Star struck as a London icon serves up a treat

Marlene watching over me

Once upon a time – and it feels a mightily long time ago – I did an awful lot of theatre reviewing.

I didn’t get paid for it, but I got tickets, which were a form of gold dust anyway. And I got to pen reviews that were published in the UK’s smallest national daily newspaper, The Morning Star, where I eked out a meagre daytime living as, first, an advertising salesperson and later, as a sub-editor, sports editor and duty chief sub-editor.

It paid lousily, but it was a proper, old-fashioned way of learning a trade – and there were always those theatre tickets.

On a couple of occasions, I was taken out to dinner after a show by the exceptionally charming and generous Clive Hirschhorn, the long-time film and theatre critic of the Sunday Express, to whom I’d been introduced by the Star’s then film critic, Jeff Sawtell.

Clive (and partner) took pity on a hackette with renownedly piss-poor pay and no expenses, and carted me (and Jeff) off after a show I cannot recall to eat at Joe Allen’s, just off The Strand.

Since this was in the days before I started to really enjoy culinary matters, I remember nothing about the food. But I do remember sitting at one of the circular tables in the centre of the basement restaurant, with Alan Rickman right behind me, almost back to back, and having the devil’s own job not to melt into a pile of goo just hearing that voice.

And at some point, Su Pollard announced her arrival with a Hi-di-Hi-like holler as she entered.

It was love at first celebrity sighting.

I went back with a friend on a few occasions, sitting in a corner and nursing a salad starter and a glass of wine because that was what I could afford, but relishing the atmosphere. I remember huge amounts of walnuts and cheese in vast bowls of leaves; the late-evening piano and face-spotting as actors came in after their own evening's work, and the red brick walls covered in Broadway posters.

And thus Joe Allen’s – a legendary place on a far wider scale; open since 1977 and under new ownership this year – became a legend for me.

But that was a long time ago and, despite my best intentions, I had never revisited and The Other Half, for all my waxing lyrical over it on more than one occasion, had never been at all.

On Friday, however, we were booked into the Vaudeville to see The Ladykillers. And since we needed to eat, I was contemplating dinner in the vicinity.

After musing over the possibility of going to Orso, a rather nice Italian restaurant in another basement nearby, it struck me that this was the perfect chance to try Joe’s again.

There’s always a danger, when you nurse fond memories of something, that revisiting will ultimately spell disappointment. And even more so when you’ve burbled on about it for years to someone else and they’re now going to experience it first hand.

And anyway, what would the food be like?

Crab cakes and apple slaw

I started with a cocktail – a mint julep, since we were, after all, in what is an American diner meets a brasserie, and since I had, only a day earlier, been listening to the late, great Robert Preston singing that it was the eponymous Mame who gave his own “old mint julep a kick”.

I am not usually a whisky person, but this mix of bourbon, mint, sugar and water was very pleasant and refreshing.

From the South, it was a step up to New England for crab cakes and an apple slaw, with fries and a portion of buttered spinach on the side.

Oh my, oh my. The crab cakes were pure crab, flecked with red chilli that cut delightfully through the rich sweetness of the meat.

The slaw, which was on a bed of endive, was bitter and fresh and light – and far more than the garnish I’d rather expected (hence the order of spinach). There was also a little light rose marie sauce on the side, while the fries and spinach were equally top notch.

What do you follow that with?

Well, it was back down south for a slice of pecan and cranberry pie, with a quenelle of whipped cream – cue Family Guy jokes about Stewie’s pronunciation of ‘whipped’ – with a little cinnamon powder on top.

Pecan and cranberry pie with whipped cream

Seriously rich and naturally sweet, like the fruitiest fruit cake ever, with cream that was light as a feather, it was a superb end to a superb meal.

The Other Half opted for a steak, followed by a chocolate brownie and ice cream.

Mind, we stayed on this side of The Pond with wine – a glass of red for him and white for me – both from the Languedoc.

