Blacksmiths Inn, Ninfield

Just back from the Blacksmiths Inn, Ninfield, for its re-opening, following the extensive refurbishment carried out by Peter and Denise Slinger.

They have a good range of real ale: Timothy Taylor, Adnams Broadside, the truly ecellent Northiam IPA and the ubiquitous (but always good) Harveys Best Bitter.

Food is a strong point, too: good quality pub grub, locally sourced.

The Slingers deserve to do well

The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey

Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended, this is Harvey's debut and is (IMHO) excellent

Written in a Raymond Chandler style, it is fast-paced with a good plot and a non-cheating twist towards the end

I am looking forward to more from Harvey, and thoroughly recommend him as a writer of detective/mystery books

What do YOU think?

"Broken Skin" by Stuart Macbride

Slightly slowly, I have now finished this. Though I felt I was getting into it at ab out the halfway/two-thirds point, it seemed to go slightly off the boil

I enjoyed the way the main character (a DS) was drawn - very believable, but "supportable". was less happy withe the rater cartoon-like DIs who were his bosses

I guess the characters are being built up into a set of players that is TV-marketable, but it's a shame that the individual book suffers as a result

"Mustn't Grumble" by Joe Bennett

Invited to travel round England and write about it (and the English), Bennett decided to use H V Morton's "In Search of England" as a sort of route map [note to self: must find a copy of Morton's book]

Bennett has tried (though not very hard) to identify "Englishness". In the end, he thinks it is encapsulated in the BBC's "Antiques Roadshow" - everyone knws the part they are expected to play and true emotions are masked by politeness and "appropriate" behaviour.

I'm not sure that's entirely true or sufficient, but the book is an enjoable, easy read, taking the reader to different parts of the country and sampling a few pubs at each stopping-off point - more for the conversation than for the beer

Jack Smithies

Just finished reading 'Mustn't grumble' by Joe Bennett. Towards the end (page 251 to be exact), a name from my past jumps out at me when the author refers to "Jack Smithies, the best English teacher of all time".

"Mad" Jack Smithies taught at Brighton Hove and Sussex Grammer School, where I spent my Sixth Form years. He was, indeed, a brilliant and inspiring English teacher - he could bring Shakespeare to life in a quite wonderful way

Joe Bennett, a few pages later in the book, also refers to the characteristic clock at the school: there was a sort of 'master clock' in the main hall, and each classroom had a 'subsidiary clock', connected to the master one by a series of rods and links. All the clocks were therefore in sync, and their minute hands clicked round, minute-by-minute, in unison; really quite spooky, when you think about it!

A breathing space

The property crash is (to put it mildly) not nice for those linked to the property market|; those who need to sell, estate agents, solicitors and other conveyancers, removal firms, carpet suppliers, etc

However, it has stopped big business hijacking the process: a lot of would-be big players in the HIP provision market have been put off (or gone bust) as a result of the recession

THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY: an opportunity for those who want to provide a good house-moving experience to establish themselves as the people to use, rather than allowing the rip-off merchants to move in as soon as the market picks up and hoover up the market for their own purely mercenary reasons

At Nelsons Property Lawyers, we plan to host a seminar of local, independent and good providers of house moving services (solicitors/conveyancers, estate agents, HIP providers, domestic energy assessors, etc) to formulate an attractive offering for buyers and sellers and create a user-friendly moving environment

(Sorry - it's late and I',m getting into anorak mode, but I do believe we can do this well and that this will benefit the clients - consumers)

Comments, please - and watch this space!

Networking

As secretary of the Wealden Business Group (http://wbg.me) I have been finalising and uploading the minutes of our committee meeting last week. As part of the discussion was on the subject of other local networking groups and how WBG differs, I thought I'd try to find out a little abvout the competition.

Not as easy as it should be! Some seem to have almost impenetrable websites that send you round in circles. Others seem more keen to get you to join and pay a subscription than to yield up details of their members. However, my perseverance has been rewarded.

It seems that WBG is somewhere in the middle in terms of membership: 22 current members, compared with other groups with 9 and 13, and others with 22 also and 25. There is one with 44 that seems to be doing very well - and is the No 1 "chapter" in its organisation worldwide!

Where WBG "wins", however, is not in the numbers game but in its possibly unique combination of prtofessionalism and friendliness - attributes that we intend to build on into the future!

Yesterday's Tweets

For those confused by yesterday's Tweets, this is what happened:

1. Originally, Anne and I were to sail from Rye to Eastbourne with another couple to attend the Round Table and Ladies Circle National Conferences there - Jane being a former National Chairman of Ladies Circle

2. The plan was that we would sail to Eastbourne on Friday, have a meal and sleep on the boat, then go to the conferences (and the pubs!). We would have an evening meal and sleep on the boat on Saturday, then sail back on Sunday

3. The worsening weather destroyed that plan - sailing a 30-foot boat along the Channel in force 7 or 8 winds was not going to be joyful, so we cancelled the sailing trip.

4. Having made arrangements at work (and cancelled a game of golf), Anne and I were at a loose end. Rather than waste the day, we decided to go for lunch at the Coastguard at St Margaret's Bay

5. This is where the Tweets went wrong, as the venue was out of my mobile phone coverage, so Tweets by SMS were not going in the order I sent them. As a result, a series of Tweets got out of series, and became garbled. But the beer was good, especially the Gadds' No 5 ;-)

Anyway, it's a lovely day today, so Anne and I are off in search of another pub lunch!