Tag Archives: Jeremy Corbyn

Ordinary, Scones

The Lyric Theatre Café

5 Comments
Earwigging Swahili conversations

London means many different things to many different people. From our point of view it has too many cars, too many people, not enough time. And not enough scones.

Scones can be remarkably difficult to find in what is supposed to be one of the world’s leading cities. This is largely down to the same reason that Pat finds the capital so frustrating. Her remarkable ability to earwig other people’s conversations at one hundred paces is largely useless down here because they are almost all held in Swahili … or what might as well be Swahili. Scones suffer in the same way. Unless you go to a particularly English restaurant or café, and they can be relatively few and far between, you are unlikely to find a good old-fashioned scone. Internal view of the café at the Lyric theatre HammersmithNow all this diversity may be cause for celebration but for dedicated sconeys it can be a teensy bit frustrating. What happens though is that you sometimes find scones in unexpected places and that is always a pleasant surprise.

View from the roof terrace of the Lyric theatre Hammersmith
The garden terrace
Arts and Culture

London has lots of theatres, a fact not all together surprising when you consider that this city absorbs more than 75% of the entire UK Arts and Culture budget. Suffice to say that we found ourselves here at the Lyric Hammersmith, not expecting it to be a scone adventure. Lo-and-behold, however, there they were, plain and fruit, in the ground floor café. It had to be done.

The Lyric was built in 1895 slightly further up the street from where it now stands. After it was scheduled for demolition in 1966, a campaign was launched to save it, resulting in it being moved brick by brick to its current location. Picture of a scone at the Lyric theatre HammersmithThe café is run by Peyton & Byrne, a company which holds the catering contracts for places like the Royal Academy, the National Gallery and the Orangery at Kew Gardens .. so you would imagine that it would be good. However, even though our scones came well presented with lots of jam and cream they were not exceptional. Enjoyable enough but nothing more. Just in case you think we are getting a bit highfalutin, we were here to see a production of the Ugly Duckling in the middle of the afternoon.

Royal Prerogative

We will leave you work it out. It was fab … we understood it all! Understanding, however, is much more difficult when it comes to the current government position on Brexit. Our ‘unelected’ prime minister is invoking the ancient ‘royal prerogative’ in order to circumvent any consultation whatsoever with our ‘elected’ representatives in Parliament. Thank goodness Corbyn seems to be getting his act together at long last.

W6 0QL       tel: 020 8741 6850       The Lyric

ps: a bulletin has just arrived from our ‘south coast’ correspondents regarding the scones they found on a weekend visit to Torquay. They thought these Devon beauties were great, but not quite up to our topscone benchmark. We have never been to Torquay but now we may have to go and test them ourselves. Many thanks for the report. Picture of scones at Dot's Pantry, TorquayIt looks suspiciously like they have put the cream on first … what are these Devon folk like??

TQ2 5QB    tel: 01803 294396     Dot’s Pantry

Ordinary, Scones

The Hideaway Café

3 Comments
Hide and Seek

We often stop off in Bridge of Allan as we go to and from the north … for the size of the place it has a lot to offer. For me the reason for stopping is Woodwinters Wine & Whiskies, one of the best off-licences I know. The excellent Allanwater Tinpot Brewery/Pub is also good. Pat, on the other hand, likes several of the fashion shops. It was one of these fashion shops, Ruby Tuesday, that led us to this place, the Hideaway Café. It is tucked away at the end of a mews that runs down the side of the shop. We thought we knew Bridge of Allan quite well but had no idea this place existed. It is aptly named but well worth finding. It has a much more relaxed ‘coffee shop’ vibe than our usual Bridge of Allan haunts, Jamjar and Café 33.

hideaway-01Everything on the menu , including the scones, is freshly prepared every morning. It also has an outside area with a playhouse for the kiddies. A surefire blessing for all the mums of Bridge of Allan. It was unfortunate that we arrived at the end of the day. There was only a single lonesome fruit scone left so we decided to share and put it out of it’s misery. hideaway-03Perhaps it was because it was the last  one that it caused us some difficulty. It was very very good, nice jam and cream, but we felt it lacked a certain freshness. Had we been earlier in the day it would definitely have achieved a topscone. Next time we will get there earlier and not spend so much time and money in Ruby Tuesday!!

