Ceridwenscauldron

While we were in Edinburgh the other week I discovered this place. Its a Kurdish restaurant called Hanam's (3 Johnstone Terrace, Edinburgh).

This was a first time for me so I thought lets see what Kurdish food is like.

For starters we shared a falafel, then I had a Kurdish style lamb kebab while Mab had a Patata Gosht - a kind of aromatic stew. For side dishes we had a bean stew and an okra stew. The falafel was OK as were the various stews. My kebab came on a naan bread with some salad and two sauces: apricot and curd cheese and it was delicious.

You can also have kebabs in the Iranian style with rice if you so desire and there is quite a good selection of vegetarian food. As to drink there is a selection of alcohol free wines and beers, neither of which we see any point in so we stuck with the fizzy water. There is also an open air terrace where you can smoke a shisha (hubbl bubble) pipe if you want to.

As to value we paid £36.20 for the meal which isn't bad.

I had a day to myself in Edinburgh so being a Sherlock Holmes fan I thought I'd go for a wander and find the birthplace of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and anything else that took my fancy.

So armed with map from the hotel reception desk I set off turning into the Royal Mile I came across Adam Smith the economist, upon who's theories Margaret Thatcher based her policies, a pair of villains if ever there were any.

Next I came across the site where George Bryce, the Ratho murderer was hanged in 1864

A couple of brass plates on the corner of the pavement mark the spot of Edinburgh's last public execution.

Opposite is a statue of David Hume,

the philosopher who amongst other things was responsible for lobbying the town council to open up places like Carlton Hill as a public park.

The next criminal I found in the castle forecourt

This is Earl Haig who was responsible for the murder of thousands of young men between 1914 and 1918. I was looking for the grave of Ensign Ewart of the Scots Greys. Ewart captured one of the two French Eagle standards taken at Waterloo in 1815, the other was taken by the Royal Dragoons. this honour earned the two regiments the right to wear the Eagle on their cuff. My grandad was in the Royals and I still have his Eagle badge. Sadly the grave is obscured by the scaffold left over from the Tattoo so I could not a shot of it but here's the pub that bears his name

Between the castle and the pub I found this fountain

Sadly it does not work anymore but it shows a serene and a wicked head with a serpent to symbolise wisdom and evil. Its in memorial by John Duncan to the many witches that were burnt nearby.

Now on my way back down the Mile I spied the entrance to Makars' Court (after the Scots word for poet) and yeah OK there are lots of little courts like these off the mile, but there was a notice saying that Robert Burns had once lived there so worth a look I thought.

Well this is what I found

Its the Writers' Museum. The house was built for Lady Stairs in 1622 and inside there are exhibits about Burns, Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. The court's flagstones bear quotes from many of Scotland's literary glitterati so I guess this is Scotland's answer to Hollywood Boulevard.

Now Scott and Burns don't really interest me that much, but the two rooms in the basement about Stevenson were very interesting - featuring lots of photographs and artifacts that belonged to the man. I had never realised that the reason Stevenson was often pictured with long hair was because his doctor thought that a haircut would weaken him when he was ill and TB sufferer Stevenson was often very ill when he wasn't drinking or whoring in Edinburgh's old town. One artifact I found particularly interesting was this cabinet.

Which was from Stevenson's childhood bedroom. It was made by William "Deacon" Brodie, infamous for being a respectable cabinet maker and Deacon of his guild by day, who used his trusted position to case client's homes before retuning to burgle the joint by night. Brodie was fingered for his part in a botched raid on the Edinburgh excise office in 1788 and hanged on a gallows he designed. Although its rumoured that he wore a steel collar with a silver breathing tube to cheat the hangman and was seen in Paris the year after! Stevenson used the notion of such a double life for his story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Brodie has two memorials in the Mile a pub

And a cafe complete with Brodie himself

So from the Writer's Museum I headed for the Scottish National Gallery where I had a potter around the Spain Exhibition (tickets £8), which is all about the British discovery of Spanish art by British collectors and artists from the time of the Peninsula War onwards. It has some fine works by Goya, El Greco, John Everett Millais, David Wilkie and Picasso.

This had worked up quite a thirst so I crossed over Princes Street stopping to have a look at how they were getting on with the new tramway

And headed for Picardy Place where Doyle was born in 1859, sadly the house where Doyle grew up is no longer there but there is this boozer packed full of Holmes and Doyle memorabilia.

Here I celebrated Arthur Guinness's birthday with a pint of the black stuff. Sadly the statue of Holmes outside the pub has been taken into safe keeping while the streets are being dug up.

