Birdseye meals

I'm not sure I would want to eat suspended from a crane. What happens if you're caught short during your "dinner in the sky?" Equally it's to be hoped you don't eat something that doesn't agree. There are people down below.

World getting rounder

I've been to quite a few presentations recently where there are maps like this one showing obesity trends in the US. But I think this poster does an even better job of comparing obesity levels in the US with those in the rest of the world. Yes, the world is getting rounder.

Stormy weather - you can bank on it

High winds are bending the trees and rain is coming down like stair rods. Yes, it's bank holiday Monday. Not a problem for me. I'm tucked up in my office, working on my FT column (or would be had I not strayed on to the blog).

We rarely go away during bank holidays, preferring instead to take time out when the roads are less likely to be clogged with traffic and the high streets packed with people. It was a weekend for gardening, a short trip to the river and an evening in London for George's 16th birthday treat - a visit to the IMAX cinema to see the dire Speed Racer. Well, George enjoyed it.

The cinema trip and a restaurant meal for five left a big hole in my wallet. I can't afford to have a family anymore.

So it was back to the garden which was looking in excellent fettle before the stormy weather. In fact it was looking so good and the weather seemed so perfect for fishing that I ducked out of the gardening for a little while to visit the River Wey.

There were a few Mayflies around settling undisturbed on the river surface but nothing eating them. Not a rise anywhere. I had probably arrived too early but didn't bother to hang around. I had just too many gardening jobs.

We made a short trip to Wisley, only to find that they had pulled down the old glasshouse to make way for a maize maze. I really don't like the way that RHS Wisley is heading. It's a plant collection, not a theme park.

The old glasshouse would have usefully taken some of the visitor pressure from the new one. I preferred its scale and much preferred the way it showed its orchids. The shop has become a little overbearing too although the plant centre retains an impressive choice of healthy specimens that are probably worth paying slightly over the odds.

So yes, we ventured out just a little way on the bank holiday, but only for short journeys. Now it's back to work and I don't mind one bit.

Sun shines on Chelsea Flower Show

Chelsea Flower Show – press day. I was out early this morning to meet up with the British Olympic sailing team who inspired the Hillier garden at this year’s flower show.

There was still a lot of preparation going on which was surprising since this was the day they bring the Queen along. It’s always one of the year’s big Royal turnouts, almost as big as when they have the three-line whip for weddings and jubilees on the Buckingham Place balcony.

Two Wombles

Chelsea today is a huge media event. BBC camera crews were everywhere and almost every big sponsor seemed to have hired a celebrity for the day. There was Felicity Kendal, Anne Robinson and Patricia Routledge but they didn’t attract anything like the camera scrum that gathered to see Melinda Messenger with two Wombles.

Ms Messenger, who made her name as a Page Three girl in The Sun, was wearing a pretty floral dress. But I don’t suppose that will stop the tabloid headline writers having fun with “Melinda shows us her Wombles.”

I don’t know what to make of the decision by a Pink grower to name one of its new blooms “Rebekah” after Rebekah Wade, editor of The Sun. Wade, who is no shrinking violet, was accompanied by a model who had The Sun’s logo emblazoned on the rear of her bright red shorts.


Body Painting

The photographers seemed to be taking much more interest in the models than in the flowers. An Australian “garden” with far more planks than plants was proving popular with the newspapers. Did it have anything to do with the two young bikini clad women draped over the seats?

Body painting was another hit but shouldn’t the flowers be the real stars? That’s the problem with Chelsea. There are some great exhibits – I loved the little shed made from clumps of moss – but they tend to be eclipsed in the big sell. Your eyes may be feasting on a sea of lavender but your nose is assaulted by the wafting fragrance of barbecued sausages – just like real gardens then.



Chelsea has its knockers - quite enough to keep Ms Wade's readers amused - but it is still the event that London needs to kick start its season. More Llewelyn-Bowen than Monty Don, perhaps, but a little bit of flamboyance doesn't do much harm. For an event that stages more scrums than Twickenham it will never reflect the contemplative side of gardening. But darlings, you just have to go.