Bridges and Jacobites

Bridge of Allan, like most spa towns is ‘nice’. Robert Louis Stevenson visited every year in his youth. But it was not always so genteel. It got it’s name in 1520 when a narrow stone bridge was built to replace the old ford across the River Allan. Soon after that it became a sort of ‘klondyke’ town when copper, gold and silver mines were established nearby and by 1745 the bridge had been commandeered by a group of Jacobites who charged a toll to cross. Most famously of all, of course, in January 1963 the Beatles played the Museum Hall, now converted into luxury flats. At that time, even the Beatles themselves had little inkling of what lay in store for them. A bit like the Labour party at their recent annual conference in Liverpool. hideaway-02

Shooting yourself in the foot

In spite of what seemed a reasonable, if not rousing, closing speech by Corbyn, the sight of a large part of the audience doggedly stuck to their seats and refusing to applaud does not bode well for the future of the party. Or for that matter, the country, which desperately needs an effective opposition. With the Tories in almost as much disarray, the UK appears to be in some sort of free-fall. At home, Scottish Labour has shot itself in the foot so often there is nothing left below the knee except bloodied strands of gristle. What is wrong with the country?

Picture of childrens playhouse at the Hideaway Café
Kiddies playhouse

Perhaps it was summed up this week by Sam Allardyce walking off with £1m for a couple of months work as England manager. Instead of being booted out on his ear as he should have been. Yet another example, like the bankers, of the ‘success of failure’. As long as we continue to reward those who fail us the future will look decidedly unpredictable. Perhaps they should all hole up in that kiddies playhouse at the Hideaway Café for a while until they have sorted themselves out?

FK9 4EN      no telephone       Hideaway

Scones, Top, weird

The Walled Garden

1 Comment

You know how you can drive past something on a regular basis without giving it a second thought. You see the signs but never venture. So it was with Devilla Forest, just a ten minute drive from where we live. Turns out that within the bounds of this relatively small piece of pine forest all sorts have happened.

There’s the ‘Standard Stone’. Its carved square holes are said to have held the standards of King Duncan and his lieutenants, Macbeth and Banquo in a battle with the Danes at Bordie Moor in 1038. There is ‘Maggie Duncan’s stone’. Maggie was a 17th century witch who tried to carry the boulder in her apron to the top of a nearby hill. However, it slipped and her apron strings cut strange deep grooves into the stone. You can also find the graves of children who died of plaque over three hundred years ago. There’s the remains of a WW II explosives research establishment .. oh, and lots of sightings of big black cats!! Goodness, we didn’t know the half of it … and virtually on our doorstep. As well as all that, and on a slightly lighter note, you can find red squirrels, otters … and scones. Walled Garden 09

The scones can be located at The Walled Garden, brainchild of the farmers at Righead Farm. They just wanted their own walled garden … so they built one about four years ago.

Inside the Walled Garden
Inside the Walled Garden
They started selling teas and coffees in the Potting Shed but it proved so popular that they have now built a large purpose built café and the Potting Shed is now a well stocked shop selling plants and knick-knacks.  Walled Garden 05We were offered plain, fruit or date and apricot scones. Pat opted for the fruit, while I, living on the edge as usual, went for the date and apricot, a new and and untried sconological combination! Sitting out in the sunshine it did not take long before they arrived, nicely presented with little pots of jam and whipped cream. The scones themselves were delicious and we didn’t have too much trouble giving them a topscone award. By the way, the date and apricot combo works a treat!Walled Garden 07Black cats

If you view tales of large black cats with a slightly raised eyebrow, then both eyebrows will go into some sort of earth orbit looking at the current machinations of the Labour party. Unbelievable! When will they realise that Corbyn is not only their best bet at gaining power but probably their only one? Meanwhile, in Scotland, the Scottish Labour party continues its policy of self harming, abandoning everything. Corbyn, a chance at autonomy, and no doubt, all hope, if they side with the Tories again on Indyref2.

