Coastalblog

So as of last weekend the list of vaguely well-known people your correspondent has cooked for stands at: various Liverpool and Everton players of the early 00's, Rick Stein, Steve Davis and now former world middleweight champion Steve Collins. Heady heights indeed, stitch that Indoor Market Cafe. The Source crew decamped to Burscough's prestigious Stanley club and proceeded to knock out (small boxing pun there, pun fans) a bunch of roast pork for a sportsman's dinner featuring the aforementioned Mr Collins, who, it should be stated, is a thoroughly pleasant chap, and not merely because he's capable of battering me senseless in the blink of an eye. A moderately entertaining time was had by all. Though it was an altogether odd moment standing there and looking at him and thinking that I remember staying up to watch his fight with Nigel Benn in the nineties, sat on a sofa in Cornwall, and now here I am cooking his tea in a working men's club in Lancashire nearly twen...

There are many dreadful things in the world, and Lord knows I don't need to enumerate them here. So I thought it worth sharing a brief story of something cheerier, it may seem inconsequential, in point of fact it is, but it gave me a lift which lasted all week. I was off out running, as is my wont, and my phone was in my pocket. I should point out at this juncture that it was in there functioning as a stopwatch, I wouldn't wish to give you the impression that I'm the sort who can't bear to be parted from their phone. I can. I actively enjoy it. But that's by the by, off I went, pounding the pavements, up hill and down dale etc,my phone faithfully ticking the minutes by nestled snugly in my pocket. Until it wasn't. And lo there was swearing and a gnashing of teeth, for whilst I am not inordinately fond of my phone, sadly it's a necessary evil, if only as a stopwatch. So I turned and started the long run back. It's nicely symbolic that when I discovere...