfits.

When in Rye I always visit my favourite independent bookshop. Martello's. So, it was a major disappointment to find that the owners had retired and the shop was closed. Oh dear!

The next port of call then had to be the best fish and chip shop this side of the South Downs...

Marino's serves fish and chips. That's it. And in my opinion, the best fish and chips by a country mile. Run by a Cypriot family who go out of their way to make you feel welcome and serve up delicious light, crispy battered Cod and the best chips - hand peeled potatoes, hand cut, double cooked - sheer heaven! We enjoyed Cod & Chips, bread and butter, pot of tea for two (fabulous tea) for the princely sum of £13.90 all in. Mind you, this was a special offer for the senior citizen!

No visit to Rye would be complete without a pint of English real ale and here is the place to enjoy it:

Ye Old Bell Inn

It's old, it's fabulous, it's welcoming and you don't want to leave!

Here is Ros window shopping at 'Cordelia James' establishment (Cordelia is the mother of the author Peter James):

OK - she had window shopped, now there's more to explore!

And here are a few more pics of the medieval Rye in Sussex. If you ever have the opportunity, do come along and enjoy!

Mermaid Street

I will never tire of this beautiful old town. Ros and I will continue to enjoy its beauty for years to come... I hope. 

Foreign Aid or Breast Cancer Treatment?

Last year the United Kingdom government sent £280 million in foreign aid payments to India. Why? India is a country that has its own space programme and hosts a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

The pharmaceutical giant Roche offers a breast cancer treatment that costs our NHS £90,000 per treatment. A Herceptin-style drug that can offer some women with advanced breast cancer nearly six months of extra life has been turned down for use in the NHS because of its high cost.

In draft guidance now open to consultation, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) blames the manufacturers, Roche, who are asking for more than £90,000 per patient, which is far more than any comparable treatment.

Argue the pragmatics if you like. But the amount of aid that we send to India could pay for more than 3,000 treatments with this cancer drug for our own people. Is it not time to look to our own first before we send huge sums of money in overseas aid?

I reckon that is almost a rhetorical question....

Pottering around Sussex

To potter: to move about without hurrying, in a relaxed and pleasant way. Lovely verb. As we are not now travelling tomorrow to Copenhagen Ros and I will be pottering around Sussex. Tomorrow we will travel by train from Brighton to Rye in East Sussex. Rye, one of our favourite places to potter, the medieval gem of the Cinque Ports and one of the best preserved medieval towns in England.

I shall be having a potter around one of my favourite independent bookstores - the Martello Bookshop in the High Street and my favourite stockists of Barbour country wear: The Golden Fleece in Lion Street. Ros will be melting the plastic at the Edinburgh Wool Mill shop and we will enjoy a good ol' fish and chip lunch at Marino's Fish Bar, the best of its kind in Sussex, in my opinion. And I shall probably manage a pint or two of real English ale at The Queen's Head public house.

Sounds like a good potter to me....

The Passport Saga Concluded

On Sunday (yes, Easter Sunday) I received a 'phone call from the Durham Passport Office advising that they could not guarantee delivery of my replacement passport by Wednesday 23rd (despite earlier assurances that they could). As Ros and I were due to fly to Copenhagen on Thursday morning I adopted the posture of a headless chicken and, at considerable expense, re-booked our flights for early June (Ros being unable to book leave during May). I also had to re-book the taxi to Gatwick and re-book the hotel in Copenhagen, which will now cost considerably more, the dates falling into their 'peak period'. OK, adopting a philosophical attitude to life's vicissitudes, I thought 'That's that'....

This morning I receive a further 'phone call from the Durham Passport office advising that my passport was being printed and if I was prepared to pay £5.82 to cover the cost my passport would be delivered tomorrow, Wednesday 23rd April before 1:00pm. They had decided to waive the additional cost of £55.50 for the Premium Fast Track service as a senior manager had decided that that was not warranted in my case (it never was; it all came down to my not receiving their so called letter of 13th March about the photos I had submitted).