We just got back into London's Kings Cross from Edinburgh only to discover that the District, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan and Circle lines were not running East, plus the Victoria Line wasn't running at all. We had to hump our baggage down to the sodding Northern Line and change at bloody Bank, but still managed to get home eventually.

Added to that no service from Stratford to North Greenwich on the Jubilee and a whole load of other things not working on the Piccadilly. What must people arriving from Paris and Brussels arriving at St Pancras think?

I realise that maintenance needs to be done, but come on TFL people need to be able to get around.

Tonight I did tortilla Espana with a mango and avocado salad

Tortilla

Fry off one chopped onion with a chopped chorizo and some cubes of parboiled spuds, add a teaspoon of Pimenton (Spanish smoked paprika) and some finely chopped coriander. Add seven beaten eggs and once the bottom has cooked bung under the grill to finish. I had all the ingredients in the house to use up anyway.

Now while I was in Sainsbury I noticed mango fingers reduced to clear at 10p for a pack of three fingers, so thinking that would make a great salad I bought two packs and a reduced to clear avocado for 40p.

So I cubed the mango and the avocado flesh and added them to a bowl containing one chopped red onion, some chopped cherry tomatoes and chopped coriander. Add the juice of a lemon and then some homemade garlic croutons.

To make the croutons take some bread, cut a couple of slices and then cut the crusts off. Cut the slices into cubes. Bung some olive oil in a pan heat up and add four smashed garlic cloves. Fry the bread until golden. Its a great way to use up good bread that's getting a bit elderly and very nice in a salad or soup.

In case you are wondering cubing an avocado is easy. run a knife around the middle of the fruit and then twist the two sides apart, prize out the stone, then make criss-cross cuts in the avocado flesh and turn it inside out, the cubes should fall away easily.

How about this for an idea a social networking site where instead of poking you get someone to go round to someone's house and twat them?

Is his secret identity Cheetah Parker?

OK finished the week with

Breakfast muesli from jar

Lunch Marmite and chili relish sandwich

Evening meal

Salmon in a cream and whisky sauce.

So into a pan goes some oil followed by a chopped leek, two cloves crushed garlic and one stalk of bruised lemon grass. Next in go the salmon steaks let them colour add one glass whisky and one glass Amaretto, let that fizz off a bit then add a tub of creme fraiche and the left over broccoli florets and a little water. Let that bubble away until the fish falls apart.

serve with jacket spud, sliced beetroot, spoonful of Piccalilli and some tomato salsa (cherry toms chopped with a red onion, fresh basil, olive oil and white wine vinegar)

Food shop: salmon steaks £6.00, tomatoes £1.50, beetroot £0.99, creme fraiche £.98, plus a reduced to clear organic loaf £0.50

Total food shop £9.97

Whole week £139.77 doing the food shop daily and not subsisting off one lump of meat for a week. I make that a saving of £50 on their budget and we had one meal out (even if it was just noodles and a curry), and we bought loads of chocolate and wine too.

Saturday

Breakfast bacon Bagels with Reggae Reggae Sauce

Lunch Cheese and Farmer's Pickle Bagel (I was busy writing a travel guide and some other freelance stuff)

Evening meal from Siam I Am in Oxford Street prior to meeting London Nici et all. Nice to meet you all again by the way. £16 for all three of us, very good sweet and sour chicken.

Small food shop bread £1.87, tuna £3.69, grated cheddar £2.00, chopped tomatoes £0.99, king prawns £2.49, Camenbert £2.15, two cans tomato puree £0.50, two pomegranates £1.49, grapes £1.39,

total food spend £32.57

running total for week £88.47 including a meal out!

Sunday

Hispano celtic breakfast

Chorizo and black pudding chopped up and fried with sherry, pimenton, one can of borlotti beans and one can chopped tomatoes till sauce thickens, then served on bread with an egg fried in the chorizo oil sauce.

Lunch Mab's fish soup if you are nice to her she may post the recipe

Evening meal Mab's chicken stew as above

food shop

leeks £1.99, red onion £0.20, mixed pulses £1.99, two tin black eyed beans £0.82, coffee £2.37, garlic £0.89, chocolate £8.55, carrots £0.12, sweet potatoes £1.51, nuts £5.84, stock cubes £1.19, potatoes £0.31, chicken £2.30, chilis £1.35, pearl barley £0.39, onion bread £1.00, paprika £1.39, kiwis £0.75, courgettes £0.49, lardons £1.99, cauliflower £0.99 wine £5.49

total food £41.33

total for week £129.80

One day to go and we have not really skimped at all

Tried listening to Frankie Boyle's sister's version, while not as crap as it could be after the second chorus I was looking for this

Simon Cowell makes me want to puke not only does he persuade the gullible to buy shit he has to tarnish something that is near enough perfect as it is.

