leyton.org

Well, I’m finally feeling my blogging mojo returning after an enforced absence. Hope to get a bit more up here on various topics as time permits. There will probably continue to be a bit of a running theme, as I’ve been planning to write a few pieces on parkrun (particularly Glasgow’s) – a big part of my life these days.

A few minors – I’ve popped a widget in the sidebar there which shows my last few twitter items. I don’t promise it’s necessarily interesting, but I’ve rather taken to twitter, and enjoy the informal, limited communication mechanism, and staying in touch with friends, and sharing and picking up interesting items and nuggets of information.

Oh, and if you’re on an iPhone or Android phone – pretty much anything with a touch-screen interface, check out the websites dedicated mobile theme, made just for you.

Yesterday I posted a transcript of the 1967-68 Good Food Guide review of my Grandparent’s restaurant, The Miners Arms. It rather appealed to me for the brief insight into the character of my Grandfather.

Another review followed in 1969-70, and was also available at Thornbury Castle, so I snapped a copy. It too has a wonderful anti-garlic quote (my Grandparents were famous garlic haters), and I love the comments about the size of parties, and opening hours being dependent on the boiler. Marvellous. Note it also got a Good Food Award.

I should stress, the Miners’ Arms is now a residential house (has been for quite some time).

Anyway, without further ado:

PRIDDY, Somerset   Miners’ Arms 4 Miles NW of Wells. Map 2. Priddy 217

Paul Leyton and his wife continue the individuality and excellence of their cuisine and wines at this remote and rather drab-looking inn. It is not even in Priddy, which is remote enough; it stands about two miles to the north-east, at the junction of the B3134 and B3135; a small off-white building. The food is a la carte only; an average lunch will cost you 22/-, and dinner is 27/6, excluding wine; the menu is unusual and imaginative. Among the best dishes are Mendip snails a la sauce du patron, cooked in a mixture of English herbs and ‘not obliterated by garlic’ (1/2 dozen, 6/6); clear snail soup (5/-); quenelles of Chew Valley trout with Normandy sauce (8/- as a starter); chicken in cider (10/0); quenelles of veal with mushroom sauce (11/6 as main dish); smothered chicken (with cream, onions an white wine (9/-); steak Theodora (with herbs), (17/6) ; lemon syllabub (3/6); and Miners’ Delight (cream ice and apricot in a pastry case with hot sherry sauce and cream, 3/6). As is perhaps inevitable in such a position, the deep freeze is used, but if it was always used so skilfully we should not complain. It is no place for large party, as everything is cooked to order. ‘Six is the maximum we can cope with in one party,’ states Mr Leyton, ‘to cook for more at the same time seizes up the kitchen.’ You must be prepared to wait half an hour in the lounge while your starters are cooked and be some time at table. The rooms are rather simple. The wines, about 85 in all, are chosen with great skill, and as things are (alas) can’t be called expensive. Quarter-pint glasses of French red or white cost 3/6 to 4/6; among the more expensive wines, a personal choice would be Ch. La Louviere, white Graves, ‘59 (22/-) or Scholls Bockelheimer ‘64 (21/-) to begin with, Ch. Bourgneuf ‘55 (26/-) or Volnay Caillerets ‘57 (28/-) to follow, and thereafter ask Mr Leyton’s advice.

Cl. Chr. & Boxing Days; probably 2 weeks end Nov/Dec; ‘and when the boiler bursts’. Must book. Meals 11.30-2; (summer) 6-9.45 (Su 7-7.30); (winter) 6.30-8.30 (Sa 9.3, Su 7-7.30). Alc main dishes 5/6 to 17/6. Cover 2/6. Seats 24. Restaurant & residential lic. Car park. No dogs in d/r. B&B from 30/-. STABILISED PRICES

GOOD FOOD AWARD CLASS C

Whilst at a family wedding last week at Thornbury Castle, my father showed me a copy the castle had in its library of the 1967-68 Good Food Guide, which contained a review of my Grandparent’s restaurant, The Miners’ Arms.

