Archive for October, 2009
09/10/2009 1 Comment

Lyme Regis: Beer – It’s not just for breakfast any more

Great sticker at The Volunteer in Lyme Regis.

SOME QUESTIONS for you to ponder as you savour a pint. All prompted by the entry for The Volunteer Inn in Lyme Regis in the 2010 Good Beer Guide, published by CAMRA.

Is it true to say, as the guide does, that The Volunteer is “renowned for freshly cooked meals including fish”? (I’d say, yes, it could be).

Is it true “No food is served on Monday”? (Yes)

Would you expect it to be true that CAMRA members visit the pubs they write about at least once a year? (Yes, I’d expect that)

Can we square my responses so far – and yours – with the fact that The Volunteer hasn’t been serving any food for about a year, maybe longer?

All I’ve had in there is crisps, nuts and Mini-Cheddars. Do you think they’ve been hiding “freshly cooked meals” from me?

Never mind, it’s supposed to be a good beer guide, and the beer there is great. It’s a rare trip to Lyme when it’s not worth “looking in” there.

The picture below shows an advert for The Volunteer from a guide to Lyme Regis published in the early 1900’s. It looks like it definitely served freshly cooked meals then!

volunteerad
09/10/2009 1 Comment

Three politicians, three doctors, one fight

I haven’t seen or heard this remarked upon, so I think it’s worth saying that West Dorset must be the only political constituency in Britain that’s being fought over by three doctors.

-Dr Oliver Letwin, the current Tory MP, has a Ph.D – he wrote about the philosophy of emotion.

-Dr Sue Farrant, the latest Lib Dem to attempt the probably hopeless task of trying to unseat Dr L., also has a Ph.D – she wrote about the role of women in rural society.

-Dr Steve Bick, whose chances of winning West Dorset for Labour I’d say are absolutely hopeless, is a GP in Weymouth.

So, they aren’t all the same kind of doctor, but it’s still unusual to find politicians labelling themselves in public this way. I wonder if it’s some kind of reaction to politicians’ low repute at the moment (you know, expenses, and so on…) Doctors are generally better thought of. So, if you’re entitled to call yourself one, and it makes you sound more respectable, why not?

But don’t expect the general election campaign to be genteel. If there’s any sign of Dr Letwin losing, expect Conservatives to push hard for him, and I mean hard.

I remember during the last campaign in West Dorset being phoned up out of the blue by an obvious young Tory, saying that he’d heard Charles Kennedy was going to be visiting the area, and as he was a great admirer of the-then Lib Dem leader, he’d love to go along to show his support for him. Yeah, right, I thought.

I told him he’d been misinformed. But word got out somehow, and I can still vividly remember the scene in East Street, Bridport, with elderly Lib Dem supporters round Charles Kennedy being shoved and even punched out of the way by young Tories wanting to doughnut their enemy with banners they’d made about Lib Dem policy on murderers.

It was disgusting.

And thinking about it, perhaps I’m wrong about the possibility of something similar happening again. For one thing, I’m sure that any kind of vicious behaviour was not encouraged or condoned by Dr Letwin. Also, it was stupidly counter-productive; I spoke to several people who were put off voting Conservative because of it.

For another thing, I think the next campaign is going to be different, because so many more people can now communicate for themselves what they’ve seen, heard and found out. Using this site, for example, and other platforms. We’re not dependent anymore just on sanitised accounts in old media like local newspapers. 

So let’s expect our three doctors to run respectable campaigns.

But let’s also note what other people might seek to do for them.

Think of Gordon Brown’s man Damian McBride forced to resign after the exposure of his mucky emails.

Gordon Brown’s a doctor too…
06/10/2009 No comments

2012 Dorset Olympics not all plain sailing

It’s odd, on the face of it, that the Country Landowners Association should be staging a conference about the 2012 Olympics in Dorset, when, as we all know, the action’s going to be at sea.

And who owns that?

None of the people here at Kingston Maurward today in their tweeds and brogues, or bizarrely dashing combinations of red-and-white checked shirt and green striped tie.

I felt a bit sorry for some of them – no, make that, I felt my attention wandering – sitting  through endless PowerPoint presentations with strange diagrams about possible national trends in tourism, or targets for getting the unemployed back to work in East London.

On the other hand, there was a huge amount of information provided. Here’s some highlights:

- Competing sailors may now stay in an atheletes’ village somewhere on land – perhaps in new properties built on Officers’ Field on Portland. Everyone seems to have gone off the idea of sticking all the competitors on board a cruise ship. Some homes would serve as affordable housing for local people after the Games.     

- Dorset Police expect security to cost between £35 and £38 million, and they still haven’t got all the guarantees they want from the Government about funding. Several hundred police officers will be involved.

- There’s a serious shortage of accommodation for Paralympians, that is the often-forgotten disabled sailors who’ll be competing after the main Olympic games.

- Developers Sutton Harbour have put on hold their plans for Castle Court at Osprey Court. This was to have shops, restaurants, etc. The only part of it going ahead is a bespoke base for British sailors and the RYA.

- Although the Americans and other countries, including perhaps the Australians, may also want their own bespoke base.

- Three sailors from the Czech Republic aren’t so well-supported. They sleep in the back of a van.

There was some meat for the Country Landowners, particularly as regards accommodation. People quite closely involved in the Games are going to want to be in Weymouth and Portland, but beyond that up to 100,000 visitors a day are expected, and where are they going to stay?

In West Dorset, potentially. Simon Williams, general manager for regeneration and sustainability at Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, said he’d been talking to someone from West Compton, which is just beyond Eggardon Hill near Bridport.

“They were saying, ‘We’re not close, no one’s going to be interested’. In my view that is the exact opposite, in my view there will certainly be lots of people who’d be more than happy to stay in the wider area.”

He cited corporate sponsors in particular.

Conference organiser Rupert Best echoed this: “If you happen to be in Chickerell or Sherborne, that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of tourism.”