Daily bread

Yesterday morning, Malcolm sat musing on the day ahead, munching toast and marmalade.

The bread wrapper caught his eye. It boasts:

“This loaf is made to the same recipe my father created 40 years ago. With 100% wholemeal flour, it’s not only full of goodness, it tastes great too.”

Jonathan Warburton. 

Isn’t tradition a wonderful thing!

Except forty years takes us back to the 1970s, to Wonderloaf and Mother’s Pride, hardly the acme of British bread-making.

When Malcolm mentioned just that to the Lady in his Life, she capped it with a thought of her own, all the way from a Portadown playground:

If you eat Jim Davison’s bread
It sticks to your belly like lead
So it’s not a bit of wonder
That you fart like thunder
When you eat Jim Davison’s bread.

That’s pushing tradition back even further. The Davison Brothers had a bakery on the corner of Obins Street and Park Road, and were delivering locally with horse-drawn vans down to the 1930s. By then the big Belfast bakers were muscling in with advertising and mass-production (and, just possibly, a bit of black propaganda through skipping games).

The present big name in Portadown baking is Irwin’s, which started as a small craft bakery behind the grocery shop in Woodhouse Street. It has now expanded and taken over the old William Clow Mill, with its products a regular feature in supermarkets across Britain.

What Malcolm cannot get through his local supermarket is a decent potato farl, by Irwin’s or anyone else. Such an item may not appear on a healthy English breakfast table. For, as Malcolm’s good-living, jogging, cycling son-in-law described an Ulster fry breakfast: death by cholesterol.

Farls?

Time, once more, to educate the ignorant Saxons.

It’s a Scottish word, it seems, a survival of Old English: féorða dǽl, which as eny fule kno [© Nigel Molesworth] is a “fourth part”. Quartered logs provided Hamlet with his soliloquised image:

When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life …

At this stage in the post, you may well appreciate how the automatic spellcheck messes with Malcolm’s erudition.

Nookes, yards and mutchkins

Still, sticking with fardels, they were also a land measure.

Back around 1624, Charles I’s Attorney General, William Noye told us, in his Complete Lawyer (that such a wonder should exist!):

 Two Fardells of Land make a Nooke of Land, and two Nookes make halfe a Yard of Land.

Noye was a Cornishman, made good, and this fardel/farl usage seems to have persisted mainly in the remoter fastnesses of Britain, well beyond where the M25 girdles decent society, sophistication, and civilisation.

We might, in passing, acknowledge Robert Wodrow, in The history of the sufferings of the Church of Scotland, from the Restauration to the Revolution, reporting William Sutherland buying himself:

… a Farthel of Bread and a Mutckin of Ale.

Mutchkin? Another word that deserves revival: “a measure equal to an English pint” say some. The OED is magisterial:

A measure of capacity for liquids and for dry substances of a powdery or granular nature, such as salt, equal to a quarter of a Scottish pint or roughly three quarters of an imperial pint (0.43 litres); a vessel containing this amount. Occas.: an imperial pint, esp. as a measure for spirits.

More to the point, in days when beer most usually came in quarts, and a three-bottle-man was not unduly remarkable, the term implies “a small amount”.

Literary farls

The common farl makes a couple of appearances in the canon. Malcolm checks them off:

• Robert Burns has this in The Holy Fair:

Here farmers gash, in ridin graith,
Gaed hoddin by their cotters;
There swankies young, in braw braid-claith,
Are springing owre the gutters.
The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang,
In silks an’ scarlets glitter;
Wi’ sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang,
An’ farls, bak’d wi’ butter,
Fu’ crump that day.

Don’t expect a full exegesis if that now: suffice it to say that Burns is in full-on irony mode. His sub-title was Hypocrisy-a-la-mode, and he contrasts the holy-day gathering, with its parade of eminent preachers, and folk out on a Bacchanalian, anything-goes, over-the-top, indulgent holiday outing. Somewhat closer to William Hogarth than Billy Graham. The vocabulary, and much of the imagery, precludes the ballad from a school-text book.

• Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor and its contemporary popularity was the basis for Donizetti’s now-better known opera. It was one of two Scott novels published together in 1819 as the third instalment of Tales of My Landlord. This other episode is the story of a love triangle, set in Montrose’s campaign against the Covenanters and Civil War period, A Legend of Montrose. Sadly, Scott is out of fashion; but — should one wish — there, at the end of Chapter III we find our farl:

“Do so, Captain,” said Lord Menteith; “you will have the night to think of it, for we are now near the house, where I hope to ensure you a hospitable reception.”

“And that is what will be very welcome,” said the Captain, “for I have tasted no food since daybreak but a farl of oatcake, which I divided with my horse. So I have been fain to draw my sword-belt three bores tighter for very extenuation, lest hunger and heavy iron should make the gird slip.”

Southgate and the Cherry Tree

Once upon a time, when the world was young, the Lady in his Life and Malcolm would resort to the Cherry Tree occasionally.

Then it became one of those steak bars where the beer was fizz and the steaks were sliced off a elderly elephant.

Today, after many years and for other reasons, she and he had to pass the door.

Initial impressions were mixed. Clearly the joint has been tidied up. As always, this means a decent pub has the sitting area projected back in time a century or so (this involves furnishings and fittings from a decayed saddlery and/or blacksmith), while the serving area takes note of electronic payments and the need for a basic wine list.

In short, this is now branded as one of Mitchells and Butlers’ Vintage Inns. Since M&B  (itself a rebranding of Bass) is one of those notorious PubCo combines, say no more.

And yet …

The initial impression was favourable. Three real ales on pump: London Pride, Mad Goose and a Hawkshead — promising stuff (Malcolm would manage two of the three. He has a thing about “blond beer”).

The Lady needed feeding, so another revelation: a decent (and well-priced) day-time menu. Wash that down with a competent Pinot Grigio from the short, but adequate wine-list, and we are definitely winning.

The Cherry Tree will hardly feature a  CAMRA “must-see” recommendation (though, perhaps it should). The beerintheevening crowd will continue to scorn it. Tough. They are missing out on what may yet save the English suburban boozer.

What makes the difference is that someone is making the effort, in food and drink. And even a bit of atmosphere.

Saturday IV

By now it was pushing towards evening. Reunion with the Lady in his Life was due, and Malcolm was mellow.

There really were only a few trivialities left to report.

More fodder. More drink

Nothing much to say about that. Islington is stuffed full of eateries and drinkers. Some quite interesting.

You really need to venture out of Islington Green to find the better watering holes (The Bull, in Upper Street, is none too distant and there are several in the Liverpool and Caledonian Roads). If barking dogs (and by this stage, Malcolm’s feet were killing him) dissuade you from extended movement, there’s always the Camden Head in … err … Camden Passage.

This was where, allegedly, the urinal wall first featured the classic graffiti exchange:

— My mother made me a homsexual.
— If I gave her the wool, would she do the same for me?

The Camden Head

Malcolm has been coming here, off-and-on, since the later ’60s. It remains an unreconstructed  Victorian gin-palace, and is well avoided at crunch times (which means weekends and later evenings). The clientele tends to be young, trendy, affluent and loud. Yet, choose your moment, and all is well.

On this occasion, with just half-an-hour to himself (the Lady in his Life was still to be met on the other side of the Green) Malcolm found space in a corner.

Inevitably, on the pump was Sharp’s Doom Bar, a decent — if unexciting 4% bitter. It’s everything one would expect as a massed produced item (it’s absolutely everywhere!) from the Molsom/Coors stable. It appeals to the Pert Young Piece. Say no more.

One can usually do better; and Malcolm reckons he did.

Still, it started a train of thought.

The meeting with the Lady in his Life was at Brown’s, an attempt at a bistro atmosphere and so very popular with the yummy-mummy and media wannabes of Islington. It’s also an easy place to retire and eat. And, also also, right next door to Waterstone’s bookshop.

It doesn’t sell real beer,

However, and hello! Among the fizzy continentals is Korev, which is the St Austell brewery’s attempt at a lager. And, putting prejudices aside, not a bad one. And so the train of thought was back on the tracks.