View to the north from the Walled Garden
View to the north from the Walled Garden
No Cards

Besides all that, hats off to people who build walled gardens these days … it is open Wednesday to Sunday but, perplexingly in these modern times, does not take cards – cash only.

FK10 4AT    tel: 07951 530571    The Walled Garden FB

Ordinary

The Corinthian

7 Comments

The Corinthian Club is a large complex of highly decorative rooms dating back to it’s original incarnation as the Glasgow and Ship Bank in 1842. Since then it has seen several different uses but has been the rather swanky Corinthian since 2010. It consists of several function rooms, dining rooms, a casino and the Tellers Bar where we were ensconced. Corinthian 04

Afternoon tea?

This is a big operation and  they can probably do many things extremely well however our order for coffee and scones tested them to the absolute limit. They simply could not get their head round the fact that we did not want afternoon tea. Every time we asked for coffee and scones they offered us afternoon tea and when we explained that we just wanted coffee and scones they would say “absolutely no problem”. However, we had to go through this process at least six times with different people .. aarrgghh! Eventually the penny dropped and quite quickly the coffee arrived … but no scones.

It gave us time to look around at the rather splendiferous surroundings. More than twenty minutes later however, having observed every nook and cranny, and just as we were about to get up and leave, they arrived. Apparently there was a technological problem in the kitchen?? Fresh coffee was brought along with profuse apologies. By this time, of course, our dander was well and truly up. Corinthian 05

We had already decided that this was the last place on earth to get anywhere near a topscone award .. but, damn it, the scones were extremely good! Two plain and two cinnamon and all of them  just right. Warm and crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle, lovely jam and cream. How utterly annoying? In normal circumstances we would have had no problem with a topscone award however there are only so many allowances you can make. So, although we thoroughly enjoyed them, they were disqualified due to technological problems .. heyho.

Let the politicians do the fighting

Technological problems cannot be blamed for us heading off to war in yet another country. Sheer warmongering stupidity. Perhaps it makes no difference. In the past fifty years, 1968 has been the only year that Britain has not been at war with somebody. At the grand old age of 111, Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier of WW1 summed it up very well “I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder”.

the Flying Scotsman room
the Flying Scotsman room
Back to basics

Scones should be a small test for a place like this. For all its grandeur, we think the Corinthian Club needs to pay more attention to a few basics.

G1 1DA       tel: 0141 552 1101     Corinthian Club

Scones, Top

Turnbull’s Coffee House

5 Comments

We thought it would be nice to try out the new Borders Railway and visit Gal

the downstairs deli at Turnbull's Coffee Shop, Galashiels
the downstairs deli

ashiels. A town in which neither of us had previously spent any time. What we were totally unprepared for was the scale of the railway’s success and the effect it has had on the town.

The last scone

There are not that many tearooms here but having tried several that had completely run out of scones, in desperation, we ended up here at Turnbull’s. It’s a long established coffee house and probably the best. The girl in the ground floor deli said  she thought there was a cheese scone available upstairs, so up we went and there it was … we could see it across the room, in splendid isolation under a glass dome. The last scone. We ate it, so as of that moment, scones became an extinct species in Galashiels.