As you know I work fairly close to Tottehnam Court Road Station and I have often remarked about how much thee is to be seen if you look above the level of the shops.

Well I was coming out of the station exit yesterday looked up and saw this sign which I normally miss by using a different exit.

I bet its been some time since anyone bought a cup of tea in there. Its just one of the things that have been revealed by the wholesale demolition that is going on as the new Crossrail station is built. I took this picture from just outside the Dominion Theatre which shows the scale of what has been knocked down.

London just keeps changing.

Bit boring tonight mostly shop bought stuff as I am knackered.

so two chicken pies £6.48

Mash for the Powder Monkey £0.15

Sugar snap peas £1.50

I did the pies with garlic roasted spuds from veg bin and the sugar snaps for the grown ups

Plus cheese £2.17, Cava £4.14, limes £0.51, Kiwis £1.39, bagels £1.00, bacon £4.00, 3 bottles of beer £2,98 (one free), stock cubes £1.19

total food shop £25.51

total for week so far £55.90

Thursday

Breakfast Muesli from Jar

Lunch grazed from trade show

Evening meal meatballs in tomato sauce and home made garlic bread

Meatballs: oil in pan add chopped onion, smashed garlic two chopped chilis fry til golden. Add one pack chopped mushrooms, two teaspoons smoked paprika, left over cherry tomatoes from yesterday, one teaspoon cinnamon, black pepper and a dash of soy sauce. Chuck in one pack Swedish meatballs can of tomato puree, glass red wine, beef stock cube and half pint of water. Take almost empty jar of mustard swill out with remains of the pickled red cabbage vinegar, chuck in, add some leaves from the living basil plant. when nearly reday add some boiled pasta mix in and serve with some grated cheese on top.

Garlic bread

Infuse olive oil with smashed garlic and herbs for about two hours, brush over slices of nice crusty bread and bake in oven

Tonight's shop for meal

Swedish meatballs £0.99

Reduced to clear mushrooms £0.20

Reduced to clear loaf £0.79

Pack of chilis ££0.49

Two garlic bulbs £0.60

Plus one can borlotti beans (£0.40), coffee (£2,37), milk (£0.45)

total food spend £6.29

Total for week so far £30.39

I had to go to a trade show at the Business Design Centre today. Not exactly a barrel of laughs but there was some free food.

Anyhow once we broke out I decided to walk up to Highbury and Islington Station and catch the London Overground to Stratford rather than hopping on the tube at Angel.

There was a touch on memory lane as I carried on up Upper Street. I passed the notorious Screen on the Green cinema where the Pistols played some of their earliest gigs, never did see them there though - that was at the Lyceum supporting the Pretty Things. Next sight was the Almeida Theatre

Now this sticks in the memory because it is very close to the Le Mercury restaurant, scene of the great office punch up of Christmas 1992 when two of my esteemed colleagues ended up brawling in the gutter. Fortunately the Islington Gazette never got hold of the story as one of them had recently been elected as a local councilor.

Further up the road past the Town Hall, where I once had a meeting with the council's scary head of PR, is one of my favorite shops

this is the place to come for a phrenology bust or an inflatable parrot. A bit further up the road is a bit of rock and roll history the Hope and Anchor

This legendary boozer was the home of 70s pub rock and then punk and is still going strong today, I used to go there occasionally during the late 1970s when I lived in north London, best band I saw there was probably the Pirates, although Wilco Johnson's Solid Senders were pretty good too.

Front row from the left: Mint Vodka, Cherry Vodka, Goldwasser (a kind of schnapps with gold flakes like Goldschlager), Bitter-sweet Vodka

Back row: Bison Grass Vodka, more Bison Grass Vodka, Krupnik (honey vodka)

I was lucky enough to get a guided tour around the 2012 Olympic site in Stratford the other day, sadly most of my pictures are a bit rubbish as they would not let us off the bus and I had to take them through the window.

I have to say that the site is very impressive even if most of it seems to be piles of dirt. The dirt is being cleaned to get rid of the pollutants from when the site was the home to industry and the whole complex will be landscaped. The artist's impressions are very attractive.

Here is the stadium.

The tubular metal structure will be removed when the games are over, as east London does not need a whacking great huge stadium that seats 80,000 people, leaving a 25,000 seater.

And here behind this bloke's nut is the aquatics center.

