I am of the opinion that pets of all kinds – from dogs, cats, lizards and parrots to tortoises and children’s mice, will eventually be traded online. A year or so ago, a longstanding friend and client, Tarma Rowles, called me up wholly excited with her idea: to auction horses online. She asked us to [...]

I love my beef and as a farmer’s son I welcome a restaurant’s pride in sourcing the best beef from the most trusted local suppliers. But at the weekend I discovered one popular steak restaurant in Salisbury that sources Argentinian and American beef and I cannot fault it. The Lazy Cow in Salisbury is a [...]

I was born with an addictive nature. I have lived through a few and I am rather pleased to have hit running… late. Knees and all these other tendons and muscles that join up our dot to dots have a finite life and I like to think I have been saving them up for now. [...]

Pubs and clubs have lost comedy to the premier league of stadium filling stars like Kay and Evans. Time to reclaim and save the pub.

Karaoke is passé, whist drives a crusty old hat of half eaten memory, dominoes flat on their backs. The surge of quiz nights have been ruined by the roaming swots who chase any pub quiz in a 50 mile radius to pick up some appreciation of their marbles (and pinch the £20 cash prize). Even giving a red eyed drunk three weapons to throw over dining gastros to a red eyed bull is proving increasingly unpopular.

The days are growing, the birds are singing and Spring is beckoning. I feel my own spirits bowling the same way. Besides a fruitful and busy business week, this last week has been a week of some personal spiritual awakening. I think it terribly sad this country’s atheist movement is determined to ban prayer from public [...]

I had dinner last week with someone who has kept a diary since he was 17. I simply have a load of spent phones. I recently had the ones spared from landfill rot framed and titled ‘Tired of Talking.’  They have become a talking point. My phones and I are patiently waiting for the first [...]

On Friday evening we drove East to one of the most discreetly located Indian capitals, Curry Corner. You find it where you would expect a late night Spar flogging fags under home wired CCTV, or a chippy belching sweet fat odours across Cheltenham’s Coronation Street terraces. Instead you discover ‘The best curry pole to pole’ [...]

Lasagne, steak and ale pie, local sausages on garlic mash… Would you like vegetables or salad? Chips or new potatoes? Any sauces? Two meals for ten pounds. Specials on the blackboard. It all needs to be special! I am bored. Bored, bored, bored of pub restaurants. So are many others. Fact. People are drinking less. [...]

I have long moaned about the cost of pickled onions. I am a fussy pickled onion cruncher and only eat the best. This year I decided to pickle my own and recently brought a 20kg bag. My plumb tree is laden and so I have decided to also make some jam and chutney. I don’t [...]

Wishing I had worn gloves, I scooped Scruffy off the snow, bearing one arm under his chest and the other under belly. He was surprisingly light at first, and thankfully so, for by the end of my ambulance, his weight was nearly impossible. Although exceptionally fit, tall and lithe, at 12 I was still short [...]