Joe’s is not a traditional diner with gingham tablecloths and red banquettes, but a very classy venue with a very classy take on some classic American cooking.

Oh, and the decor is wonderful for any theatre buff – we were watched over by Marlene’s lidded gaze.

There may not have been any face spotting to be done in our part of the room and at that time of evening, but the atmosphere is comfortable, the food excellent and the service good.

Briefly, then, to The Ladykillers.

The Ealing comedy has been rewritten for the stage by Graham Linehan of Father Ted and Black Books fame, and has received raves.

It is a light evening’s entertainment, but it isn’t the film.

The Ladykillers

The cast were great – particular mentions for Angela Thorne, Simon Day, Ralf Little and Chris McCalphy as Mrs Wilberforce, Major Courtney, Harry Robinson and One-Round.

It’s not that John Gordon Sinclair was bad as Professor Marcus, but he never really hits the creepy notes that are essential.

It has a brief moment of very welcome and sinister darkness in the second act, but certainly in the first, could out-ham David Walliams’s death scene in the Grandage Company Dream.

The robbery and chase, though, is very inventive and the set in general is excellent.

So, that was that. It made me order a copy of the original film, feeling that I need to remind myself what a glory of British cinema it is.

But if the theatre didn’t live up to hopes – Joe Allen’s most certainly did. We will be back.

Joe Allen’s

The holiday count down begins

You could be forgiven for assuming that, with conference safely in the history books, life would return to whatever passes for normal. But that is not the case.

The production timetable is set out in such a way that we have only the week immediately after to get pretty much an entire journal out. Now this makes complete sense – it’s the issue with all the conference reports in, so members need it as soon as possible. But it’s still a busy week.

It was at this stage, four years ago, that I first realised how bone tired I am by now. We hadn’t booked a holiday, but had been thinking of taking a week in Barcelona.

I said to The Other Half: ‘I can’t do it. If I do a city break, I’ll run around with the camera like a total lunatic, wanting to do as much as possible. I need to sit still and do nothing’.

We were incredibly lucky, so late in the season, to get into a hotel in Collioure for 10 days. We’d visited before, but never stayed there.

It was the first time I’d ever had a real beach holiday. I took something like nine books, because I didn’t really think I could just still for all that time, doing nothing. It didn’t take long to discover just how wrong I was.

We will be back on the same beach in a few weeks, after a week making our way there on trains, via Bordeaux, Carcassonne, Foix and Villefranche de Conflent.

My food aims are already taking shape – well, food and drink, since we’re starting in Bordeaux!

It’s totally perverse, of course, to eat cassoulet in the summer, but one has to make sacrifices sometimes, and in a region that prides itself on that dish, I’ll find somewhere to give the real thing a whirl.

But there's a little time left before I get too excited.

The weekend's food plans dissipated in utter sloth. But a sea bass that I'd intended to use on Sunday evening was deployed on Monday – albeit in a different way.

In an à la River Café way, I par-boiled some new potatoes and then sliced them thickly. These went into an oven dish with olive oil and sliced tomatoes, to be seasoned and then topped with the filleted the fish, before a really generous squeeze of fresh lemon was added.

And then it was into a pre-heated (200˚) oven for around 12-15 minutes (check the potatoes with a knife to see when they're completely cooked).

Nice – and far from difficult or time-consuming.

Tuesday's risotto at the top was made in my usual way: sweat finely chopped shallot, celery and garlic in olive oil. Add your risotto rice and let it pick up the rest of the oil.

Give it a slug of Noilly Prat (or vermouth or white wine) and let the rice absorb that too. Then start adding the simmering stock, a ladle at a time. This was a home-made chicken stock, which was brought gently to a simmer with some more of the dried porcini from Lina Stores.