This has been designed by Zaha Hadid to look like a wave and the architect's drawings look pretty impressive, again parts will be removed after the games to avoid over capacity in the area.

Apparently great efforts have been made to relocate and eventually return wildlife including fish and newts which I am very pleased to hear. The site will certainly look better than the industrial wasteland that it is replacing and hopefully the Olympic Village will offer local people some affordable housing. Whether the stadium and other facilities will stay in use after the games we will wait and see.

OK breakfast muesli from jar

Lunch cheese and pickle bagel ingredients already in house

Evening meal

Poached haddock on bed of spinach with a tomato salsa and sweetcorn on the cob.

Cook spinach from freezer with a splash of red cabbage vinegar and small knob of Flora, lay poached haddock on top, serve with tomato salsa and grilled corn on the cob that was in the fridge.

To make salsa: chop some cherry tomatoes with a red onion and some basil leaves from the plant bought yesterday. Dress with sesame oil, soy sauce and the juice of a lime chuck in some pine nuts.

Shop from Morrisons

Red Onions £0.60

Smoked Haddock £2.84

Cherry tomatoes £1.00

Plus a couple of packs of cous cous (£1.20), jar of piccalli (£0.69), box of 12 free range eggs (£2), some Green and blacks chocolate (£2.70), £1.49 for some reduced to clear Dolcelatte cheese and a nice Irish black pudding (£0.89) for the weekend

Total food shop today £13.31 ,but with a few things for later in the week and some spare onions and tomatoes.

Total spend so far £24.10

This time from the cashier in the Nationwide, sadly rather than lapping vintage Champagne from Helen Mirren's navel on the Orient Express, I was going to Morrisons.

Have you seen this show where two self satisfied smug gits force people to live on leftovers for a week in order to get their shopping bills down. Part of their masterplan is planning a week's menus, then doing one big weekly shop with a regimented list and not buying anything else. Then cooking a fuck off huge lump of meat for Sunday lunch and then living off that. The aim seems to be for a family to scratch on £190 a week.

Well fuck that for a game of soldiers, I'm not eating week old meat and I'm not going to waste time planning a whole weeks menu to show them how to save money on food so for a week I'm going for Economy Anarchy Gasronomy and just buying and creating menus on the day, using whatever bargains there are in the shops when I go in. I will also use their cheat of anything that's already in the house not counting, and whatever Mab and Nick buy for lunch is up to them to sort out.

So day one

Breakfast fruit from fruitbowl

lunch Marmite sandwich with left over bread from night before

Dinner Thai Chicken curry

Can of anchovies in pan, add a bit of sesame oil, two bruised stalks of lemon grass (I walloped them with a claw hammer), about an inch of chopped ginger, two chopped onions, four smashed cloves of garlic, handfull of curry leaves, teaspoon of Thai seven spice seasoning and teaspoon of harissa paste (forgot I'd used the last of the chilis the night before). Sweat onions down until they are translucent then chuck in some chopped chicken, chopped mushrooms and stir about. When the chicken is sealed add a dash of soy sauce, some vinegar from a pickle jar, a good glug of sherry and a can of coconut milk. Crumble in a chicken stock cube and let it bubble away for about 15 minutes. Then chuck in some asparagus tips and some chopped coriander for about five before serving on rice. This served three adults.

Ingredients I bought on the way home

Chicken breast fillets £2.30

Mushrooms 500g £1.59

Coconut milk £1.58

Ginger £0.26

Basmati rice £0.92

Reduced to clear pack of Coriander £0.15

Reduced to clear pack of Asparagus tips £0.49

Reduced to clear pack of lemon grass £0.10

I also picked up a pot of living basil (£0.39) and a bottle of Portuguese Rose (£2,98)

Total food shopping then was £10.79 including the wine and basil which I didn't use last night.

Lets see how we do

I was saddened to hear that poor old Keith Floyd had passed away this morning. Especially after watching the poor doddery old man that the former flamboyant, extrovert nutter had become, on that show with Keith Allen last night.

Floyd was one of the reasons I became interested in cooking. His shows took food away from the domestic science class of Fanny Craddock and demonstrated that not only eating but preparation can be an adventure. He took food out of the studio and created the template for every TV chef to follow He wasn't afraid to show his disasters either.

I once had the great privilege to commission and edit some writing from the man. He turned in an excellent piece about how British cooking had been turned around by immigrant cooks in the 1960s and 70s, every word was himself.

Lets all have a slurp tonight for the greatest TV chef of all.

