The Gnashing's Over!

News in from the smoky small-holdings of Lincolnshire, where the smell of weeds burning in a heap of soil lends an earthy tone to my final post of the weekend.

An old drinking partner of mine from my days at Beyond The Boundary magazine has just made his debut on the blogosphere. And a very fine debut it is, if I may be so bold as to say.

The author is a man who, back in 1994, stunned publicans across Oldham with news of his engagement to a Lincolnshire lass. Once he was 'withdrawn from circulation', some observers estimated that as many as 125 jobs were lost in the pub and brewery sector of the town in the months and years to follow.

His sage advice on vegetable growing looks destined to bring a whole new dimension to blogworld - filling a palpable void that has hitherto had seasoned allotment holders gnashing their teeth (and in some cases, their dentures) in frustration. They need gnash no longer.

May I introduce, then, MysticVeg.

First they came for the smokers...

Now that the smoking of cigarettes is about to be made close to illegal in the UK (except in other than 'public places'), it's time that right-minded folk came together to oppose the insidious creep of political correctness.

While surfing the internet today, I discovered that Lea & Perrins, that fine bastion of English cooking, has been the subject of intense lobbying by vegetarians to remove all traces of anchovy from their product. Such has been the scale of the problem, that Lea & Perrins have rushed to respond, publicly, via their website, to re-assure anchovy lovers the world over (by which I mean those who love to eat them, not those who 'love' them in the sense of merely wanting to prolong their lives just because they are fish) that they will not be altering their recipe.

I'm with L&P on this one. And I suggest that anyone who shares my views writes, or e-mails, in support of the company.

It's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of being stuck in a rut. But Mrs Blunt's toad in the hole would not be the same without a little splash of Lea & Perrins in the mix. Without the essence of dead anchovy, it simply wouldn't be the same.

More on what the world is currently saying about anchovies here.