I'd picked up some lovely mushrooms at Sporeboys on Broadway Market on Saturday, so chopped a few of these and sautéed very gently in more olive oil. A little more of the booze and a squeeze of lemon juice were added, and it was left to gently cook through.

Once the rice has taken on the stock, add some chopped parsley and then the mushrooms and stir gently.

At this point, I added some more of the truffle butter I'd used last time and then lidded it, while I heated a little more oil in the pan I'd used to cook the mushrooms – and then fried two thin slices of 'shroom I'd cut off earlier.

Those, together with more fresh parsley, then topped the finished dish.

And not only was that not at all bad, it was very much another instance of cooking as therapy.

Off to the Fens

It has been a crazy week – brilliant in many ways, but nonetheless crazy.

And while there hasn’t been much to report on the food front, the time has not been without its moments on that score.

Having said farewell to the old offices last Wednesday and recovered with an asparagus-hunting trip to Borough Market on Thursday, Friday brought a new challenge on the work front.

My mission for the day was to catch a train to Peterborough, meet up with shadow chancellor Ed Balls, follow (and observe) while he hit the campaigning trail and my photographer photographed, then get in a car to Kings Lynn with him, his assistant and a driver – this offering the longest time available to do an actual interview for one of UNISON’s journals.

An hour later, after crossing into the flat country of a region I’ve never seen before, past farms with hand-painted, roadside signs offering asparagus for sale, we were in Kings Lynn itself. It might not have quite been The West Wing, but the interview was in the bag; the experience had been an interesting and pleasant one. But it was just turned 2pm and food was required.

Two sizable streets lead away from the square where we’d pulled in. One was Clone Town, but the other was a step back into times long gone. Running parallel to the river Ouse, as it wends its way gently to The Wash, it includes an arts centre and two or three eateries.

Finding a restaurant I liked the look of – it served a tart with local brown shrimps – I was stymied by the discovery that many such independent places close at 2pm. Which is entirely fair enough.

I wandered down the shopping street, looking for anything that didn’t represent Clone Town. There were maybe three shops I spotted, including a small cookshop, which actually provided me with a decent sized piping bag and the largest, plain nozzle I’ve been able to find. But the only obvious places for fodder were fast food joints. I wasn’t actually on the verge of collapsing from starvation.

And so, as I wandered, I found myself back at the far end of the first street I’d explored.

Once more at the arts centre, I decided that the café there would simply have to do. In the event, it offered the promise of a “Norfolk ploughmans,” which seemed ideal.

The menu said that it came with either Stilton, Cheddar or ham. I asked which of these was the most local – it did describe itself as a Norfolk dish, after all. The waitress seemed slightly confused. The ham, she told me, was from a local butcher, who seemed (if I understood her correctly) to either have a farm or get his meat from a local one.

The Stilton obviously wasn’t local. The Cheddar possibly, if it was simply a reference to the process of cheddaring. I asked if I could have a little of each of the ham and Cheddar.

I knew she was slightly thrown by my question because I overheard her, a moment or two later, commenting to a colleague. It simply wasn’t a question they’d heard before.

In the event, the ham was a little dry but very tasty and the cheese wasn’t bad at all. The real revelation was the salad, which was tasty and impeccably fresh. In other words, worth eating. And the pickle was enjoyable too.

Thus sustained, I set off to find the railway station and head back to town.

It was a journey that dragged a tad, on a slowish train with few carriages and lots of passengers – several of whom seemed to think that holding a personal conversation on their mobile phone, loudly, is a good idea.

I spotted a number of birds, however, as we sped through the countryside. A grouse and a pheasant, I think – both at the edge of fields, near hedges and trees. And Ely's cathedral looked incredible.

But as we crawled back into the dismal mess that is currently King’s Cross station, and I fought through crowds and building work to get outside, desperate to get home and flop in front of the telly, it was with a nagging feeling that perhaps the country isn’t as bad as unattractive as I’ve thought for many years.

A hotel for kinky dwarves?