One by-product of the Doom Bar phenomenon is that Cornish beers (or, to be more exact, brews branded from Cornwall) have become commonplace in London, and further afield. Some of them are very good stuff. Malcolm goes, happily, for a couple in particular:

St Austell Proper Job

This is a step up from 4.2% Tribute, itself no slouch.

The extra gravity (this one comes in at 4.5%) gives it a bit more “elbow”, and the American hoppiness gives it extra sharpness. Sadly, it doesn’t turn up as often as it should, but the Nicholson’s houses across London seem to have Tribute as a regular.

Which is no bad thing.

Skinner’s

This is a smaller brewery, based in Truro, and its products don’t get the coverage they deserve. Not, one suspects, because of lack of demand: more of supply.

The one to look for is Cornish Knocker, a 4.5% golden ale. Get past the “funny” beer pump clip (these are an omnipresent menace), imbibe slowly, and allow some complex flavours to emerge.

The “quaffing” session-beer from Skinner’s is Betty Stogs. Again, the label is unnecessarily “advanced”: the legend is that Betty was a Cornish trollop, who one morning found the pixies had taken pity on her neglected child, cleaned him up — and so Betty became a reformed character. What we have is a 4% ale, again with that complex flavour. By the look of it, Betty has been given a recent image social upgrade of late (see below).

Finally: home to roost

One of the joys of ending the evening in Islington is the 43 bus runs regularly, and all the way home to Muswell Hill.

Coming up the Archway Road, normally a noxious exhaust-filled chasm, there was a superb autumnal sky, egg-shell blue with radiant shocking-pink con-trails.

Nice!

Saturday II

Smithfield to Tower Bridge, and a last glimpse of Summer

What next? Well, some lunch of course.

Heading towards the City, Smithfield is not the best prospect for a Saturday pub lunch. There are, indeed, some decent joints around here. The Fullers’ house, the Butcher’s Hook and Cleaver, makes an effort. Similarly the Fox and Anchor, which is most definitely for the upwardly mobile. Yesterday, though, the pubs that were open seemed to be hosting wedding parties.

Smithfield itself, the old meat market, is definitely worth including in any stroll of these parts. The whole site has been a running sore between developers and conservationists for many year. Our City Fathers would like nothing better than to clear the site and shove up yet more anonymous multi-stories of office space. It looks, though, as if the conservationists may have won.

The east end of the site is currently a gaping hole for the construction of Crossrail, so we shall probably have a mega-corporative hive imposed there.  Only a total philistine (which adequately defines much of the City of London, and all developers) would fail to see the potential of the Grand Avenue:

The old girl is a bit rough for now — this is still a working building. She’d scrub up well. Think what has happened in Covent Garden (now grossly over-populated with rubber-necking tourists and a few genuine shoppers). Glass in either end of the Grand Avenue. Encourage a cafe-culture to develop. Whoopie-doo! Either side, where the carnivore business is done, would be prime for redevelopment of the retail-therapy kind. Just keep the ironwork. And the iconic clock.

Tower Bridge and the Bridge House

After a quick sidestep to Barbican Station, it’s the Circle Line to Tower Hill. Shufty round the corner into Minories and there’s the RV1 bus waiting at its terminus.

Were there a H2G2 award for simply the most useful conveyance around touristic London, the RV1 should qualify for the play-offs.

Start at the back of the Tower. Over Tower Bridge. Right down Tooley Street, past London  Bridge Station. Nipping as close as dammit to the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern. Back of the National Theatre, the Royal Festival Hall, and a view of the Great Gerbil Wheel. Waterloo Station. Back over the river on Waterloo Bridge. Somerset House. And so to Covent Garden. Or do the whole thing in reverse.

Meanwhile, boarding back at Minories, a moment of pity for the bewildered tourist wondering if this was the bus for the Tour Breej, wheech (gestures to suggest the lifting bascules). Yes, indeed, just two stops. But turn around; walk a couple of dozen yards that way and you’ll see it. We’ll be taking the scenic route via Aldgate, so walking gets you there there quicker.