My Grandfather died back in 1998 (his obituaries are available to read here), and throughout my life I’ve always been very interested in what he got up, and what people had to say about him. So this rather tickled me, as it gives a bit of insight into my grandfather’s character.

That said, perhaps I’m rather affected by my own memories. Reading it now, I’m sure he probably annoyed a few people in his time with his idea of refusing to serve people particular dishes who ’spoilt their palettes’, but as somebody who’s toes curl whenever I see anybody unthinkingly applying salt to a meal (particularly one I’ve cooked) before tasting it, I can certainly sympathise.

Another anecdote relayed to me by one of my uncles was that of my Grandfather’s refusal to wear a morning suit to his wedding very much the standard custom at the time I gather. Very good to hear of his dislike of tradition, and his independent views very much to the fore.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the extract from pages 261-262 of the 1967-68 Good Food Guide, by Raymond Postgate.

PRIDDY, Somerset. The Miners’ Arms, near Wells. At junction of B3134 and B3135. Map 2. Priddy. 217

During 1968 Mr and Mrs Paul Leyton, whose cuisine and wines at this whitewashed inn on the Mendip plateau have for six years earned the highest praise members can bestow, became known to an even wider public as the people who turned away ‘a four-guinea orange slubbed silk Cecil Gee roll-neck shirt’. This matter is referred to in the Preface: Mr Leyton’s own staff are informal both in dress and manner. Anyway, in the evening, though not at lunch, women must wear skirts and men jackets, collars and ties. Mr Leyton is strict in other respects, too – he will not service his more delicate dishes to people who insist on spoiling their palate by drinking martinis beforehand – and, not surprisingly, some people think the food does not justify the fuss. But most are content to take the Miners’ Arms on its own terms. Mr Leyton uses his deep-freeze cleverly and defends its use elegantly, but an occasional dish of some freshly-dug and cooked root vegetable might with advantage appear more often on his menus. The restaurant is well known for its morning-gathered Mendip snails (7/6 a half dozen, or 5/- as a clear soup) but for delicacy his quenelles of trout (8/6), or loin of pork smoked in his own vast chumney (7/6) are better starters. Main courses, though very good, especially steak Theodora (rare with herbs, 17/6), are less remarkable. To finish, try orange conserve (5/-). The wine list has been reconstructed: there is still a ‘49 Ch. Petrus (80/-) or a ‘59 Musigny (50/-) or other even dearer bottles for a great occasion, but there are also five simple draught wines at 16/- a pint, and a charming English rose from Lt-Col Gore-Browne’s vineyard at Beaulieu (26/-).

Cl. Chr. & Boxing Days; 3 weeks Nov-Dec; Su D. Must book. Meals 11.30-2; 6-9.45 (winter, 8.30). Alc main dishes 7/6 to 17/6. Cover 2/6. Seats 24. No dogs. B&B from 35/- p.d.

* Class C

App. by too many members to list.

Just a public note to congratulate my good friend David Rowe. Whilst most of us took it easy today, David, er, didn’t. He completed the Swiss Ironman. It’s an immense achievement, the culmination of many months of training and effort. The London marathon – probably the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life – was just a training run for David!

The Ironman competition is truly something else. A 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and then a marathon. To even complete that it is a huge achievement, but David finished with some amazing times. 1:08:25 for the swim, 5:36:01 for the bike, and a 3:47:27 marathon time, a total time of 10:37:39, finishing in position 537 out of 2,200 participants. Indeed, he came 11th out of the 85 other UK participants in his age group.

David’s wife Sharon deserves huge congratulations too, for supporting David and, I think, probably doing most of the worrying too

Well done David. Incredible achievement.

I spent this morning up in Balloch, supporting the hundreds of runners in the Vale of Leven 10k, the last race of the 2009 Polaroid 10k series. I’d have been running myself if I’d got my finger out and entered in time, but figured it’s just as important to do a spot of supporting on occasion to make up for all the cheers I’ve received when running myself! I took my camera along and snapped away quite furiously, and think I managed to capture a picture of almost everybody taking part in the process. My pictures are available on flickr here.