In the past few years, I have become adept at hotel stays. From a time when I might stop in a hotel once a year – if that – I'm now at a stage of clocking up a lot more hotel stays than that, with many of them coming as a result of work.

Last week was just such an occasion – in Bournemouth this time, where I was working at a major conference. Fortunately, given that I (and The Other Half) was away for a full six nights, it was a good hotel. Indeed, it was rather posh; perched high on the cliffs overlooking the sea, with glorious views of the bay, west to the Old Harry Rocks off Swanage on one side and east to the Isle of Wight on the other.

The hotel, indeed, was the Highcliff. Formerly part of the Hilton chain, it's now owned by Marriott International.

None of which obviously explained why not only was there the obligatory Gideon Bible in the room, but also a copy of the Book of Mormon.

For that, I had to resort to good old Google.

It seems that the chairman and CEO John Willard 'Bill' Marriott Junior (who's 78, so not all that 'junior' any more) is a member in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – the Mormons. Indeed, not just a member, but a member of Area Seventy, which might sound another part of the US that's the secret home to loads of little grey men from outer space, but is apparently a Mormon priesthood.

Which rather sent me away on a surreal musing about what book you could place in a room if you owned an hotel or even a chain of hotels. How about Colin Schindler's Manchester United Ruined My Life? Or a nice little collection of kinky porn stories? Or how about The Communist Manifesto?

Funny but true – any of those might be considered offensive and produce complaints, yet it seems that the one ethos that you can happily foist on others is religion.

But this was hardly the only thing that was weird about the hotel.

Now I've got used to the way in which the end of your loo roll in the bathroom is always folded every day. And I've got used to the current obsession with superfluous soft furnishings – cushions on beds, for instance; what are you supposed to do with them?

But the Highcliff Marriott had me stymied for other reasons, I admit.

Since we were both there for the duration, The Other Half and I had a double room. Except that it wasn't really. It was a large bed – but with six pillows instead of the rather more usual four. What is one to do with six pillows? Assuming one sleeps with two pillows, are the spare two to act as a barrier between bed partners? It's not actually easy to sleep across one and a half pillows, so should you just chuck them on the floor?

But then it dawned on me that there was another clue. In the bathroom, there were three bath towels, three hand towels and three facecloths.

Perhaps it wasn't a double room after all – perhaps it was a triple! They were expecting three in the bed (and bath)!

But here's where it all gets a bit X Files. How could they know in advance that both The Other Half and I might be described as being vertically challenged? (A former editor once christened our home 'Dwarf Towers' – oh, the joys of Scouse wit)

Was there another short-arse trotting around the place that we were being lined up with? Were they – whoever 'they' are – anticipating our bumping into a similarly sized person and inviting them back to our suitably prepared room?

And what of that 'them'? Male or female? I'm easily pleased, but The Other Half is not so flexible, as far as I know.

Those Mormons are – or were – into polygamy: perhaps it's all intended as a form of horizontal conversion, to go with the book that stayed in the drawer?

By the end of a week in which adrenalin seems to bring hysteria nearer and nearer to the surface, I was no more enlightened. I just wonder if I missed some sort of opportunity.

Spare a thought ...

Today is International Workers Memorial Day: a time for remembering all the men and women who have died at or as a direct result of their work.

The figures make sobering reading.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), across the world:

each year, more than 2 million women and men die as a result of work-related accidents and diseases;

workers suffer approximately 270 million occupational accidents each year and fall victim to some 160 million incidents of work-related illnesses;

hazardous substances kill 440,000 workers annually – asbestos alone claims 100,000 lives;

one worker dies every 15 seconds worldwide; 6,000 workers die every day. More people die at work than die fighting in wars.

So today is partly about raising awareness of that hidden toll.

In the UK, there is a belief among some people that health and safety is bad – usually because it's used as an excuse by organisations that don't want to or cannot afford to do something, or are terrified of potential litigation: there is no ban on children playing conkers, for instance.