Having almost missed the bus in explaining that, three stops later, the Lady in his Life and Malcolm are once again at the Bridge House, the usual resort.

Who are all these people?

The sheer number of sightseers on and around the Bridge yesterday was staggering. Perhaps the whole Olymics thing has extended the tourist season. Perhaps it was just the “back-to-school” Indian summer of this weekend. Whatever … the place was heaving.

The Bridge House remains the great undiscovered treasure of these parts.

Let’s not tell people, huh? They don’t deserve it.

3L (see below)

A very merry biped,
I’ve learned to walk upright.
Shometimes I may shtagger,
But mainly when I’m tight.

Malcolm’s hymn to a Long Liquid Lunch (hereafter 3L) is now offered to the world.

Back to the Stag

Which has appeared previously in these meanderings; and is now something of a regular pilgrimage, particularly when there are daughters to be fed and watered, or — as yesterday — when the Lady in Malcolm’s Life is restless and feels nomadic.

So:

Finchley High Road
Costs not a penny
From Muswell Hill
With your Freedom Pass …

And about the same if you are going to outlying places such as Finchley Central and Golders Green: which brings up again the serious matter of the GNLP.

The GNLP, Malcolm?

As previously explained, you idle toad (click the hot-link next time: it helps Malcolm’s stats and makes him feel good) —

The Great Norf Lunnun Problem is best summed up by the Alan Klein/Geoff Stephens lyric for the New Vaudeville Band, back in 1967 — and, astoundingly not still not included in Time Out‘s list of 100 best London Songs (which manages to embrace some real stinkers):

For hours I waited; 
But I’m blowed, you never showed

At Finchley Central, ten long stations
From Golders Green, change at Camden Town.
I thought I’d made you, but I’m afraid you
Really let me down …

About the time that ditty was current, Malcolm was “involved” with a person in Hampstead flat-life,  and so acquired a close interest in the failings of the Northern Line. For the record she is still the Lady in Malcolm’s Life, so cast no nasturtiums, please.

The Northern Line has improved, but that’s a matter of degree. In those days the rolling stock was pre-war, signalling was Edwardian, and punctuality and reliability were … not taken seriously. The lifts at Hampstead tube station were venerable antiques: since Hampstead is the deepest tube station on the network, that involved too-frequent resource to the 320+ stairs up to street level.

Even today getting anywhere between the two forks of the Northern Line involves the dubious joys of a change at Camden Town, where you are truly at one with your neighbour (who was then and still is invariably an odiferous alky nutter).

So, the Finchley Central/Golder’s Green conundrum solves itself by the 82 bus route: eleven stops, every five minutes, takes  twenty minutes (half the time of that tedious tube journey), tops.

Err … the Stag?

Easy: buses 102 or 234 from Muswell Hill Broadway, which stop right across the road from the Stag. And there’s a very convenient controlled crossing.

No, Malcolm. Tell us about yesterday.

The Stag is part of a small chain of gastro-pubs which makes a virtue of offering products from independent brewers. For Malcolm the main event came courtesy of the Cottage Brewing Company of Castle Cary, Somerset: Blaze of Glory, a “special” 4.1% golden ale.

Let’s be frank here: Malcolm has a “thing” about those over-inventive beer-engine clips. The “wittier” the decal, the more the beer may disappoint. And here we have an awful warning of the type. Cottage Brewing make a fetish of their “mascot”, Jack the Whippet, and here he is in a frightener of a “seasonal” special.

Still, we’ve made the trip. We’re here for the beer. And what a surprise! A clean, crisp southern beer, served in a jug, and with just enough head to be decent. So Malcolm had another. And another …

And on the way home from his 3L was moved to compose the epic verse that heads this post.

Twelve and a tanner a bottle

Will Fyffe:

That’s 62½ post-decimal pence.

For what it’s worth, on 19th April 1920, Tory Chancellor Austen Chamberlain increased the price of a bottle of Scotch was increased from ten shillings (50p) to that exorbitant 12/6d. At the outbreak of the Second World War,  Liberal National Chancellor John Simon the price hiked it further to 14/3d.

By no coincidence, here’s the current issue of What’s Brewing, the CAMRA newsletter, arriving by the day’s post.