I had a great spot in the first 1k where the leaders were already edging ahead, and snapped most people as they want past, even chucking some money in Tommy’s collection bucket, before jogging to the 4k mark where the runners emerged out from their loop of the Balloch Castle park. After snapping most people there, I then headed back to the finish area to catch most of the finishers. I’d missed the winners, but my excuse is I’d foolishly not put on running shoes or gear, so was plodding along in jeans and heavy shoes. Not the best. Ah well. Didn’t do too badly.

It was wonderful to see so many participants, not only from my own running club, but so many from Glasgow parkrun too. My only difficulty is remembering names! So my apologies if I just cheered something generic. So many people seem to know my name as a result of giving the pre-race briefing to the 1200+ runners who’ve now taken part, I only know a fraction of your names. But great efforts from everybody taking part. It was a warm and sunny day, so looked like it was tough going in the second half of the course, where shade was in short supply!

Regarding the pics: As I say on the notes, please get in touch if you’d like higher resolution pictures, or if you’d like to use the pictures at all.

Absolutely delighted to have just received an e-mail from the Save Pollok Park campaign that gives the marvellous news that Go Ape have withdrawn their ill-considered plans to build a course in Pollok Park. It seems there was an important change requested by the National Trust for Scotland, which meant new planning requirements (as well as expensive alterations) would have been necessary.

Most campaigners never had a problem with Go Ape’s business. I’d still love to have a go on one of their courses. It’s just that the idea of building an aerial assault course in an inner-city park would have completely ruined a stunningly beautiful, and already very limited, part of Glasgow. It just made no sense at all. So I’m delighted they’ve finally seen sense.

The council were also claiming it was about creating a “venue for health and recreational activity”, and at £20 a shot (despite supposed ‘free’ places), it never made sense where there’s so many problems with health, and poverty, in Glasgow. I just wish they had looked at other free, easy, accessible activities which wouldn’t have required chopping trees down, and are already open to all, such as this perhaps?.

Huge congratulations to Bill and Bob of the Save Pollok Park campaign for all their hard work. I’m absolutely certain the campaign would not have been as successful if it hadn’t been for their efforts, diligence and determination over the last couple of years.

Update

In January last year, I headed out into a gloomy Glasgow evening to attend the a public meeting on ‘the future of Shawlands’. A lot was said, but at the time I was concerned it was all, er, hot air. I finished my write-up with this:

This meeting seemed to agree at the outset that there should be an action plan, but I’m still at a bit of a loss as to what the next steps will be, and/or who will be involved. I [agree] we don’t really need more ineffectualy bureaucracy or groups, so hope somebody will take a solid and active role in driving it forward over the next few months.

Perhaps I live in some home-worker, running obsessed bubble, but I’ve heard precisely nothing since last years meeting. I know I’ve not exactly gone hunting, but I’ve had a few other things going on that have occupied my time.

So I’ve just read, on southside happenings, that there’s a survey out (see see the end of this post for links). If this is the first thing to have happened, and it’s just a request for more information and feedback, I’m not going to hold out much hope this is little more than a further attempt to be seen to be seeking opinion, rather than actually getting on and doing anything.

Cynic that I may be, so many politicians love ‘consulting’ then doing precisely what they intended all along (having created the impression of having listened), or – worse still – hoping the consultation process will be seen as a substitute for action.

I’d suggest the main feedback will, in any case, be ‘demolish the arcade’, which is the main and understandable demand of so many residents. However I very much doubt that’s going to happen any time soon, without demonstrating there viable business location for investors to fund such. It’s certainly not the councils job to. On that note I did provide a few ideas of my own – ones which are actionable – for how things could be improved under their own merit and perhaps lead on to redevelopment. There have been a few changes for the good in the area (a few new shops have appeared), but there have been setbacks (Woolworths has furthered reduced the arcade’s open shops), but I’ve not noted much determined effort. But I could have missed attempts to publicise this and other efforts since the meeting. But I really do look out for such things in the places I visit.