Good weather for cricket? I wouldn't bet on it

It's Sunday, the sun is shining, perfect weather for cricket. Unfortunately I went to the England v New Zealand test match yesterday.

The weather forecast was pretty conclusive - there was going to be light rain over London all day from mid-morning. But that didn't put off the thousands who turned up to Lords, leading me to wonder whether we are, at heart, a nation of optimists.

Fine rain was already falling when we parked the car so I offered Charles Godden, my host, a £10 bet that there would be no play that day. He took it immediately. Walking to the ground, additional to that bet, he said he would give me 2-1 for £50 against his hundred.

It was tempting - a win would leave me £110 up. A loss would cost me the price of my ticket, £60, which Charles wouldn't let me pay for anyway. But I declined. By the time I thought better of it, he had withdrawn the bet as the rain had increased a little. Reaching the gates, he offered me a reduced bet - £25 at 2-1 - which we shook on.

Pretty smug

I couldn't believe it. Play had started and I was £35 out of pocket (but not as much as I would have been had I bought my ticket or taken the bigger bet). Charles was pretty smug. We sparred over another bet. He offered me 10 overs only of play. I declined. He offered me the England total not to go over 100 in the day. It was 68 as play started and I refused that one too.

We had some sausages, crisps and opened a bottle of Saint Emilion as the clock under the man with the scythe reached 12 noon. Alastair Cook hit one splendid shot to the boundary, the rain began to get heavier, the umpires conferred, and the teams walked off.

There followed a surreal, but not untypical, English scene on the small patch of grass outside the stand. Eating our picnic in the rain among all the other picnics, we chatted, as you do, about all kinds of things and I mentioned Izaak Walton. I was surprise to learn that Charles had never heard of him. Neither had Horace or Sussex - the other two members of our party - both women (nothing sexist intended in that, just a statement of fact).

Charles suggested that Walton was not so well known so I bet him £35 that most of our fellow picnickers would know who Walton was. Charles took the bet, allowing me three chances. So that allowed me three picks of people I thought might know that Izaak Walton was an early fisherman who wrote The Complete Angler.

Egg and bacon

I picked on a group of grey-haired blazered chaps wearing egg and bacon ties. They all knew the answer. Even again.

We popped in to the Lords museum to look at the little urn that holds the ashes. But outside the rain had grown heavier so we decided to head for home. On the way back Charles offered me a £10 evens bet that there would be some more play that day. I took it and won.

I was happy to end up £10 to the better. Charles was happy too because there had been just under nine overs of play. Unless the teams manage 10 overs of play for the day there is a full ticket refund. Gate receipts yesterday topped £1m and when you add in the profits from drinks and food sales the figure is much higher.

So each ball of the less than two overs that needed to be played to avoid a full refund would have been worth possibly as much as £200,000. What price a few spits of rain? Ten pounds for me and little bit more for the England Cricket Board. I hope they're insured.

Milk floats in to the sunset

The doorbell rings. "Good evening sir but I'm trying to drum up some support for Bob, the milkman, to preserve the old tradition before it's too late."

Sorry Bob and sorry Bob's drummer upper but I'm afraid it is too late. We persevered with the milkman long after most of our neighbours had switched to the supermarket.

But when the milkman said he could only deliver every other day we decided to call a halt. His milk was quite a lot more expensive but we liked doorstep deliveries. Our old milkman used to leave the milk down the side but the new one left it at the front where it catches the sun. No good.

Back in the days when we lived in Yorkshire we used to have unpasteurised creamy green top milk delivered and it was good. But they didn't do that sort of milk in Surrey. I thought, mistakenly, there could be a future for the milkman if some deliveries could be handled by a single source. Imagine newly-baked bread, milk, fresh orange juice and the post all arriving at the same time. No, no-one imagined that.

So now we buy milk semi-skimmed in 4-litre plastic canisters that fit neatly in to the fridge. It's nowhere near as good as it used to be but not much is, not meat, fish, fruit or vegetables.