A while back I mentioned that I'd be posting my guide to my favourite restaurants in Ibiza's third town, Santa Eulalia, well I sort of never got around to doing it because I had so many other things to put up, but it has just been published on the simonseeks.com travel website.

You can read it here

http://www.simonseeks.com/travel-guides/santa-eulalia-gastronomic-heart-ibiza__117046

This is the second guide I have had published on there so far, so come on BBC give me a bloody travel programme so the happy crew and I can indulge our itchy feet for a living and bring joy to the citizens of TV land.

Personally I quite like the idea of the four middle aged people being bemused by weird European customs like the Krakow Dachshund parade, trying to read the small print on the Berlin S-Bahn map, work out how to use ticket machines and trying to find the cheapo hotel with a map printed off the internet, while also discovering some of the most fascinating buildings, artworks, restaurants and bars. Can't be any more shit than Eamon Holmes can it?

I just read that Boris Johnson's GLA is looking for PR support for some madcap project to develop a new brand for London. Apparently the aim is to create an iconic unified brand for London in the run up to the Olympics.

I understand that the brief points out that there may be some public scepticism over the exercise. Probably over the colossal amount of public money about to be handed over to brand consultants, PR companies, advertising and design agencies for such an exercise.

Too fucking right London does not need a new brand it already is London, has been ever since the Romans founded the city back in 43AD and named it Londinium, bearing a few differences in spelling and linguistics.

There already is a London Brand Steering group which is chaired by ......... yes you guessed it, the GLA's marketing director. Now there's a surprise.

What is it about using the word brand that makes public bodies go doolally about handing over our cash to men in smug little glasses?

Mental as a box of Siberian War Hamsters Enjoy

That got your attention didn't it?

We went to Walton on the Naze again today, I was hoping to see some sea birds, but thanks to some very enthusiastic Labradors chasing anything that moved I only got to photograph these chaps

who are I think immature black headed gulls, but I'm quite pleased with the result.

On the beach at Walton are some of the remains of Britain's sea defences against the Nazis

Although I suspect the Tommies in there would have needed more than a pair of wellies

Back on the cliff top I came down with a case of car envy

A Jaguar XK150 I think and it looked even better from the front

Then we went off to pick some blackberries only I got distracted by our boys in Air Force Blue in their Sea King rescue chopper

who were puting on some kind of abseiling display

And generally hovering around

at one point they passed over head and waved to us.

On our third day in Krakow I woke up still stuffed from the night before so decided to stick to the scrambled eggs for breakfast. They were very good eggs though.

So breakfast done we headed off for Krakow's castle which is in the district of Wawel. Wawell like Kazimierz used to be a walled town in its own right, but was eventually swallowed by Krakow as it grew ever bigger.

On the way down from the main square we discovered this in Plac Marii Magdaleny

This is a grid of plastic stoats called Dama Z Gronostajem (you will find a close up on Old Nick's site) created by the German artist Ottmar Horl. Apparently this installation is an abstraction taken from the painting Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci which is to be found in Krakow. Horl's idea is that the installation will encourage people to learn about the original and show the connection between classical and contemporary art. I liked it and if you want to see it Dama Z Gronostajem is there until September 25.

The building of Wawel Castle was originally began by King Kazimierz Odnowiciel (the restorer) in 1038 and remained Poland's royal residence until the capital was transferred to Warsaw in 1609. What is here today is the result of several fires and restorations most famously by the Italian architects Francisco the Florentine in 1516 and Giovanni Trevano in 1594.

Fortunately for us entry to the castle Treasury and Armory is free on Mondays, so we spent some time enjoying the gold and silver plate and the huge collection of late medieval and early modern period arms and armour. I particularly liked the ornate horse trappings given to King John Sobierski of Poland by the defeated Turkish Sultan Mehmet IV after the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

The next place we visited was the Dragon's Den (entry 3 zloty). This underground cave on the banks of the Vistula is reached by a spiral staircase from the castle. Legend has it that it was the haunt of a dragon that was woken up by the construction of the castle and was eventually vanquished by a cobbler who left out a sheepskin full of sulpher and salt. The dragon ate the sheepskin and then drank so much water that he burst. On leaving the cave there is a statue of the fellow that breathes real fire.

That evening we tried Gruzinski Chaczapuri (Ul. Florianska 26, Krakow) a Georgian Restaurant (the country in the Caucuses not the historic period). It was very good. We started with dumplings with various sauces which I followed up with wrap containing chicken cheese and stewed vegetables, Mab, Old Nick and Mr Wolfe had grilled chicken or pork fillets. What with copious quantities of beer and vodka it only came to 190 zloty, about £42.