But some companies still try to claim that health and safety costs too much – as if pounds, shillings and pence, and a perceived inconvenience of implementation) are more important than human lives – and some companies are simply sloppy in their implementation of health and safety.

An acquaintance of mine was injured at work three years ago. Sent to clean a wall, he was given the wrong ladder for the job. It slipped. He went with it, crashing down onto his back and head. There was no trained first aider on site: a manager gave his back a rub and told him to go home – driving himself, after hitting his head.

His back gives him almost constant pain. He's fighting for compensation – but it won't actually take away the pain or the prospect of major spinal surgery that doctors are discussing.

And all because some small, basic precautions were not taken. This was not a small company either, but one of the biggest in the UK.

I was on a construction site, photographing today's ceremony – the first year in which it has been an officially recognised day in the UK. Kitted out in proper safety boots, visibility jacket and hard hat, I was escorted up several floors by one of the site managers. He explained that, not only is smoking not allowed on site (they have a special area set aside), but neither are mobile phones. If that sounds petty, then think about how concentrating on a phone call could quite easily make you lose concentration on what you were doing, where you were walking etc. And on a construction site, that has the potential for serious problems – not just for the individual on the phone, but for their colleagues too.

Health and safety exists for a reason.

So today, wear your purple ribbon with pride: remember the dead – and fight for the living.

Have camera, will travel

It's little more than a week since I got back from Newcastle – and it feels less – but just as I've managed to catch my breath, I'm preparing for another trip; to Belfast, this time.

It's funny – I never really imagined traveling for work. But our new editor – well, newish now, after a year in the job – is determined that I should not be officebound. And it's one of the surprising points about the last three years that, where previously my career had developed so that I had become a 'humble' sub editor who could also write, I now have an all-rounder tag, with photography becoming almost as important a part of my work as the other two aspects of journalism.

Now that's something I never expected.

I first picked up a camera back in 1982. Or to put it more accurately, a college friend foisted a couple of lenses on me (charging me a nominal amount), after she'd managed to bust her own camera body under her car and wanted to upgrade to a different make.

The body had been a Zenith EM – Soviet made and a sort of T34 tank of a camera: so solid that she must have gone some to bust the body with anything other than a tank. Thus, on a trip from college in Leicester to London, she carted me into a shop at London Bridge and organised my purchase of a new Zenith body.

You may gather from this that I didn't have much of a mind of my own at the time, although I will add, by way of some explanation, that she was a mature student.

Any mind of my own had been absorbed, for some years, by chasing my dream of a life in the theatre. So, banned from even attempting to get into drama school, I was studying for a degree in performing arts at Leicester Polytechnic, majoring in drama. The year was a disaster: I was booted out at the end of that time – for having had the temerity to suffer a nasty back injury at the hands of one of the leaders of a 'voluntary' workshop, and then being signed off by my family doctor for a further week after the Easter holiday.

I wondered about legal action – but my parents were not remotely interested (I suspect they considered it some sort of a divine blessing, wrenching me away from theatrical types) and the students' union was no help either.

My plans were in ruins. But the almost-unshatterable Zenith stayed with me for years. Not that I did much with it. Film was expensive and developing costs even more so. Particularly for someone with a negligable income, as I lurched between poorly-paid work and the dole. This was a decade of two recessions – both of which hit the North West hard.

When I did pick up the camera, it was as mysterious as an archeological relic covered in runes. I hadn't the first clue about aperture or shutter or measuring light or anything else. I could point. And I could shoot. And if I was very lucky, I might get a picture worth looking at. Actually, if I was lucky, I might get a picture that you could actually see.

Some years later, after I'd moved to London and was living in a squat, the camera was stolen from my room. To be honest, I didn't really miss it. Holidays – such as they were – in the coming years were recorded in standard snapshots, with basic Kodak jobbies and even, on one spectacularly broke occasion, staying with an old friend in Anglesey, with pencil and paper.

