That phrase actually appears on the latest Cheadle tabloid.

Lib Dem leaflets seem to be the last place on earth where the word ‘local’ hasn’t picked up the League of Gentlemen taint.

I’ve had a distinctly different role in this by-election to previous ones. We’re staying in a gorgeous holiday cottage practically in the national park, and I’m mostly doing late shifts, which gives me the chance to play house for my fellow tenants. I cook a meal and go into work, and when I arrive, they all go home and eat it.

All fine, except that one of them’s a fish-eating veggie and one is lactose intolerant. And my repertoire of non-dairy vegetarian food that can be cooked on a Rayburn is starting to run out. Non-dairy pastry has been interesting…

… apparently. The BBC’s Education correspondent asks whether the Olympics will help the English learn foreign languages. Seems rather unlikely to me.

… apparently. The BBC’s Education correspondent asks whether the Olympics will help the English learn foreign languages. Seems rather unlikely to me.

Mym’s posting Italy pics to flickr, Rob’s posting his to fotopic. Special mention for this self portrait.

My brother graduated, had a ball, and took photos of that which are here. He’s off on hols soon too.

I’m going back to work. Have been in council starting on the post backlog, have a day delivering leaflets tomorrow, followed by a week in Cheadle for the by-election. Then full council, exec board and planning committee on consecutive days.

It’s like I’ve never been away.

Mym’s posting Italy pics to flickr, Rob’s posting his to fotopic. Special mention for this self portrait.

My brother graduated, had a ball, and took photos of that which are here. He’s off on hols soon too.

I’m going back to work. Have been in council starting on the post backlog, have a day delivering leaflets tomorrow, followed by a week in Cheadle for the by-election. Then full council, exec board and planning committee on consecutive days.

It’s like I’ve never been away.

This weekend we all went to Suffolk for the wedding of the century. There have been so many stories about the preparations for this event that it somehow didn’t seem real during the day.

The planning certainly paid off. It was a lovely day. The ceremony was moving. Part of what made it special were more than usual readings: the bible readings plus some poems. I read (I was so happy they asked) and a bunch of us who sang together at university sang together again for the evening do.

The meal was tasty, and started with a quail egg salad. I’m intrigued by the mechanics of getting enough quail eggs to feed hundreds of people. Was every quail in Suffolk on red alert the day before?

Pictures on flickr: mine, and Leigh’s, and both all under one tag.

Midland Mainline have e-mailed me to ask what I think of their buffet car service.

I do like a chance to have my say.

I do feel that the prices are far too high. A rip off. I only ever eat on the train when I’m running too late to get food elsewhere and am starving, or when your sandwiches are discounted late in the day. Your sandwiches are good, but too expensive. Your cakes — danish-in-a-box tend to be soggy and not very nice. And also too expensive.

Your questions imply that you feel it’s all right to charge too much if it will be companies not individuals paying.

I preferred the complimentary teas when they were still Typhoo rather than Twinings, who do good specialty teas, but bad ‘english breakfast’ style teas.

The point about paying for larger cups is somewhat stupid. If your passengers don’t feel they are getting enough tea in the smaller cups, they will presumably do what I do every time and either make more trips to the buffet car, or ask for two cups on each journey. The buffet staff don’t know whether I’m fetching two cups of tea for myself or one for me and one for another passenger.

I don’t drink instant coffee so have never tried the complimentary coffee. I would much rather you provide a good, fresh, filter coffee than install espresso machines that provide average espresso and poor Italian-style coffees. I don’t imagine for a minute you intend training your staff to use a proper coffee machine and you will use some variety of one-button bean-to-cup machine. Not a good plan, because they don’t provide a very good cup of coffee.

If you are intending to include Italian-style coffees, please speak to the people who do the Amt bars on the platform because their product is very good.

If you are intending to provide filter coffee please bear in mind that once filtered it goes stale quite quickly. Anyone who drinks coffee black will be able to tell you when the coffee is past its best.

I would rather the buffet car didn’t serve alcoholic drinks, because they are only ever bought by people who’ve had too much already and they tend to make travelling less pleasant.