Their mishandling of my passport renewal has now cost me an additional £400 for a mini break to Copenhagen. It had better be worth it....

The Nick of Time

You have no doubt heard of lastminute.com? Well, in my case it's lastminutepassport.com. Have you ever had to deal with the UK Passport Office? Any of them (there are several)? I sent a passport renewal application on 10th March to the Durham office. The general timescale is for passports to be issued in 3 weeks from date of application. Having heard nothing I completed an on-line tracker on 31st March.... and heard nothing. I sent another tracker two days later... and heard nothing. And then, on 7th April I received a 'phone call from said Passport Office asking if I had received their letter of 13th March advising that the photos I had submitted were not acceptable. No, I hadn't received a letter otherwise I would have acted upon its content forthwith.

I had to obtain new photos in which there was sufficient space between the top of my head and the top of the photo. We are talking an additional 2mm here. I don't look any different in these new photos. Anyway, I did this and, as requested, sent them by Signed For mail to the - wait for this - PRIORITY HANDLING DEPT. Job done I thought. Should now get my passport fairly quickly. Uhuh.

Numerous 'phone calls and emails later I finally had to agree yesterday to pay an additional £55.50 to have my application treated as Premium Fast Track and bumped to the top of the queue. The plan is that I should receive my new passport on Wednesday 23rd April, delivered by courier. In the nick of time you might say as Ros and I are booked on a flight at 8:45am on Thursday 24th to Copenhagen.

And if it doesn't arrive? I am screwed and will lose a fortune. And all for the want of 2mm......

Co-op Group Loses £2.5 billion

It's difficult isn't it? To comprehend the magnitude of 2.5 billion. 2.5 billion (using the short scale) has 9 zeros after the 2.5. Get it? 2.5000000000. Let me put it another way. That is 2,500 million. OK, let us look at this another way to try and understand the value of this...

Imagine you win £1 million on the lottery (that's a 1 and six zeros, or 1,000 x 1,000). That is a huge amount of money. Would probably set you up for life, correct? Nice home in the country, a Range Rover for you, a BMW Mini for your wife, maybe a small yacht, and plenty left over to enjoy life to the full.

OK. Multiply that by 2.5. You win £2.5 million. Now we're talking. Add a town house in Brighton, a Maserati Quattroporte and stretch that yacht to a 40 footer.

I can dream....

Let's add another zero - now we are up to £25 million. Can you imagine such a sum in your wildest dreams? Become a philanthropist perhaps and donate monies to hundreds if not thousands of charities. Could you ever spend £25 million in your lifetime?

How about £250 million? This sum is already becoming beyond most people's comprehension. An income of £3.57 million per year for 70 years is one way of looking at it. Or, if you can comprehend, this is one quarter of a billion on the short scale.

OK. Now considering your incomprehensible windfall of £250 million pounds, multiply that by 10. Get it? 10 lots of £250 million. Probably enough to buy a small country or 28,000 Maseratis (I only want one, thank you) or how about 10 A380Airbuses, a snip at just £250 million apiece.

£2.5 billion. It's difficult to get your head around, isn't it? Well, I reckon the Co-op Group are finding it difficult to reconcile just how you lose 10 x A380 Airbuses in just one year of trading....

It certainly beats me. 

Waiting for Godot's Passport

Well, it feels something like that. As in Beckett's play where Vladimir and Estragon wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot, I wait endlessly and seemingly in vain for a renewal passport from HM's Passport Office. I wonder if in fact Godot works at the Passport Office in Durham. That might account for the endless stream of unanswered correspondence from me, chasing my application, or the number of promised 'phone call backs that have never happened. Should I be surprised? Should I expect anything better from a Government organisation run by civil servants? Should I expect the Passport Office to accept their responsibility for their incompetence in handling my application? Do they care one iota? No, Yes, Yes and No are the appropriate answers.