Then, just over four years ago, my ship came in when an elderly relative left me some money. The old computer took one look at the cheque and died with a fine (if theatrical) sense of timing. Having replaced that, it seemed sensible to invest a small amount in a compact digital camera. I got an Olympus from Boots. For half the original price and with a load of loyalty card points as an extra bonus. And then I put the camera away until our first jaunt to France and Spain, around six months later.

Free from the fear of spiraling developing costs, the pictures were surprisingly good, although even then, I didn't pay much attention to that.

It was another few months down the line, planning a job, that I realised that taking the camera to an event would allow me to do an illustrated vox pop, instead of expecting the 'official' photographer to follow me around. Without realising it at the time, I'd set a snowball in motion.

Eventually, the sensible thing was to get a more serious camera – an SLR. Gradually, I began to understand and pick up the technical stuff; but the crucial thing was the realisation that I have 'an eye'.

All those years ago, when I was battling, heart and soul, to carve out a life treading the boards, my teachers had firmly expected me to go into art. Specifically, into graphic art. My training and career had been mapped out. In detail.

Yet somehow, the girl who couldn't refuse to buy an unwanted camera from a domineering college friend managed to refuse teachers and parents. But even if unappreciated or simply hidden, 'the eye' remained.

And next week, before flying out to Belfast – dragging a heavy rucksack of camera gear through security in the splendour of Heathrow – I'm slated to cover an event at Westminster to do with supporting families and young people. With cartoon character Peppa Pig and 'Mum of the Year' and former glamour model, Melinda Messenger.

One things for certain: it's a long way from that Zenith EM and complete photographic illiteracy.

Brighton days and nights

Back in The Smoke from sunny Brighton, it's time to relax a little after a frenetic few days.

Goodness knows why some people imagine that conferences are a perk of the job – most of our team were knackered by 9pm. And indeed, I was in bed at the ridiculously early time of 10pm every night I was there.

Still, there are obvious compensations – when the weather's on song, you can amble along the seafront at lunchtime or even, as I managed on Tuesday, first thing in the morning. Then there's hardly a soul around, the light is beautiful, the sky a clear blue, and the only sounds are the water, lanyards tap tap tapping against boat masts and the shrieking of the gulls, which glide above, seemingly for the sheer pleasure of it.

The food was okay: the biggest surprise was a bar meal of scampi and chips in the hotel itself, where the chips were actually hand cut. I can't remember the last time I had chips that weren't out of the freezer. And scampi, I admit, is an old food love.

When I was a child, occasionally the family would go to Blackpool for the day. And if we ate out, I thought that nothing in the world was finer, or more exotic, than scampi and chips. So in a fit of nostalgia, I still indulge now and again.

Indeed, I had the same dish at the Regency fish restaurant on the prom the next night. Everything in Brighton seems to be called 'Regency'. There's the restaurant, the Regency Amusement Arcade, the Regency pub and the Regency goodness knows what else.

But back to food. The very non-Regency Alfresco sits in the old municipal ice cream parlour on the seafront. And directly opposite the hotel we were in. On Monday night – my last evening in town – we went for a meal.

Situ is great – it'd be hard to imagine much better: we had a table right at one end and, with windows all around, it offered a lovely view of the English Channel and the seafront itself.

So to the food. Large portion syndrome is at play at Alfresco.

I had a starter of crisp Soignon goat’s cheese on fine green beans with a pepperonata sauce (an Italian stew of onions and peppers). Very tasty it was indeed – and the cheese was huge.

I followed up with linguine with crab, chilli and parsley, finished with Sardinian bottarga. The bottarga is mullet roe. I didn't notice any of that – but then again, I didn't notice much chilli either. Plenty of linguine, though. Okay, it wasn't bad, but I'm bound to say that a very similar dish that I do myself occasionally is tastier. There's some chilli in it, for starters, which acts as a lovely counterbalance to the sweet crab meat. That and some lemon juice stop it being bland.

