A free lunch

There is no such thing as a free lunch is an all too common phrase heard around this particular corner of the world that we call home. Nothing ever advertised as “free” is truly without some attached cost, and (directly or not) you will always find yourself paying-up in the end.  When the tradition of the free lunch began…

McDonald’s newest branch in Hong Kong totally looks like something from George Orwell’s 1984

In an effort to improve their reputation as a “modern and progressive” organization, McDonald’s recently opened the first of its new “high-tech” branches in Hong Kong. As well as allowing customers to order their meals via touch-screen kiosks, the McDonald’s Next restaurant features a salad bar to cater to more health conscious diners. New items…

Cooking George Orwell’s Long Lost Kidney Stew Recipe

On the day following King George V’s Silver Jubilee celebrations, 6th May 1935, George Orwell took a break from writing A Clergyman’s Daughter to type a letter to his friend and one-time romantic interest, Brenda Salkeld. Among Orwell’s usual topics of discussion (politics, literature, and low-culture) the author outlined what he described as a “wonderful” ox-kidney…

The Long Way Down

With unrealistic demands, a laughable budget, and an impossible deadline, we were humoured, had our details taken, and then swiftly shown the door from least 10 different offices. If anywhere was available, they told us, it was taken just before we walked in – of course. Not to worry, I said to Herself, if it comes to the worst then we can always spend a few weeks sleeping on the Embankment like a pair of down and outs. At least we’re having nice weather at the moment. I can start collecting cardboard boxes just in case. I like to think of these kinds of ideas as being romantic, she prefers to call them stupid.

A Long Walk Through The City

Soon we found ourselves in Bloomsbury where around every corner you half expect to find T.S Eliot or Virginia Woolf stood in discussion with one of their literary acquaintances from that little bourgeois social circle of theirs. When Americans see London in their movies, says my old man, this is the London they are seeing.

A Weekend in Greece

If you ever happen to find yourself spending some of your very important and hard-earned vacation time in Thessaloniki, the capital of Greek Macedonia and the country’s second largest city by population, there are a number of details to which you will become privy about Greek culture that will forever change how you perceive this Southern European Republic and…

A brief lesson in cool

Just once I’d like to enter a party like this: The clip is from the movie Cinderfella (1960) starring the incomparable Jerry Lewis. The story goes that this sequence was shot in a single take and at the end of the scene, when the Cinderfella character runs back up the staircase, Lewis actually suffered a…

Baked Beans

I just had one of my tweets featured on The Guardian’s Life & Style page, offering my own modest contribution to the otherwise rather unassuming business of cooking baked beans. Let me just say, straight off the bat, I love baked beans and I’m not alone; around 2.3 million tins of those beauties are consumed…