• Creamers at Stoke Potteries Museum
    I arrived in Stoke earlier than I expected on Tuesday, so I went for a visit around the Stoke Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Obviously there was a lot of Pottery on display. I came round one corner and had to laugh. It was like a corner of Tutankamun’s tomb or the Terracotta Army’s Farmyard. Row upon row of cow shaped creamer were piled into a display cabinet as if ready to go to war on unskimmed milk. Rather fabulous, as were many of the other exhibits. As with these things it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. So much spectacular china on display that it becomes hard to see the individual pieces, but I realised that I do have a soft spot for naive slipware.

    I bought a bread mixing bowl at auction once. Everyone thought I was mad paying a fiver for it, but i speaks to me and looks so like the the bowls on display in the museum except that it has a machined rope-finish edge which makes it look machine manufactured, but I’m convinced it’s hand made otherwise. Perhaps I should take it along to the Antiques Road show one day, and find out what it really is.

  • If Little Chef were cheap, then I’d understand, but they are not. Their sites must be cheap and the rates can’t be too expensive and mostly they have a captive audience for breakfast in a nearby Travelodge.

    Eight quid for and early starter and a cup of coffee is daylight robbery. The sausage is mostly sawdust and gluten, the hashbrowns are recycled bits of potato and the toast doesn’t even come with a scrape of marmalade.

    How can a little B and B manage to produce a brilliant breakfast with local butcher’s sausages and bacon, home made marmalade and proper bread, real coffee and still make a profit? The answer is easy, actually. it takes a little care and love and desire to please the customer

    Little Chef don’t care about their customers. Their staff must go to special indifference classes. Surely Little Chef could buy decent raw ingredients at a decent price with it’s superior buying power? Teach it’s staff to give a toss and deliver with love and attention?

    I’m sure if they did they would treble their turnover and more. People would want to go there rather than have to go there if there is no alternative. This morning, between 7.30 and 88.15 ther were four customers in the Little Chef I was in. Two were having coffee and tea only.

    Half your prices – double the quality – serve it with a smile and watch the queues build outside your doors.

  • I went to a performance of Handel’s Messiah last night, performed by the Monmouth Choral Society. It was their conductor’s last night, so they there was an extra charge and the choir were singing their thanks for his time with them.

    In one of the choral airs, the music builds to the phrase, “he shall be known as Wonderful…” Handel skips a beat before the word Wonderful, giving the whole ensemble, Choir, Soloists, Orchestra and Organ to blast in with this one word.

    The forst time I was so surprised I saw gold and amber in the music. It wasn’t a visual manifestation or a vision but a strong sense of colour.

    Afterwards I was saying how I loved the way Handle spun the melodies together in and upwards spiral. Blank faces made me realise that maybe not everybody sees or senses shapes or colours in music!