A lot of the pasta went uneaten. And after a suitable gap, I had a little vanilla ice cream to finish. We had a bottle of Verdicchio, which was pretty good, but nothing I'd particularly look for again.

Why do restaurants serve such vast amounts of food? I hate leaving food, but on such occasions, I've no choice. The cheese in the starter was very nice, but it could have been smaller. And there really was far too much pasta with the main course.

Anyhow, that was the food.

I got through three days of listening to conference debates and speeches, dashing back to the 'media centre' (a large, windowless room in a smart hotel nearby) and writing it all up. Then repeat.

And Tuesday offered a real West Wing sort of moment, reporting the general secretary's speech to conference. A bravura performance from Dave Prentis – he's not a rabble-rousing, tub-thumping speaker. But this had some very clever nuances and got the delegates on side quickly. Always useful at the start of conference.

It was a wrench to leave Brighton after that – I wanted to stay around and chew the fat with others. It felt like leaving a party early.

I feel sorry for people like Dave: a loyal Labour Party member for years, he's watched as the party that is supposed to represent working people has simply turned its back and betrayed their aspirations. I can't claim to be disillusioned myself – quite simply because I never had any illusions about Blair et al. I'll admit that I did, for the briefest of moments, entertain a slight hope that when Gordon Brown became prime minister, there might be some positive change, but such optimism didn't last long.

Tuesday's speech was much more shackles off: not just the careful warnings of the last few years.

But one is left with the next question: if traditional Labourites no longer feel that they can vote for Labour – a party that has simply carried on and extended the Thatcherite economic agenda, including privatisation – who can they vote for?

Arthur Scargill's vanity party? Bob Crow and his coalition of anti-EU fellow believers? Respect, that front for the Socialist Workers' Party and George Galloway's posing, which changes its policies depending on how many Muslim voters it thinks it can win?

Who knows. Perhaps the Labour Party can be rescued. But Parliamentary politics is a one-sided mess at present and no obvious and decent alternative is on the horizon, leaving disillusioned people to vote for fascists.

Interesting times we live in.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Ever the jetsetter, I'm gadding off to Brighton tomorrow.

Okay, it's not by jet but by train, and it's strictly for work. But I hardly seem to have got back from Berlin, and Paris is on the horizon, so it all seems rather a whirl at present, with barely the time to get my clothes washed and ironed.

But the English seaside is a joy all of its own.

My current employer operates an annual exercise in democracy by having a conference of the organisation's membership every year. There are so many elected delegates that there are only two conference venues in Britain that are big enough to hold such an event – Bournemouth and Brighton, but on England's south coast.

We alternate and this year's it's Brighton's turn. Thankfully.

My first such conference was three years ago and came warmly on the heels of a first trip to France and Spain. Having really appreciated the food on that holiday, one of the things that I particularly looked forward to was eating out in Bournemouth.

My hopes were rapidly dashed with a series of meals that decreasingly hit the heights – and the bar had been set depressingly low to start with. Not only that, but it was far more expensive eating in Bournemouth than in Barcelona or Paris.

Still, Brighton the following year was better. There is, if nothing else, a very decent fish and chip restaurant on the seafront, just between the conference centre and the hotel I'll be ensconced in. And a decent modern Italian just over the road too – although from memory, their portion sizes are excessive. Why can't British restaurants give you the chance to ask for a small portion? I hate wasting food, but can rarely pack down a whole British two courses – never mind three.

Doubtless work will be busy. There'll be impassioned debate, plus the usual sort of: 'TUC get off your knees – strike now!' rhetoric.

But there's much to do and I hope to survive. And maybe I'll be able to find enough time to visit the Brighton Pavilion with camera in hand too.

Oh, how I do like to be beside the seaside.