The Big Story, as each month, is the beer duty escalator. Britain now taxes each pint higher (and harder) than any other European country. For 5% ABV beer, the duty is 55p a pint (on top of which, over the counter, goes a further 20% VAT — so a £3.50 pint contributes at least £1.05 to Conservative Chancellor George Osborne’s kitty).

Only Sweden (47p), and Ireland (39p) come anywhere near. In Germany the tax is just 5p a pint. In France 7p.

There’s one country obviously missing, but Malcolm reckons that is because Belgian beer-tax seems an impenetrable conundrum. At least Belgium seems to have some sanity: the tax apparently is raised on the size of the brewery’s production, rather than the individual consumer’s capacity to be mulcted.

The e-petition on the beer duty escalator is here.

Llareggub revisited?

Yesterday afternoon to the National, for Enda Walsh’s Misterman. All the critics seem to have liked it, and there are general ravings about Cillian Murphy. So here’s the synopsis:

Inishfree might seem like a quaint Irish town, but fierce evangelist Thomas Magill knows better. He knows jovial Dwain Flynn is a miserable drunk, that Timmy O’Leary enslaves his lovely mother and that sweet Mrs Cleary is a blasphemous flirt.

It is down to Thomas, with God on his shoulder, to save this sinful place. But the townsfolk are not listening, an angel is misbehaving and a barking dog will not be silenced. Just how far will Thomas go in his quest for salvation?

Haven’t we been here before? Though perhaps Dylan Thomas was reflecting in amusement, rather than looking back in anger. The props manager and ASMs must have had a hard time clearing up the enormous stage (it seems to go far enough back to intrude on the front entrance of Chez Gerard). That Cillian Murphy has one heck of a kick on him. There must be an endless supply of clapped-out tape recorders for him to destroy.

Put it like this: Malcolm was no great deal the wiser. Irish towns have nutty bible-bashers (that’s a feature common to both tribes). Despite their efforts and effusions, this perverse, untidy and unreformed world keeps on spinning.

Next

The stroll along Bankside. A decent day. Tide low. Tourist season getting into full huddle. The clean-up in anticipation of the Jubilee nonsense seems to be rushing to an inevitable conclusion.

The Bridge House

As promised last week, Malcolm made it, albeit later than expected. There were, by the way, a couple of Nicholson’s houses that Malcolm missed in that last Riverside canter: the Horniman at Hays and the Doggetts Coat and Badge, which is slap-bang on Blackfriars Bridge. Both can get horrendously overcrowded; both have great Thames views; both (crowds excluded) do a decent job.

Once at the Bridge House (where crowds are rarely a problem), the Broadside was, as always, in good order. There were attentions and layings-on-of-hands from an over-friendly drunk, well dealt with by the duty manager — these things happen. Rest largely as expected. The decor has changed of late with a small collection of framed, but instantly-forgettable LP covers: about the only one Malcolm instantly recognised was the Rooftop Singers, but even that wasn’t the authentic Vanguard original.

Oh, well: why not take the opportunity —

Two twelve-strings (Erik Darling and Willard “Bill” Svanoe): that’s over-kill!

Once bitten …

It’s one of those places you cannot really remember, except for the name.

It faces onto the Snake River (that’s the literary device called foreshadowing). Clarkston, and its twin across the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers are named for the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805. Apparently the expedition never quite made it to this precise location, which became a community only during the Civil War (when it had the more intriguing name of Jawbone Flats). Today this where one heads towards for Hells Canyon, and that is spectacular.

About the only other detail about the place that springs to Malcolm’s mind is that, thanks to dams and locks, the Snake is navigable for sea-going vessels these three hundred and more miles from the ocean.