I sent my application for a passport renewal on 10th March. My cheque payment cleared my bank account on the 19th March. They took my money almost a month ago and I still wait for my document. If I had run my company in such a fashion I would have gone out of business long ago.

HM Passport Office is just another government organisation that is not fit for purpose. And to put it bluntly, there is fuck all you can do about it.

You might even think I'm angry....

Scottish Gamekeepers Association starts bird protection scheme

A new conservation project aims to help stop the decline of some of Scotland’s most vulnerable birds. The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) will ask its members to record the numbers of birds spotted. This data will then be used to help target conservation efforts towards specific areas.

The wading bird population has dropped dramatically in Scotland with the numbers of some species falling by more than 50%. The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) said its research showed wading birds breed up to three times more successfully on moors that are looked after by gamekeepers.

Despite this, the population of wading birds has dropped dramatically in Scotland with 56% of curlew and lapwing disappearing in 17 years, with golden plover numbers dipping 18%.

Curlew

SGA Chairman Alex Hogg said: “What we are asking grouse keepers to do is to help us build a detailed map of breeding waders on their ground and create a baseline for future years. Whilst the principal aim here is to help wading birds, we also hope an off-shoot of this project is that it encourages gamekeepers to get into the habit of noting the wildlife on their ground so we can establish an accurate picture of biodiversity on managed moorland.”

The project was welcomed by Scottish environment minister Paul Wheelhouse. He said: “I hope this and other similar work being done to conserve wading birds can inform us of the conservation work required to halt the decline of these important species which can be affected by predation of eggs, for example by foxes or crows, or arising from impacts on habitats either through climate change or the influences of changes in land use.”

The Trip to Italy

I have just watched the second episode of 'The Trip to Italy' on Catchup TV; I forgot that it was airing last night on BBC2. I love this melancholy comedy featuring Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan; their gentle banter and delightful impressions (which are remarkably accurate) of such celebs as Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, Roger Moore, et al are a constant joy to watch. But above all this series is about their visits to various Italian restaurants, as Brydon has been commissioned to write another series for The Guardian, acting as a restaurant critic. Coogan goes along for the ride as it were.

This series follows on from the first 'The Trip' where these two visited restaurants in the North of England. I watched that as it was broadcast and have the box set on DVD.

In this latest episode they enjoy lunch at La Cantina, a delightful beachside trattoria located in San Frutuosso, a quaint fishing village nestled in a cove of Portofino. Dishes made with fresh fish and shellfish looked superb and certainly reflected in the price: lunch for two with wine at Euros 170.

I was so captivated by this place that it has been added to my Bucket List. Read about it here: http://www.lacantinasanfruttuoso.it/

The case against gassing badgers – by Dr Chris Cheeseman

Like me, many people in the UK watch 'Countryfile' on BBC television. And, like me, many of the viewing public were incensed over the interview last Sunday with Princess Anne and her unedifying comments about killing badgers by gassing them. And moreover as has become so typical of Countryfile's biased reporting, no counter arguments were aired. Well, now Dr Chris Cheeseman has been given the opportunity to present the case against gassing on the Countryfile website. How ingratiating, how totally underwhelming, how typical of the BBC. Why not give Dr Cheeseman 10 minutes airtime on the next TV broadcast of 'Countryfile'? Let the viewing public decide who is right instead of promoting biased views from just one side of the argument. I for one feel disinclined to watch any further 'Countryfile' programmes as I know what to expect. Shame on you, BBC.

For the record, here is a link to the report by Dr Chris Cheeseman on the website: http://www.countryfile.com/news/case-against-gassing-badgers

Favourite Perfumes

Not the usual kind of post for my blog but I happen to be purchasing a few presents for my wife's birthday coming soon. This usually includes some perfume; I know what Rosalind likes, I know what I like to buy for her and indeed what I like to buy for myself! So, just for personal interest, here is a list of some of the greatest perfumes there has ever been (in no particular order). If you would like to add any favourites of your own please do so by way of 'comment' - I might find some new indulgence!

