06 September 2010

A Big Shout Out To Small Business Owners

We, the small business owners and micro-entrepreneurs, are the forgotten, ignored and trodden upon solid foundation of the British, American and every other economy in the world.  We employ most of the employed people and generate much of the new, gr...

03 September 2010

Recipe For Luxury Chocolate Gateaux Or Pavé

This is another recipe that I have followed from Pierre Hermé's inspirational cookbook "Chocolate", which I have reinterpreted for a British audience.  The only tweak I have made to it was in the use of edible gold as a garnish on top of the chocolat...

29 August 2010

New Razors - Old Razors

I have been spending the last week  and a bit shaving with two new razors that I bought on Ebay.  They are Gillette Razors from the late 1950s - a Red Tip and a Blue Tip Super-Speed Razors.  Why, you might rightfully ask; well, with razors, Gillette...

28 August 2010

School Reports And Memories Of Mowden Hall School

I went to small, all-boys prep school in Northumberland called Mowden Hall School, which still exists and is now a mixed prep school.  In fact, my father went there the first year it moved to Northumberland after the Second World War.  It seems so ol...

24 August 2010

Recipe For Business Success Cake

I am a fan of those little self-published recipe books as within them you often get real recipe gems that have been handed down from generation to generation within families.  You also get a lot of rubbish, as well, but a recipe book with even only o...

22 August 2010

Life Really Does Begin At Forty

I am 42 now and I have finally worked out what the phrase "life begins at forty" means.  It came as a Pauline moment as I was driving home the other day.  It really means that you only ever plan your life until you get to about 40 years old*, so now...

15 August 2010

Recipe For Milk Shake

You spend hours and hours creating delicious home cooked food from scratch, buying the best ingredients you can find, then you hear you kids discussing the best type of chocolate or sweet and flavour of crisps (chips) in the back of the car*.  You fe...

15 August 2010

Electoral Systems For The UK (Part 2)

...This follows on from last week's blog

14 August 2010

Recipe For Coronation Chicken

I had been looking for an excuse to try a recipe that I had pulled out of The Daily Telegraph from Xanthe Clay's hunt for the Best British Recipes.  It is that classic of British fusion cooking and sentimentality for bygone Imperialism (rightly or wr...

13 August 2010

Where's The Economy Really At?

I have been intrigued by comments by Mervyn King and others about the state of the economy, as I am not sure whether they ever take into account the real situation for small companies.  So I thought I would briefly blog some notes about Steenbergs at...

08 August 2010

Electoral Systems For The UK (Part 1)

I was roundly castigated for being a political ignoramus with my first look at electoral reform, which was probably sound.  However, far from being deterred, I still want to continue to try and understand the debate in spite of the heckling, and see...

01 August 2010

Nutmeg And Mace Spice In Photos

Nutmeg and mace are two of those mysterious spices that are really, unusual in where they come from.  They also have many strange stories attached to them - they used to be thought of as part of a cure for the plague and are reputed to be a key ingre...

31 July 2010

Of Ice Cream In Dumfries and Galloway

My blog posts about Dumfries and Galloway would not be complete without talking about Cream O'Galloway, an ice cream producer between Gatehouse of Fleet and Kirkcudbright.  We seem to spend much of our family holiday centred around their farm at Rain...

30 July 2010

Biodegradable Tea Bags

It was brought to our attention recently that some tea bags are not really biodegradable as they use polypropylene glues to seal the edges of the tea bags.  This is only the case for tea bags that are heat sealed in the tea bagging process.  The tea...

14 July 2010

I Don't Know

I had recently found that our children, as well as some colleagues at work, would always answer questions "I don't know" or "Don't know", whether it's the answer to "What do you want for supper tonight?" or "What did you do at school today?"  So I ha...

09 July 2010

Pierre Hermé’s Recipe For Raspberry And Chocolate Tart

Pierre Hermé continues to inspire me. 

06 July 2010

Razor Review From Steenbergs

For many years, I shaved with a Gillette safety razor that used a classic plastic double-bladed Contour disposable blade until mid 2009.  However, I did not find the shave particularly close or satisfying, and I didn't like having to chuck the blades...

05 July 2010

Ripon, Religion And Football

For someone with little spirituality, I spent much of last Sunday at religious events.  Both of them were for Ripon Cathedral Choir School, which is celebrating 50 years since its foundation by Ripon Cathedral.  Proof that little old Ripon can be a g...