Perhaps we can forgive Malcolm’s lack of recollection: Clarkston claims a population of just over seven thousand, and so lives under the shadow of its larger neighbour, Lewiston (About which his memory is equally bereft). Inevitably, being a late construct, the town has that typically American, logical but boring grid pattern, with a difference: a mathematical southwest-to-northeast divisor, called — wait for it — Diagonal Street. original, huh? The north-south streets are numbered from east to west. The east-west streets are named for trees. As one heads north, they ran out of trees, so we find Bridge Street — which, obviously, leads to the bridge, and Fair Street — which …. errr …

North of that again, just short of the Snake River, is an industrial area, which (this being modern America) seems mainly warehousing and box-shops. There’s one spot of interest down here: the Riverport Brewing Company. Malcolm can thoroughly recommend their version of an IPA (left). Obviously not as photogenic as the less-appealing take (and a distant one) on a wheat-beer (right): a moment is about as long as you’ll take on it.

Close by, and right opposite the riverside campsite,  is, inevitably, a Walmart, one of those ginormous block structures visible from earth orbit.

And here is the location of today’s morality, courtesy of the BBC web-site:

A Wal-Mart customer is recovering after he was bitten by a rattlesnake in a garden department of the store chain.

Mica Craig said the reptile pounced as he was shopping at the store in the north-western US state of Washington.

The 47-year-old stamped on the serpent and was later treated at hospital with anti-venom, after his hand suffered serious swelling.

Wal-Mart apologised, and said it was investigating how the snake had entered the store in the city of Clarkston.

Kayla Whaling, a spokeswoman for the chain, said: “At this point, it appears to be an isolated incident.

“We are working with a pest management team, which is conducting a sweep of the property to ensure there is no additional rattlesnake activity.”

Another customer, Maria Geffre, told Reuters news agency the snake was at least 1ft (30cm) long with four rattles.

Mr Craig said the serpent attacked as he reached down to brush away what he thought was a stick from a bag of mulch.

The purchase was intended for his marijuana plants, which Mr Craig said he was licensed to grow for medical reasons.

Unfitting as it may be, Malcolm found that amusing for all sorts of reasons, not least the final sentence. Ms Whaling appears to have a perfect grasp of CorpSpeak: “a pest management team”, “a sweep of the property”, “no additional rattlesnake activity”. What that means, in plain English, is:

“We’ve sent for the rat-catcher. He’s looking around. There’d better be no more of the little buggers.”

A Pepys into the present

350 years ago, Mr Pepys described his yesterday (8th May 1662), thus:

At the office all the morning doing business alone, and then to the Wardrobe, where my Lady going out with the children to dinner I staid not, but returnedhome, and was overtaken in St. Paul’s Churchyard by Sir G. Carteret in his coach, and so he carried me to the Exchange, where I staid awhile. He told me that the Queen and the fleet were in Mount’s Bay on Monday last, and that the Queen endures her sickness pretty well. He also told me how Sir John Lawson hath done some execution upon the Turks in the Straight, of which I am glad, and told the news the first on the Exchange, and was much followed by merchants to tell it. So home and to dinner, and by and by to the office, and after the rest gone (my Lady Albemarle being this day at dinner at Sir W. Batten’s) Sir G. Carteret comes, and he and I walked in the garden, and, among other discourse, tells me that it is Mr. Coventry that is to come to us as a Commissioner of the Navy; at which he is much vexed, and cries out upon Sir W. Pen, and threatens him highly. And looking upon his lodgings, which are now enlarging, he in passion cried, “Guarda mi spada; for, by God, I may chance to keep him in Ireland, when he is there:” for Sir W. Pen is going thither with my Lord Lieutenant. But it is my design to keep much in with Sir George; and I think I have begun very well towards it. So to the office, and was there late doing business, and so with my head full of business I to bed.

All of which is annotated above.

Not quite ExCeLling

Malcolm’s day, yesterday, involved a jaunt to the ExCeL Centre (which must qualify as one of the more obtuse uses of cApItaLs going) for the Grand Designs Expo.

Malcolm freely confesses he is an addict of the Channel 4 programme — described on wikipedia as “a programme covering unusual and elaborate architectural homebuilding projects” — and Kevin McCloud. It all seems to come down to “how, given only a pile of straw bales and some imported Italian fenestration, we created a Palladian villa for the twenty-first century”. Definitely property-porn, and highly addictive.