Chanel No. 5 Parfum (Chanel) delicious from top note to drydown. Simply gorgeous.
Après l'Ondée (Guerlain) one of the twenty greatest perfumes of all time.
Joy Parfum (Jean Patou) smells huge, luscious and utterly wonderful.
Shalimar (Guerlain) extraordinary fragrance, deftly commands attention. Love it.
Bois des Ȋles (Chanel) over 80 years old and ageless, simply marvellous.
Private Collection (Estée Lauder) a fabulous floral chypre.
Arpège (Lanvin) elegant, nutty, woody floral - I know, I borrow it!
Rive Gauche (Yves Saint Laurent) the first perfume I bought for Ros, still a favourite.
Aromatics Elixir (Clinique) a room filling masterpiece.

And some of my favourites:

Azzaro pour Homme (Azzaro) "Un parfum pour les hommes qui aiment les femmes qui aiment les hommes..."; says it all!
Pour Monsieur (Chanel) a fresh chypre, the reference masculine fragrance.
Monsieur Balmain (Balmain) one of the best citrus fragrances of all time with an excellent sandalwood drydown.
Pour un Homme (Caron) lovely lavender with a touch of vanilla (quite difficult to find nowadays).
Eau Savage (Dior) for me, a masterpiece. Have worn it on and off for 30 odd years.

That's it. Long gone are the days of Brut, Old Spice and Tabac. How about you?

First Irish-bred White-tailed Eagle found shot

Ongoing raptor persecution is a sadly familiar story in the UK, 60 years after it was made illegal, but it's rearing its ugly head in Ireland too. One of the first White-tailed Eagles Haliaeetus albicilla to fledge in the Irish reintroduction scheme has been found dead with shotgun injuries. It was found by a member of the public near Ballinderry, North Tipperary, on the north-east shore of Lough Derg.

Subsequent post-mortem examination by pathologists at the Regional Veterinary Laboratory at Knockalisheen, in Co. Limerick showed that the young male eagle had been shot, the body holding some 45-50 shotgun pellets. The impact of the shooting broke one of its legs and wings but the bird survived for some weeks after the shooting before dying. The horrific nature of the bird's shooting and ultimate death has shocked all those involved in the reintroduction project.

For the full story see here: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/one-of-only-two-irish-bred-white-tailed-eagles-shot-and-killed-1.1713647 

Badger cull expansion is abandoned

The government has abandoned its planned expansion of badger culling to reduce TB in cattle, according to a BBC report.

“The environment department’s original plan was to announce up to 10 new cull areas in South West England each year,” the report states.

Defra’s own independent assessment shows that culls in two pilot areas were not effective, and raised questions about their humaneness.

But it wasn’t all good news: “These pilot culls will continue, though there will be no independent oversight to assess their future performance".

In a Commons statement, the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson proposed a programme of vaccination around the edges of the most badly affected parts of the country. “This”, he said, “would create a buffer zone of immunity that would stop the disease from spreading.”

Wasn’t that what the experts wanted in the first place?

Dorset's New Living Lanscape

I love Dorset and its rich variety of wildlife. I was therefore delighted to hear that a £2.7m grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund has helped to add a new Living Landscape to the 150 already in existence across the UK.

Dorset Wildlife Trust's hugely ambitious Great Heath encompasses the urban centres of Bournemouth and Poole and the internationally important Poole Harbour and Dorset Heaths. It also links The New Forest National Park to the east and the Wild Purbeck Nature Improvement Area to the west.

Partners include local authorities and conservation bodies. The grant enables them to buy 607ha (1500 acres) of land. Access, interpretation and management will improve for almost 100 wildlife sites and two long-distance trails.

"Buying the land from the Canford estate was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said DWT's Director of Operations, Brian Bleese. "We aim to develop an Urban Living Landscape with a strong geographical identity, rich in wildlife and valued by local people."

I am sure it will be valued by visitors to the area as well, including me.