Liberal Burblings

Archive for August, 2010

From the excellent VoteMatch site - try it yourself to see which of the Labour leadership candidates you are closest to – in policy terms.

Any suggestion that the Foreign Secretary’s relationship with Chris Myers is anything other than a purely professional one is wholly inaccurate and unfounded

I cannot believe the ludicrous and appalling homophobia in the comments on a certain blog site which is continuing to follow up this story.

Some samples of the beautiful display of produce from today’s Swallowfield Horticultural Society show in Berkshire.

photo credit: Yann de la marne

 The Mail, I mean, in their article: ”Memo to Foreign Secretary William Hague (49): Leave baseball caps to the teenagers“.

The poor fellow. He was off-duty and walking through London wearing a Bentley-motiffed baseball cap – a year ago (well before he was Foreign Secretary). He took the cap off as soon as he realised he was being photographed. But, oh no, the Mail now see fit to have a go at him for wearing a baseball cap – a year after the photo was taken.

Look, if Clint Eastwood – at 79 years old – can wear a baseball cap – see above – then surely we all can?

Declaration of interest: I am 51 years old and own five baseball caps which I regularly wear. So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, Daily Mail.

photo credit: markhillary

There’s a fascinating article in the Guardian on today’s muesli-spitting page (Page 3) about Bray in Berkshire. Amongst oceans of snail porridge, one of the last bastions of sanity was The Crown pub. Now Heston has got his hands on it and “improved” it. Good luck to Mr Blumenthal.

And we shouldn’t pretend that Bray is in any sense a normal place, sporting, as it does, a clutch of celebrity residents. But the Bray Hestonworld gastro-pub/restaurant scenario is in many ways emblematic of what has been happening, over the last 30 years, to pubs in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Hampshire.

It is with great misty-eyed nostalgia that I remember the many Brakspear pubs, replete with beer brewed in Henley and, indeed, the many Courage pubs, replete with beer brewed in Reading.

There are still some excellent pubs around and many have tastefully embraced the pub grub revolution. Many have successfully straddled the twin objectives of attracting the locals looking for “a local” and visitors looking for good food.

But there are a few “pubs” where dining has almost completely drowned out the simple business of serving a pint.

An example is a pub, which will remain nameless, where I stopped with my family for a drink en route chez nous. On taking my drinks order the landlord enquired:

“Will sir be having a bite to eat today?”

That was a red rag to a bull.

My initial reaction would have been to retort:

“No I <expletive witheld> won’t be having a bite to eat. This is a pub so I am having a drink, you <expletive deleted>”

Fortunately, a simple “No, thank you” passed my lips and calm was maintained.

 Seen on the Kennet & Avon canal at Newbury today.