Modern language traits

Good grief, it's getting ridiculous. I'm talking about the bastardisation of our beautiful language. I blame US and Australian influences such as the terrible programmes 'Friends' and 'Neighbours'. What I mean is:
'How .... is that?' (Normally 'cool')
'That's soooo ...' (Often 'cool')
'Guys' (also sexist).
Rising inflection at the end of each sentence whether its a question or not.
Tut.

Being grumpy is good for you!

Its official! In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8339647.stm

Rome - real ale, pizza and footie

Last week I went to Rome to see Fulham get robbed of a famous victory by a useless ref.
When I was there I managed to find some real ale bars and ate some fantastic pizza.
Here are my recommendations:
The Trastevere district has some great bars and restaurants.
Real ale is on sale at the tiny Che Siete Venuti a Fa (Via Benedetta), also known as the Football Pub as there are scarves up and all matches are screened. They had about 10 real ales on draught and I had a couple of halves (E3.5 each) - a Scottish golden ale from the Brew Dog brewery and an Italian Tipico ale.
http://www.football-pub.com/
Across the road is a more swanky place called Bir and Fud which had about 6 on draught and also did plenty of tasty looking food. They had copies of the CAMRA paper and 'Beer' and also the American 'Beer Advocate' magazine (that looked amazingly like the new Beer magazine and has been around a lot longer). They are very serious about their real ale here with pictures of hopfields and loads of bottles of guest ale. Their (italian) blog is here: http://birefud.blogspot.com/

There are other real ale bars in Rome such as Braserie 4:20. More at: http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson/rome073.html
And an Italian real ale brewer is here:www.birra-amiata.it that produce 9 real ales in bottles. Their leaflet suggests foods to match them with.
I also went to an Oirish bar after the game called the Druid's Den. It was grim - E5.50 for a disgusting pint of nitro Guiness bitter (can't remember its name). http://www.druidspubrome.com/rome_virtual_tour.htm

I also had some fantastic pizza in Trastavere at Dar Poeta - locals packed in like sardines, brilliant bruschetta with canneloni beans and a spicey tomato sauce and a tuna, artichoke and parsley topped pizza, let down by a horrid lager. About E18. 5/5 http://darpoeta.com/home_ingdp.html

And even better pizza at a tiny takeaway called Sisini at Via di San Francesco a Ripa 137. A massive slice of anchovy pizza for E3. Another 5/5.

Great coffee and spinach and ricotta tart at a Lateria in Travestre almost opposite the football pub.

If going to St Peters Sq walk from the river, a block to the north, through the Vatican city wall is a great proper old Rome street with great little shops and bars.

If you get sick of pasta and pizza there's a fine little kebab shop at Via Cavore 50 - I ended up here after the game with a killer falafel kebab and a big beastly cold bottle of Peroni for a bargain E2.50. I went back the next day and got a wrapped kebab to take to the airport for the trip home.

Preston Park Tavern, Havelock Road, Brighton

This was visited in October 2009 without the 2 other GOGs, but with my good lady wife, 3 year old daughter and 2 friends who enjoy eating at Michelin starred restaurants. The PPT (aka The Ladypub) was done up a couple of years ago and is now no longer the hount of hairy arsed builders but is a light, airy, neighborhood 'gastropub' populated by women in Boden. It is in fact hardly a pub - there's about a fifth of its seating area for drinkers, the rest either formally or informally acting as a restaurant. The Harveys is excellent, though.
We've had a few meals there ranging from good to mediocre. This one was a bit better than mediocre. We had a variety of starters which were well received - I had meditaranean veg. The main courses were underwhelming. My bream (balanced - of course - on top of the potatoes and veg) was good but there was too much butter everywhere else. This was echoed by my companions. They do make an effort to welcome children (a wise business decision in this area) but the childrens menu is unadventurous.
Must try harder.
3/5

http://www.prestonparktavern.co.uk/

Grasping car park owners in N Devon

I arrived at Putsborough car park in N Devon on Saturday afternoon at around 4.15pm. There was about an hour left of light. They still charged me £3! This is typical of the grasping landowners around that area. Years ago (before surfing got so reidiculously popular, they charges only applied in summer and by 4pm there would be no charge. There were about 200 cars in the car park at that time so a conservative estimate would have been about 500 cars there all day. Thats about 2 grand taken in one day (it costs more earlier in the day. What do you get for that? A mown piece of grass and some toilets. The cafe erected a few years ago makes a nice profit as well.
Just to rub it in, I got dropped in on on every wave.





http://www.putsborough.com/