Take white fish. When I was a kid one of my favourite fish suppers was Halibut cheek, a beautiful white stringy meat. You rarely see it now because the halibut needs to be a good size to have decent cheek meat. My Auntie Joyce used to fry a cracking halibut cheek in batter with chips and mushy peas.

I expect all this stuff is still around if you're prepared to look for it and pay for it. But halibut and creamy milk weren't thought of as posh food when we were kids. It was the good, nourishing food enjoyed by those working class families who looked after the pennies.

OK, we didn't live as long as people do nowadays. But we certainly lived.

Cricket - England's answer to global warming

For two weeks now the sun has been cracking the flags, the mayfly have been hatching, I have even resorted to watering the lawn. Shoes and jeans have given way to shorts and sandals. Sun cream, sunglasses and straw hat have been essential in the garden.

And today? Today it's like winter again - rainy, miserable and perishing cold. The reason is obvious: today is the first day of the first test match of the season against New Zealand. Rain delayed the start of play.

So I'm getting my thermals, gloves, big jumper and furry hat and flask of soup ready for Saturday when I have a ticket for the third day at Lords. Worried about global warming? Just bring on the cricket.

A sabre-cut above the rest? I just can't keep Mumm

I'm going to miss Ran Fiennes if he dies attempting to climb mount Everest. I think the most likely outcome is that he collapses somewhere on the attempt and is persuaded by Rob Casserley, the team medic and cameraman, to give up.

If he collapses high on the mountain, possibly after summitting (the way back down is often the most dangerous part of the climb) then I wouldn't give much for his chances, given his history of heart problems.

Some might criticise his decision to go to Everest again when he has a young wife, but he is a driven man. It's part of his character to do extreme things. What I most admire about him is that he just gets on with them.

Telly adventurers

I'm glad he is not one of the new generation of "telly adventurers" like Bear Grylls and Ben Fogle who, while they have achieved some things - I wouldn't diminish the feat of rowing across the Atlantic - have learned to talk a good story in front of the cameras. The problem in Gryll's case is that sometimes the "derring-do" is less than its seems. Journalist/adventurer, Tarquin Cooper told me about this article.

I have met Grylls on a few occasions. The last occasion was at a recent do hosted at the Royal Geographical Society and later at the Travellers' Club by GH Mumm, the Champagne producer. Mumm has a clever marketing strategy of shipping a case of champagne and offering some limited sponsorship to various people when they have achieved something special, thus sharing the limelight at the celebratory end of the trip.

Polar gentleman

This is not a new idea. They have been doing it for years, ever since Captain Jean-Baptiste Charcot - a Frenchman (naturally) described as the "polar gentleman" by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, went to Antarctica in 1904. Charcot and a companion were photographed sitting in wicker chairs on the ice with a fold-down table and their glasses of champagne.

It's all harmless stuff and I suppose there is nothing wrong with Mumm setting up a special club, The Cordon Rouge Club, for special people. All of its members deserved the sabres they were given in their special presentation packs. Indeed it was an all round special evening with a few hangers-on like myself invited to share the posh nosh and champagne. The sailing world was represented prominently by Mike Golding, Brian Thompson, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Dame Ellen MacArthur (who didn't make it to the do because of another promotional commitment)and Dee Caffari.

People who do exceptional things deserve recognition. But I worry that the media - people like me - are sucked in to what can become a fame game.

Everest in winter

If you read the article on exploration that I wrote a little while back, you will see some examples of people who have achieved some astonishing feats, but who are not feted by champagne manufacturers and who are barely recognised by the media or the public outside their specialist fields. I'm thinking of people like Krzysztof Wielicki, the first man to conquer Everest in winter (you only need to compare his Wikipedia entry with that listing all the achievements of Grylls to work out who has the best PR).

You wouldn't see Wielicki making popular survivalist series (that have been made much better, incidentally, by Ray Mears who doesn't pretend to be an explorer or action man adventurer). You might wonder perhaps why some of our great mountaineers such as Sir Chris Bonnington or Doug Scott are not part of the club? Where is Sir Ranulph Fiennes or James Cracknell, Fogle's slightly more accomplished rowing partner? Where is Pete Goss, another true adventurer?

