I discovered these marvelous little packs of four finger length chorizos (Espana brand) in Sainsburys the other day and it reminded me of a dish I'd had in Spain that combined chorizo and black pudding. So this feeds four hungry hungover pirates.

Pour a little olive oil in a frying pan and add a couple of cloves of sliced garlic. Take a black pudding, (I found I nice fat Irish one in Morrisons and its definately worth looking for a good black pud) and cut it into slices and chuck it in the pan. Slice up eight Espana chorizo chuck em in.

Let the sausages fry off for a bit making sure to flip over the black pud. Open and rinse a can of canelli beans chuck em in and make a basic tomato sauce from a can of tomato puree and a good glass of dry sherry and a little water. Bung that in and give it a stir. While the suace cooks in make some toast and put four good sized eggs on to fry.

Slap the toast on a plate, give it a smear of marge, dump a good helping of the Chorizo, black pud and beans on top, then top it off with the fried egg.

Ole!

Well yesterday was quite fun seeing the Terracotta Warriors at the British Museum and having a jolly nice lunch at the Spaghetti House in Sicilian Avenue, (about £70 for four pasta dishes, two cheese boards, two deserts and a carafe of house red) followed by a coffee at Carluccio's in the Brunswick Centre again very nice even with the dreadfully slow service.

I was impressed by the technology of the Chinese crossbow used by the First Emperor's Army, which for 200 BC was quite remarkable. Each crossbow had a mass produced cast bronze trigger unit, that if broken could be easily swapped for another one. This idea of interchageable parts didn't get to the west until much later

My hypertension medication seems to kicking in a bit now. I am feeling a bit better and less tired which is good, cos instead of falling asleep in the car on the way home, I got to enjoy the wonderfull taste exhibited by the good folk of Essex who festoon their houses with Christmas lights.

Aside from the usual gardens full of herds of illuminated reindeer, neon Santas and waterfalls of twinkling lights there was a fucking enormous inflatable robin nailed above someone's door and one house that must have had more penguins in their garden than live on the Falkland Islands.

Some of the houses had flshing lights inside as well, I guess the people who live in them must curl up in front of the telly for Christmas and have a huge epileptic fit until Twelfth Night.