So as the evening drew in we went to Wodka for a farewell drink. I really enjoyed our trip to Krakow, there was plenty to see, some of it like the dachshund parade completely bonkers, most of the people we met were really nice, the food was excellent if a bit heavy on the meat and prices were surprisingly modest.

A Shipscook recommended destination

I hear that the government is planning to make it a requirement to have parents vetted for criminal records before they will be allowed to give their kid's pals lifts to school, Scouts or sports centres.

Now without wanting to sound like a Daily Mail leader writer this is the Big Brother state getting way out of hand or as I prefer to think of it completely fucking nuts.

What will the upshot be? More cars on the road for one I should imagine as parents say "fuck it its not worth the hassle" or innocent people dragged through the courts by busybody teachers and officials.

The sooner this insane lot go the better.

Our first full day in Poland was a bit special. I had read in the in flight magazine that the first Sunday in September was the day of the annual Dachshund parade where the people of Krakow dress up their sausage dogs and take them for a walk through the town. That's for me I thought.

So after a very heart breakfast at the Batory we headed for the Barbican, a very imposing piece of the original city wall, that reminded me a bit of the city walls of Tallin.

As you can see we were not the first to arrive, throughout the summer the Barbican was the scene for historical pageants and this lot were no doubt off to do battle with Napoleon.

It wasn't long before the guard marched off leaving the Barbican free for the main event. Soon the place was full of Dachshunds getting into costume.

There were knights, soldiers, sailors, spiders, Superman, the pope, cops and kings. Most of the dogs seemed to be having lots of fun, sniffing each others parts and doing other doggy things. There were newspaper photographers and a TV film crew covering the event which was sponsored by Radio Krakow. Even after asking people what it was all about and searching the internet we were none the wiser as to why the citizens of Krakow do this, but it has been a tradition for 15 years. It certainly was one of the most extraordinary things that I have seen for a long time.

Now after all that excitement we had a potter round the old town before heading for the district of Kazimierz, which was once the Jewish quarter of Krakow before the Nazis murdered most of its inhabitants. At one time Kazimierz was a distinct town with its own city walls. It was founded in 1335 by Casimer the Great and became a centre of Jewish settlement in 1494 when King Jan Olbracht expelled the Jews from what was then Krakow. It owes its survival during the Holocaust to the Nazis plan to turn the area into a museum of "vanished races" however there are still active synagogues and plenty of Jewish restaurants and bookshops in the area.

We had lunch at a small restaurant by the market, excellent borscht (beetroot soup) and many and varied dumplings for under 20 zloty per person.

After lunch we wandered back to the hotel. I could not help but wonder at the eclectic range of goods for sale in roadside kiosks everything from the expected fags, mags and sweets to shampoos, bleach, washing powder and Cillet Bang.

That evening we headed back to Klub Re for a U-Boot (this time made with a shot of cherry vodka instead of Jagermeister)on to Wodka for more vodka and then to Polskie Jadlo (Rynek Glowny 23, Krakow) for a bite to eat. Well a bit more than than a bite, Poles don't do a bite. Before we could even choose from the menu we were given this.

Yes its bread and lard, only the lard had bits of crackling in it so it was like a pork scratching butter and much tastier than you can imagine - honest.

I had herring to start followed by Poland and her neighbours on a plate. The dish consisted of goulash, beef rib, black pudding, roast lamb, meat wrapped in cabbage, dumplings, baked spud and pickled cucumber. It was too much I was defeated by the sheer quantity of food as was everyone else. Amazingly the bill for four starters four mains, lots of beer, krupnik (honey vodka), water and caramel vodkas came to 308 zloty, that's about £65.

Well after that feast it was about all we could do to waddle back to the hotel stopping only at Wodka for a few digestifs.

More follows

It was an adventure. Somewhere new for four middle agers to realise they can't read the small print, get confused with the money and get lost, but Poland exceeded our expectations as a fun place to visit.

The whole trip got off to a good start we all found each other at the airport, got through security without a hitch and were soon on our way to Krakow with easyJet. However once we landed the fun started as we tried to make the ticket machine for the train work. Here's a tip the tickets for the train cost 7 zlotys each and although you can ask it for four tickets the machine can't cope with banknotes higher than 20 zlotys or more than one banknote. We got round that by doing two transactions of two tickets.

Then we had to catch a bus to take us to the station which turned out to be a single track by an open platform in farmland. However a swish modern train soon turned up and we were whisked through the countryside to the centre of Krakow in about 15 minutes. I was lucky enough to see a bunch of woodcock take off out of the train window too.