The expo is Ideal Home for the epicene bourgeoisie. Much of it involves what Malcolm’s mother characterised as “more money than sense”. Over the years it has provided Redfellow Hovel with roof insulation and a nifty loft ladder. What is clear, however, is that the Great British Recession is hitting even this market demographic: this year a considerable space is devoted to electric cars.

Not by Boris

Getting to ExCeL , by public transport, from Norf Lunnun used to involve a convoluted passage via several underground lines and the Docklands Light Railway. We now have the revived, renewed East London Line, from Highbury & Islington, all the way to West Croydon and Crystal Palace. So it’s change at Shoreditch; and it works a treat. Those Class 378 electric multiple-units are nifty, too — though looking the length of a train, with no “proper” carriage divisions is a small eye-opener.

Thank you, Mayor Ken Livingstone, and those dear, dead enlightened days when Transport for London was more interested in shifting people than in vanity buses and perpetual fares increases.

Disappointment

The convenience of this new magic-carpet ride meant Malcolm missed out on his promised afternoon of indulgence involving Broadsides at the Bridge House, returning instead to Abbot and a pub steak at Highgate’s Gatehouse. Tough, really — or perhaps not (and the steak wasn’t). A pleasure deferred …

Anyway, Malcolm had an evening commitment.

Mr President

Brendan Barber may be “stepping down” as TUC General Secretary, but there’s a promotion in the pipe-line — to become President of Muswell Hill Golf Club.

Last night Brendan was doing his party-piece at Hornsey Labour Party, and wowing the troops.

The troops, of course, were already on a high: Joanne McCartney barely scraped home in the GLA 2008 vote — this time she is sitting on an absolute plurality, a majority of 25% with some 18% more of the vote. And the icing on the celebratory cake is the total collapse of the LibDem vote, now below 9½%: just 13,601 votes across the five parliamentary constituencies where there were 48,511 in the 2010 General Election.

Back to Brendan Barber

He hammered home one essential point: the massive bulk of the austerity cuts are still to come. That is generally well-appreciated, but his cruncher was, for every £ already cut, there are £16 more still to come.

That leads into:

Paul Waugh did a good bit of butchery on yesterday with Cameron and Clegg’s rose garden in a tractor factory:

The ‘We-Never-Promised-You-a-Rose-Garden’ summit was all set — and perfect for the early evening news.

That was the plan. Unfortunately, it suffered from a couple of flaws.

First, you just can’t get away from the fact that the PM and DPM just look awful together. These days, each is devalued by rather than reinforced by their lookalike.

Both wearing identikit suits, and only differentiated by the blue and yellow of their ties, it wasn’t a good look. (It’s no wonder the PM took his jacket off halfway through to distinguish himself from his partner). As one factory worker said “You two need to get your act together…” Cameron on his own looks much more at home on his PM Direct events.

Second, words are just as important as pictures. And the PM had some rather unfortunate words as he dropped his guard on the deficit. In answer to one question, he said:

“What you call austerity, I might call efficiency…”

Were one to take fair-mindedness to ridiculous extremes, it might just be possible to defend the present sado-masochistic monetarism on grounds of “efficiency”. But that only applies where we might be able to find “efficiency”. But the public expenditure, and the public debt continues to balloon — which is why the Cameroons argue those further 94% of “cuts” are necessary.

Brendan Barber takes that another way. When Osborne went with his first “emergency” budget, his pet-poodle, the Office of Budget Responsibility, calculated it involved around 300,000 more unemployed. The latest OBR forecast updates that from 300,000 to 700,000.

At which we should all have a sharp intake of breath. Since we have no fewer than seven Treasury ministers (Osborne, Alexander, Hoban, Gauke, Smith, Lord Sassoon and Maude — though the last is PMG and works out of the Cabinet Office), ably assisted by an army, four figures strong, of the brightest-and-best of the Civil Service, why do we need a further level of “responsibility” for the budget? Particularly when that “office” is 233% out in an essential prediction?

There seems to be a bit of doubt on the quality of Pepys’ Spanish. The sense of Sir William Coventry’s irritation at Penn is patently clear, though. Similarly, one decent cut might be the useless OBR, so:

Guarda mi spada!

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