Day trippers

The experts studied L-arginine effects on impotence in 1999, wherein 31% of males taking 5 grams of this supplement levitra uk are completely safe for your health and do not pose any ill effects. Except that, in case of medicine, the article will help you for sure- Introduction to Kamagra tablets- The tablet is on line levitra a pharmaceutical product manufactured by a prominent company named Ajanta Pharma. With ailments like hypertension, baldness and a myriad of sex related problems and make a person sexually active Full Article cialis 20 mg in life. It maintains mental health, muscle cialis 20 mg see over here strength, and bone health in upbeat condition. Don’t worry, some sort of reintroduction programme will probably be adopted but for this particular day, that was it .. fini, defunct, kaput, gone. A town with no scones. Now the only explanati on we can think of for this extraordinary state of affairs is the popularity of the new railway. The first domestic railway to be reintroduced in the UK for over 100 years. Loads of day-trippers descending on the town, hoovering up all the scones. Flaming day-trippers … oh no, we’re day-trippers too! Ah well, good news for Gala but it really needs to think about upping its scone production to cope with the influx. Turnbull’s, is a lovely place. First established just down the road in Hawick. They describe themselves as a family business specialising in ‘artisan fine food and drink combined with first class service’. We would not disagree with any of that. Interior view of Turnbull's Coffe Shop in Galashiels

They also make a range of their own unique blended whisky but unfortunately we did not get to sample any. However you can order it and other stuff online. Wonderful to be in place where good old fashioned principles of quality and service still seem to count for something.

Forgotten principles

Jeremy Corbyn, visited Scotland this week but seemed to have forgotten to pack his principles. Maybe, after the party conference, he just didn’t have any left! Great toilets; always a good sign, and although there is no wifi at the moment, we have been promised that it’s coming very soon. In case you are wondering, the last scone in Galashiels was excellent; topscone award. Log of Turnbull's Coffe House, GalashielsDid not see any scenery on the way home because we fell in with a couple of mad women who just talked incessantly about scones. Just joking, whoever you were, we thoroughly enjoyed the craik!

TD1 1SD          tel: 01896 750577     Turnbull’s FB

Ordinary, Scones

Cranachan

3 Comments

If you have ever shopped in Glasgow you will no doubt be familiar with Princes Square on Buchanan Street. An up-market emporium of shops and eating places. If you have never shopped in Glasgow, you should. It is undoubtedly one of the best places to go in Scotland and that’s from someone who is pretty allergic to the entire process. However we were not here to shop. Oh no, we were here for afternoon tea and Cranachan was our chosen spot. Balcony view of Cranachan, Princes Square, Glasgow

Fuss pots

Now this type of dining may not be to everyone’s taste. Sitting out on the balcony not sure where the boundaries are between this place and the next place. However, it certainly was not putting people off and in fact it turned out to be a quite pleasant experience all round. Afternoon tea at Cranachan, Princes Square, GlasgowWe had some bubbles to begin with and then they brought the afternoon tea. What they didn’t bring was the tea. We had to go and ask for it! Apart from that though it was not too bad at all. Good selection of sandwiches and cakes, topped off with little tubs of their own cranachan.

What about the scones I hear you cry, what about the scones? Well, this may be controversial, prepare yourself .. they came fully loaded with jam and cream?? Call us old fuss pots but we rather like the whole business of loading up our own scones. The anticipation .. the decisions; how much jam; how much cream. It’s all part of the scone experience. A pot of cranachan at Cranachan, Princes Square, GlasgowAll these dilemmas were removed and as a result our enjoyment was slightly diminished. Told you it would be controversial!

Drones

The dilemmas facing Corbyn this week have been even more controversial perhaps. As an atheist republican he has been berated for not singing a song about the monarch being rescued by God. He has been condemned as sexist for not appointing women in spite of all the women turning the jobs down. Maybe worst of all he has had to forego his bike and take to the official car to avoid being hounded by baying journalists. To top it all he has also been branded by the government, and hence all the main stream media, a major security risk. Some suspect that the car may have been forced on him because national security risks on bikes don’t provide a big enough target for drone missile attacks. No matter what your politics you have got to feel for the guy. It’s been a rough tough week!

Too lazy?

To finish on a more positive note, in spite of our, by comparison, relatively minor issues at Cranachan we had a very pleasant time and we would recommend it to you should you find yourself shopping in Princes Square. Especially if you are too lazy to butter your own scones!

If you would like to make your own cranachan here is a recipe.