I’ll fill in the survey sure enough, but I do get the feeling there is no sense of urgency here, and this is very little more than window dressing on an effort that’s not going anywhere fast. I look very much forward to being proven wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »

A good few years ago I contributed a couple of chapters to the book ‘Theory and Practice of Relational Databases’, which was the set-text for a number of university database courses. We setup a website to compliment the book for errata and so forth. I do still rather chuckle at the disgruntled student review on Amazon.

Time passes, and people move on. The book was never going to be a best-seller, but the commission – such that I get – no longer really covers maintaining the theorypractice.org domain we used, as universities change their texts and staff retire. But the book is still out there, and folk may still be looking for the content.

So this is just a public way of saying we’ve retired the website now, but you can still find the content at leyton.org/theorypractice.org should you so wish.

Anybody visiting my website over the last few months would be excused for thinking it’s a running website. There was a time when I was motivated to write more about politics, and to write more about technology (the original purpose of this weblog). All that’s fallen by the wayside in the face of my training for the London Marathon, my focus on Glasgow parkrun, and running my own business. But my political mojo has, to some extent, returned of late, helped by the farcical situation with MP expenses and all that’s come from it. I don’t think I have anything particularly radical or novel to write, but I’ll write it anyway.

The way some MP’s have behaved has certainly been deplorable, and the biggest damage isn’t so much the waste of public money and the arrogant way with which it was treated by our representatives, but the damage it’s done to an already weak confidence in the political process.

Sadly the only beneficiaries will be the ‘fringe’ parties of the right, which seem to gradually be gaining more airtime and print space. As I write this, in Somerset, I can see a UKIP poster, and that’s pretty much the only poster I’ve seen close to home. But then this area has always been either a Tory or LibDem area. I just wish there were strong, alternative, centrist voices to compensate: The Lib Dems are mired in the same mess (more by association than headline-grabbing expense idiocy some Labour/Tory MP’s seem guilty of) Green party perhaps springs to mind, but they seem to be drowned out in collective hand-wringing at the BNP and UKIP’s PR campaigns. It almost feels like the fear of their doing well is causing more attention to be paid to them, creating a feedback loop that brings us the very thing we don’t want.

Electoral reform has also been on the agenda of late. And about time too. But I just hope it’s not a knee-jerk reaction. It does need time and a proper, balanced, debate. I’d much prefer a PR system that maintained the constituency strong link, and led to a more representative parliament (in both houses). The Scottish System works very well in my view. Sadly the establishment seems to forget they serve us, and not the other way around. They are only there at our sufferance, and goodness knows the country’s patience has been tried in the last month or two.

A General Election is tempting, but I side with the ’sort your house out THEN go to the people’, rather than booting them out and getting the next lot in. This Autumn would work well in my view. A fixed term parliament is certainly the best proposal I’ve heard from the Tories in a long, long time (even if it’s not in the slightest bit new, good to see them adopt it). Of course, it’s now inevitable we’ll get a Conservative administration. On the whole I’m not too bothered – If anything I’m a big believer in the need for a periodic change (be nice if we could limit administrations to a couple of terms!) – but my biggest fear is not the politics of economics, education, defence, etc, but the ‘conservative’ (small c) moralising we’ll risk getting.

Ironically, perhaps, the best thing is that it has at least energised people into paying more attention to what our representatives are up to. Sadly it’s very negative and alienating right now, but I hope this will eventually lead to considered and effective reform, and a greater demand for freedom of information, and openness in the corridors of power. Political parties have to do a much better job of seizing this moment and delivering what, I think, people are demanding.

I’d suspected the next General Election would be quite interesting even before the MP Expenses and financial crises hit. Gordon Brown can’t expect anything other than a resounding kicking (deserved not least for simply failing to deliver on the hopes so many of us had), but if the Tories – very much mired in the problems themselves – don’t find a way to propose the radical changes now being demanded of our politicians and political system, there’s a real danger of even more radical change being forced on them.