The answer, of course, is that Mumm can ask whoever it wants to its own party. Some who were there, such as Ben Saunders, a genuinely outstanding endurance nut, deserved their accolade. But I wouldn't say that all of them were a sabre-cut above the rest.

Underground, overground, Wombling free

It didn't take long for Boris Johnson to get stuck in to his new job, firing the two most senior staffers in the mayor's office and making a commitment to ban the drinking of alcohol on the Underground.

Why stop at alcohol? Why not ban the eating of burgers while we're at it. There are few more obnoxious sights than watching - even worse, smelling - someone tucking in to a Big Mac on the tube.

A news item in yesterday's Daily Telegraph said he had been meeting with an old friend, Lord Brocket who has a "few ideas" of his own for running London.

Brocket, you may recall, is an ex-con who was incarcerated for a spell at Her Majesty's pleasure after he buried some of his classic car collection on the country estate while fraudulently claiming on his insurance policies. My guess is that this honorary Womble has a grand plan for London's traffic. He wants to bury it.

The domino effect - a short demonstration

The great thing about shopping online is that it's impossible to knock things over.....or is it?

The Euro in my wallet

I always keep a few Euros in my wallet. I like to have them because, the longer I keep them, the more I can buy with them, unlike my pounds which don't go very far these days, particularly in mainland Europe.

But I don't care because I'm British and want to hold on to my good old pounds because they carry the Queen's head on them. They're all about British sovereignty and if we let the pound go we'll relinquish control of our economy and nationhood will disappear. We shall have opened the floodgates to federalism, the sky will fall in and Britishness will go down the plug hole.

No more beer

There'll be no more Last Night of the Proms, No more state opening of Parliament, No more cricket or red telephone boxes; no more warm beer, Chelsea flower shows or Punch and Judy on the beach.

Instead all we'll have is the nasty, filthy Euro with its superior buying power. Who needs that? What's wrong with spending the Earth on our holiday in Tuscany?

After all, a cheaper pound means that our good old businesses can export more to mainland Europe and that's good for our economy. Those Germans and French must be really struggling with their high valued Euros. What? They're not? What's that? They're more productive than we are? That can't be true.

Cheap land

No, it can't be true that the Eurozone is proving a resilient economic block supporting one of the world's strongest currencies. It can't be true that Ireland's new Euro millionaires are buying up cheap land in East Anglia. What do the Irish know about economics?

Come to think of it, it's a while since I saw any Euro-sceptic articles in the press. Neither have I heard much from our anti-Euro politicians. Could it be that, as they change their money on trips to Brussels at ever more pitiful rates of exchange, some of them might be thinking: "Blimey, I was wrong?"

Not so. Once a Euro-sceptic, always a Euro-sceptic says this man who explains why we did the right thing.

Soviet Union

John Redwood says that the higher prices in mainland Europe mean that we shall turn more to the UK to buy things. He may be right, but we live today in a global economy. Imagine if we lived in a country where you weren't allowed to buy imported goods. It used to be like that in the Soviet Union.

He talks about the strain on peripheral European economies. I don't see much straining in Ireland. The colour of our money should not be a determinant of whether we can provide the goods and services that other people need.

I agree that we shouldn't go abroad for everything. I can see no sense, for example, in the fans of two English clubs - Manchester United and Chelsea - travelling to Moscow to see their teams contest the final of the European Champions Cup.

Set in stone

Ah but the final has to be in Moscow, you may say. It's set in stone, on the fixture list. Why? Why can't there be enough flexibility in the system to buy out the Moscow fixture and transfer it to Wembley?

Imagine the costs of thousands of fans travelling to Moscow when they have the world's best football stadium on their doorstep. But of course, they're spending rather than saving money and spending money, according to the US, is a good thing, unless of course it means you can't afford your mortgage in which case it becomes a bad thing.