The next challenge was finding the hotel. Quite astonishingly we managed to do that without getting lost armed with a map printed off the internet. I had chosen the hotel Batory as it was named after Elizabet Batory, the Countess (played by Ingrid Pitt in Countess Dracula) who bathed in virgin's blood to stay young. It turned out to be very comfortable and after a bit of a brush up we ventured out for the night.

Well as you can imagine it had gone beer o'clock and about five minutes from the hotel we found this little open air bar (Klub Re, Ul. Mikolajska 5, Kracow)

Where we pondered what to do next over some jolly good Polish beer. What we did next was a bar called Wodka (Ul, Mikolajska 5, Krakow). This was run by a very nice chap who over the next three days encouraged the sampling of bison grass (my favourite), cherry, walnut, rosemary, mandarin, grapefruit and chili vodkas. Just around the corner from Wodka we hit the main square. It was amazing, so many incredible baroque buildings and churches surroundig a fllodlit flower market

By now we were really hungry so we hit Szara (Rynek Glowny 6, Krakow) one of the best restaurants in Krakow just look at the lovely vaulted ceiling

Here I had herring with various sauces to start followed by an enormous roasted goose leg with pear and apple and a red currant sauce

It was fabulous, Mab and Old Nick had the same but with a cauldron of spicy fish soup to start, while Mr Wolf had beef carpacio and roast leg of lamb, with wine and water it was 517 zlotys which is a bit over £100, but where in London (or Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin or Stockholm come to that) could you dine like that for so little.

We were stuffed so after a few more vodkas at Wodka we headed off to bed.

More to follow.

Well blow me down if the first thing I saw in Krakow wasn't my cousin Spudski.

"Well hello cousin, you look a bit stern if I may say"

"Da and with good reason, last night we did some hunny and look where Spudska ended up!"

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True enough she was stuck high above the entrance to the shop and could not get down so we

Called out the guard, who were a fat lot of good, claiming to be just bunch of enthusiasts and not proper soldiers when the going got tough

Mind you the regular army were not much better

Then Krypto turned up and for a fleeting moment we thought we had been saved, but just look what years of high living had done to Superman's boyhood pal

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"Don't worry I'll get her down" hissed a reptilian voice "just as soon as I have polished off this brimstone sandwich"

You know what Spudska didn't sit down for a week! afterwards!

A couple of weeks ago I posted some pictures of the Indian Garden at the British Museum and I thought as I was wandering that way I'd go and see how it was doing.

as you can see still quite lush, anyway I was it was on my way to the building society (yes again) so I took a diversion down Museum Street.

The boozer on the corner is the Museum Tavern, the original pub was called the Dog and Duck back in 1723, but once the museum went up in 1855 it soon changed its name. For a central London boozer it isn't that bad either.

Further down Museum Street, amongst the snack bars and shops selling tourist tat is the Atlantis Book Shop,

which specialises in occult books. Here is a view from just outside the shop at the bottom of Museum Street looking up towards the British Museum.

Anyhow once I'd finished my business I headed back to the office passing up Barter Street which was once home to the philosopher Bertram Russell, here are the flats where he lived.

While just over the road I spotted this rather nice lamp outside a dental surgery.

Now just on the corner of Barter Street and Bloomsbury Way is the rear entrance to the offices of BUPA and what a fine pair of bronze clad doors they have.

While round the front of the office, in Bury Place, is this curious sculpture which I have been unable to discover anything about.

Carrying on up Bury Place I spied this rather fun clock at the entrance to Pied Bull Yard,

which has a bull chasing a Mohawk punk, chasing a scantily clad young lady chasing a policeman, who is chasing the bull.

Isn't London full of great stuff?

To all those Americans urging a boycott of Scottish products over the repatriation of a dying man, Scotland itself saw two repatriations today.

Two British soldiers, one from Inverness and one from Dundee, killed fighting your pointless war in Afghanistan came home. Think about it more than 200 British soldiers have died and countless others been injured in Afghanistan, so don't preach to us about justice when our lads are still being killed in George W Bush's vanity project.

Pretty isn't she

Looks more like winter plumage than what the starlings at home are wearing at the moment.

Other species spotted

Little Gull
Herring Gull
Heron
Cormorant
Mallard
Mute Swan
Jackdaw
Great Crested Grebe
Feral Pigeon
Coot

Way back early in the year Mab, Old Nick and I went for a rice table meal at one of London's Indonesian restaurants. It was alright but

"Its not as good as the rice table meal we had in Amsterdam" I said.