G1 3JN      tel: 0141 248 6257       Cranachan Café

Ordinary, Scones

The Biscuit Café

2 Comments

Internal view at the Biscuit Café in CulrossOn a nice day there are fewer nicer places to be than Culross in Fife. Maybe the only even nicer place would be The Biscuit Café in the centre of Culross. It is part of the Culross Pottery and Gallery whose resident potter Camilla Garrett-Jones makes lots of lovely stuff and runs pottery classes here and in the South of France.

A piece by Camilla Garrett-Jones at the Biscuit Café in Culross
A piece by Camilla Garrett-Jones

 

The café is upstairs above the shop and its interior is very homely and welcoming. At the back there is also a small but lovely sheltered garden area set out with tables and chairs. The Caffia coffee was the best we had had in a long time. We even got the very obliging staff to grind some beans for us to take home. The scones were also very good though PA scone at the Biscuit Café in Culrossat’s cheese scone could have done with a touch more cheese and the fruit in my fruit scone was also a wee bit sparse. So no ‘topscone’ award here but these are tiny criticisms in the overall scheme of things.

Teneu

All in all, Culross is a great wee place and well worth a visit. It was founded by St Serf in the 6th century. Legend states that when the British princess (and future saint) Teneu, daughter of the king of Lothian, became pregnant before marriage, her family threw her from a cliff. She survived the fall unharmed, and was soon met by an unmanned boat. Knowing she had no home to go to, she got into the boat which sailed her across the Firth of Forth to land at Culross. Here she was cared for by St Serf who became a kind of father of her son. He ultimately became St Mungo, patron saint of Glasgow.

Daylight

As a rank outsider, Jeremy Corbyn must have felt a bit like Teneu in the Labour party leadership race but, like her, he has triumphed beyond all expectation. Doubtful that he will ever be sainted but perhaps we will now see a more humane side to British politics. If nothing else, at least we can now see some daylight between Labour and the Conservatives, so hooray for that. A cheer also for this café with its combination of arts and crafts, shop and cafe. In fact you could say it ‘takes the biscuit’ .. sorry!

Fruit and veg are also on offer at the Biscuit Café in Culross
Fruit and veg is also on offer

 KY12 8JG            tel: 01383 882176            The Biscuit

Ordinary, Scones

Inchyra Grange Hotel

1 Comment

On the outskirts Grangemouth this is part of the MacDonald Hotel group and as such you have probably been in one not too far removed from this one. It has a Spa and swimming pool but was obviously a much smaller place at one time. All the external walls of the original building are now inside. The crisply carved sandstone lends a certain quality ambience to the dining room at least. Many places refuse to take afternoon tea bookings on the day “because it does not give chef enough time”? Inchyra 04We arrived at the Inchyra Grange Hotel mob handed having phoned ahead to ask for afternoon tea for eight adults and two children .. no problem. What a delightful change to some of the other places we tried.

Still no problem when we upset their seating plan by actually turning up with three children instead of two, great! We each got a couple of scones as well as loads of sandwiches and cakes. The scones were very good and almost made the topscone award.

Shocking election result

Awards are not exactly being thrown at Jeremy Corbyn who, although being extremely popular with the voters, is vilified by the  rest of his party. He actually thinks that the Labour party should be slightly socialist .. perish the thought! All, except Corbyn, seem to have forgotten that at the last General Election there was virtually nothing to differentiate the two main parties. Voters thought they might as well vote Tory  .. or not at all. 30% chose ‘not at all’. Perhaps that 30% is stirring because they now see the possibility of a viable alternative. One of the biggest criticisms of Corbyn seems to be that he does not ‘look’ like a prime minister. So we will just elect the prettiest one then, never mind the policies? He has certainly enlivened the debate and the other three (who are they?) should take note.

Anyway, Labour party machinations aside, the Inchyra Grange coped extremely well with everything we threw at them. They even boxed up all the leftovers for us to take home … well done.

FK2 0YB        tel: 01324 711911         MacDonald Hotels