I’m currently down in Somerset doing a spot of house sitting, and keeping an eye on my Gran, whilst my parents are away on holiday. Naturally, as my previous post suggests, I’ve been keeping up the running and a local 10k – the Wells 10k Fun Run – organised by local running club Wells City Harriers seemed like an absolute must.

I have a bit of history with the Wells ‘Fun Run’. It was, believe it or not, the very first race I ever took part in. Back in 1984 (or so), when it was a 5.5 mile run around the outskirts of Wells. I think I got around in about 55 minutes, which felt quite respectable for a 11 or 12 year old. I see the Wells City Harriers have a few old results up from around then. Fingers crossed they might scan in the results for the races I took part in. Would love to know. Slightly sad too that I didn’t keep it up in any way. I suppose mostly that was due to my own lack of interest, but also that nobody seemed to suggest that recreational sport was good. It was competition level, or nothing. And I certainly wasn’t going to be representing anything.

No matter. It’s a different setup altogether now. There are 1k for youngsters, then a 3 mile and 10k distance options for adults. The 3 mile and 10k distance are essentially one and two laps respectively, of the east side of Wells. For the first time, the 10k was full to capacity too.

I watched the shorter races set off (I’d arrived very early due to Frances needing the car to ferry a few people around back in Priddy), with the 10k due to start at 11am. Somebody had quite impressively parked a car right by the start line (despite the market place being closed to cars), but the organisers were unable to trace them. The area was deserted otherwise, so some quite stunningly bad parking.

I’d not decided on tactics, but the very warm weather (and not a cloud in the sky), and rumours of a tough hill at the end of the lap, made me think pushing for a fast time, close to my 10k PB, was probably a waste of effort, even before considering I’ve done very little speed training in the last couple of months. But that didn’t stop me trying. We set off and took care to dodge the streams that perpetually run down Wells High Street (accurately described as ‘real ankle breakers’ in the safety briefing).

The course is a good one – the main section of the course is along a cycle path from Wells to Dulcote. But it was tough going. The sun just beat down, and there were plenty of stretches without any shade at all, and felt like a gradual incline. My first few splits were good, but some seconds behind what I needed to push my PB.

Welcome relief in Dulcote from some enterprising youngsters armed with a decent array of water pistols. Second time around I encouraged them to give me their best shot, and got a very welcome soaking. But then that second time, I knew what lay ahead!

That’d be the hill coming out of Dulcote back in to Wells, and it’s a real toughy. At roughly 3.5k and 8.5k the hill doesn’t seem too bad, but gradually builds up. It’s quite an ascent, and given the way I felt the 2nd time around, perhaps gives me some self-justification for not having done any hill running so far! But I was chuffed to bits to keep plodding away, and not need to stop or drop my pace any further than I already had. My effort felt consistent.

The most picturesque part of the course is the end the lap, which takes you past Bishops’ palace, with it’s beautiful moat, and a good amount of support from the earlier runners. Definitely a good point. Second time around the finish was a lot further around than I’d expected. Somebody barrelled past me in the finishing straight, something I’ve only managed to do once or twice.

The clock suggested at time of 46:13 – I’d not started my watch properly. I finished with a time of 46:20 (79th out of 360 overall). I’m quite pleased to be honest, still almost 2 minutes off my PB, but with a hill like that not once but twice on the course, and in warm and sunny conditions. I’m also acutely aware I need to get more speed work done, and train more at race pace, so that I get more used to pushing myself hard for longer periods of time.

10k’s are a distance I struggle with. There’s something just awkward about it for me. I find, like most runners, that you can just ‘hang on’ in a nice short 5k. It’s over before you know it. A half marathon it’s about a consistent pace for longer, so it’s about finding a level your body can sustain. But 10k’s fall somewhere in between, and I’m struggling. I suspect – as with so much about running – a lot of it is mental, but think if I’m to push my 10k time down, I’ve a bit more work ahead of me over the coming months.

But anyway, the 10k was a great event. Very well organised, and I’m chuffed to bits to have a mug, rather than a medal, to mark the occasion – it’ll remind me of my day every morning for a good while longer

See also * Wells Journal write-up here