"No you haven't had a rice table meal until you have had one in Amsterdam Old Nick" said Mab

More drinks were had and once we got home I got on the net

"Look flights to Amsterdam are really cheap over the bank holiday" I said and this was why on Saturday night we were tucking into 24 dishes like this

at the Tujah Maret Indonesian Restaurant (Utrechtsestaart 73, 1071 VJ Amsterdam, tel. 020 427 98 24, €120 for the three of us)

We stayed in the new Ibis Hotel which is built above the railway station and every time we went to the room we had to cross the fifth floor bridge over the double decker trains that whiz you into the town centre from Schiphol Airport at the fraction of the cost of the rip off airport trains in the UK (€3.80, but use the coin operated machines as credit cards are surcharged by a whopping 50 cents per ticket). This is the view.

One of my favourite places in Amsterdam is this pub De Sluyswacht (Jodenbreestraat 1, 1011 NG Amsterdam tel. 020 625 76 11)

This used to be the lock keepers house and was sketched by Rembrandt who lived nearby. Its a great place to enjoy a cold beer on the terrace with an oude jenever chaser. We had a look at Rembrandt's place (Het Rembrandt, jodenbreestraat 4, 1011 NK Amsterdam, €8 admission) which is now a museum. Since Rembrandt was forced to sell up when he went bankrupt the curators have been able to recreate the place as it was when he lived there from the bills of sale. there are also lots of his etchings to see.

Another great pub was Hoppe (Spui 18, Amsterdam) , a traditional brown house (so called after the wood paneling that disguised the smoke stains. Here we had this,

a plate of mature cheese with bitteballen which are deep fried meatballs served with mustard, great with beer and jenever. We also tried the raw meat sausage which was exactly that, mince rolled in to a sausage, jury is out on that.

Of course you can't smoke inside any of the restaurants anymore but you can in the coffee shops,

so long as its whacky baccy! not my scene. I much preferred the bars like In t'Apjen (Zeedijk 1, Amsterdam).

which also happens to be the oldest wood framed house in the city dating back to 1551. The name, so it goes, relates to the fact that sailors often paid for their stay with monkeys.

"Two nights stay that's a mandrill and two marmosets"

"Will you take a colobus and a couple of ring tailed lemurs?"

"What do you take me for lemurs are not high enough primates, I'm calling the Nightwatch"

Speaking of the Nightwatch their sculpture has been taken into safekeeping while their square is redeveloped, still never mind.

Another great place for food was Brouwerij de Bekeede Suster(Kloveniersburgwal 6-8, Amsterdam, tel. 020 423 01 12) or the Brewery of the Bearded Sister in English, named after the nuns who used to brew beer on the same site. The nuns are gone but the beer remains brewed on the premises

and they do a great steak.

So how did we get around, well it wasn't by bike, Amsterdam is full of bloody cyclists who ignore red lights and cycle on the pavements even though they have more cycle lanes than any where else in the world. In fact the thing that bugs me the most about Amsterdam cyclists is the way they self righteously ding their little bells at you when you have to step into the cycle lanes to circumvent the bloody bikes that obstruct every pavement. I reckon most of them are just too lazy to walk anywhere anyway.

No, we used the Canal Bus (€20 valid for 24hours on all three routes), which gave us a tremendous view of the NEMO science centre

which was designed by Renzo Piano who also designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the St Giles development currently going up in London's west end. Didn't bother to go in as it is full of interactive stuff and kids, too annoying by half. Outside NEMO is the Amsterdam

a replica of an East Indiaman. The original took 18 months to build, but the replica which isn't even sea worthy took eight years. Mind you the original did sink off the coast of Southampton on its maiden voyage in 1749.

Another city trip and yet another tale of degradation.

It started out alright, Shipscook even managed to avoid having an argument with the security goons at Stansted as thankfully the terrorist threat from shoes seems to have diminished. Blimey if they only realised the toxic threat from taking his trainers off in an enclosed space.

Anyhow having arrived in Amsterdam we went for a drink at Eerste Klas in the Central Station. It was here that I first met Polly

Isn't she lovely, well one thing led to another and soon we had polished off that bottle of Baileys, so we left the station and wobbled off to one of the city's infamous coffee shops

We left before that lion got the munchies but I was feeling pretty alienated

So we tried to get another round in but Pubcat was having a bit of trouble

staying upright. Meanwhile duck was so stoned he decided swimming was out of the question

Then I ran into my old mate, Barber the Elephant King. Talk about humiliation he'd come on a stag do and while he was out of it his mates had dressed him up like this