Furthermore: December 2004

December 27, 2004

Fentimans Ginger Beer and Orange Jigger

One more while I’m in blogging mode. Fentimans Ginger Beer has long been a favourite in our house (although often rather hard to get for some reason - it seems to come and go at Sainsburys, although I’ve also sometimes seen it in one of the off licences on Mill Road). So when I saw Fentimans Orange Jigger in Sainsburys, I thought I should give it a try.

Verdict - it’s okay, but probably not worth a pound a throw. Mrs Freestone described it as being like a “weak St Clements - not orangey or lemony enough”. That seems to about sum it up I’m afraid. Buy another one of the Ginger Beers instead.

Hotel Felix and Loch Fyne Restaurant

While I’m in catch-up mode, I went to both of these places recently. The visit to Hotel Felix was for a work Christmas do. I thought the food was good - and there were good alternatives to the standard turkey. While I wouldn’t say there was not enough food, you also couldn’t accuse them of being over-generous. I think this was mainly about style rather than stinginess, but it depends on your taste I guess. The hotel itself is nice, although the modern extension looks a bit jarring to my eye. A good place for a special occasion, although I’d take the Crown and Punchbowl over this any day.

Loch Fyne is a nice relaxed place to go - we went as two couples with two small children + another grown-up and nobody felt at all out of place. I’ve always had good food there - this time I had kippers followed by bream, all of which was delicious. The service was very friendly and overall it was a lovely occasion. Be prepared to pay accordingly though - not much change out of 200 pounds for 5 adults and 2 children once you include the tip.

St Ives

So, no post for a while - been busy with work and other stuff. Anyway, today we had a drive up to St Ives, which I’ve not seen before. To be honest, it’s not that exciting, plus the weather was absolutely freezing. We had lunch at the Golden Lion in the High Street - kind of generic chain pub food, but it was cosy, and the food was fine.

Then we walked up to the Ouse and I saw the Dolphin Hotel (may be called something else now) and I realised I had been to St Ives before. When I was a student and secretary of the CU Humanist Workshop, I had lunch there with Gerd Sommerhoff. I remember the food being good (although since I was a student, I was hardly accustomed to eating in hotel restaurants) but I’d totally forgotten about the meal until I saw the hotel again. Quite a strange deja vu experience really - uncovering a little bit of lost past.

December 7, 2004

ID Cards

I’ve become involved in the No2id campaign to prevent the Government from introducing ID cards and a national identity register. The local group here in Cambridge had its second meeting last night, and managed to rather overwhelm our chosen venue of The Old Spring. This was partly my fault as I posted the time and place to cam.misc, from where it reached Indymedia. Anyway, the upshot was that from a first meeting of 3 people, we had a second of nearly 30.

We had a good mix of backgrounds and views, and the current plan is to organise a public meeting for early next year. If you are interested, do drop me a line, visit the No2id site, or subscribe to the local group email list.