David Peckham

If I was on a table of two accused of eating thirty poppadoms (with pickles and chutneys) on top of curries and sides, I think I'd be inclined to say 'Yep, that was us' and ask the waiter to write off the entire bill. That is a truly heroic feat and should be recognised as such, even if you didn't actually do it.

Maybe the 'POT OFFICE' sign is the reason behind the recent unusual footfall at the Lordship Lane branch? I suppose a little spliff may make the waiting time pass faster, but I suspect most stoners would just put off their errands for another day. Or two. Possibly.

I spent seven hours in customs, and was threatened with the revocation of my Canadian residency, for attempting to take half a pound of unpasteurised Lincolnshire Poacher and a whole raw-milk Stichelton into Lester B Pearson airport in Toronto. The egg was on their faces though, and we did laugh, when I could prove they were both aged over ninety days and therefore not subject to their draconian dairy import restrictions. True story, that.

I can see how it could've worked 20 or 30 years ago, when you couldn't swing a pool cue in the Foresters without hitting a sparks, a plumber or a chippy, but the area has changed somewhat. I'm not sure people around here have such trade-able skills these days. Have a word with someone in your local and you'll see. People are always going to need their boiler fixed, a damp patch sorted or their dimmer switch dimmed, but I can pretty much guarantee I'm never going need my corporate policy complied with, my social media planned, my data mined, my green transport tsared, my information architected or my analytics analysed. It reminds me of the great DIY con of the mid to late seventies. My Mum bought into it, my Dad didn't. Anyway, my Mum won out and we let the gardener go (he went on to be TV's Timmy Mallett, so that's a warning from history), but my Dad shorted the house out and singed his head when he cut through the flex on his new Black & Decker hedge trimmer. We all laughed, of course, but he got his own back when, because we didn't use a qualified electrician to do things properly, she electrocuted herself when she pulled the back of the plug off her Carmen heated rollers while it was still in the socket. Keep things professional, say 'No!' to this sort of nonsense. We pay people a decent rate of pay because they're specialists at these things. I did once barter my sister's space hopper and roller skates for twenty-odd square foot of crazy paving, though. That was a birthday present my Mum never forgot, and not in a good way.

It's Christmas, Mal, I'd like to think admin may be a bit looser at this time of year. Goodwill to all men and all that, even Scousers, the French and some Canadians. Have an easy-peeler, a Morrisons own brand Cinzano and lemonade, a toke on this beauty, listen to my post-dubstep-style mash-up of 'Little Donkey' and Frankie Knuckles' 'Your Love' and let the thread go where it will. We're strangely reverential about the Christmas period in this country. Christmas Day in Spain is a bit different, the big day is 'Kings' Day' on the 6th of January. I've spent a couple of Christmases in a tiny village in the Sierra Nevada outside Granada with an (English) ex-girlfriend's family and it's exhausting to celebrate both British and Spanish style. You start on Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day, Boxing Day, a village fiesta apropos of nothing to do with Christmas, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, the neighbouring village's fiesta, and only then the big day of Kings' on the 6th. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that's posted on the 'Fireworks' thread, I thought is was a reenactmentent of Guernica. Thankfully, Coviran - it's a bit like Spar used to be - do an excellent 'Feliz Navidad' fiesta package of six bottles of local red, six white, 24 bottles of Alhambra beer and an okay-quality Serrano jamon (with stand and knife) for about the price of a decent round in the EDT. One fiesta deal every couple of days works well. Christmas Day in Toronto is like any other day, just even duller - Sunday-service transport and the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) shop is shut. Those who take their drinking seriously need to plan ahead. They also have a strange custom of going to the pictures on Christmas Day evening, rather than watching 'Oliver!' and trying to fleece your niece for her Christmas cash in a game of Connect Four. It's a bit different in Goa, but brilliant. It was a Portuguese colony, so they go mad on it. It's quite magical. I spent one Christmas Day where, after seeing the previous night's hangover off with a prawn caldine and a bottle of local coconut feni, the tide ebbed away to reveal the most perfect, flat wicket for a game of tape-ball cricket. 25 or so a side, ravers versus locals, I batted in the middle order and was building a solid, if unspectacular, innings until I hit a pull shot of such exquisite timing it still visits me in my dreams, only to be caught at square leg by a little, local lad, bollocks-deep in the surf and wearing a Santa hat. Christmas isn't what it used to be. Keep the parks open!

Until the licencing laws changed in the late eighties, pubs were only allowed to open Sunday hours on Christmas Day, so 12 'til 2, and the majority didn't open in the evening unless it was for a 'private party'. But that's another story. The landlord of my old local used to let everyone double or treble up at last orders so that you could avoid having to watch the Queen's Speech with your Nans at three o'clock. Dulwich Tandoori is open Christmas Day for those who don't fancy Gail's. 'Festive Flavours', apparently.

Have they had a bit of a 'falling out'?.

Ah, Sue, there's a common misconception about the etymological root of 'Stinking Bishop' cheese. It's not called that because it pongs like an unmarried uncle, but named after the pear from which the perry is made in which it is washed - hence being known as a rind-washed cheese. A few hours out of the fridge, in a cheese dome, it does get quite ripe, but under shop refrigeration conditions it smells no more offensive than your average Frenchman.

An excellent point, ed. I reckon you could possibly get the cheese down to 75g per person depending on how many courses, the cheese media one is using and the accompiaments. A thicker biscuit can really increase the power of your cheese dollar. I'd also recommend putting all the last year's chutneys and pickles from the back of the cupboard in a single Kilner jar, adding a bit of malt vinegar and a grated apple, then attaching a hand written label saying 'Pikey's Pickle: Autumn 2025'. It's not Megan Markle levels of domestic deceit, but it works every time. Pre-portioning cheese seems arbitrary, but I think acceptable when it's 20 people. It gives people an idea of how much a serving is, and negates the issue of somebody, normally a brother in law or cousin's new boyfriend, not taking their share of the rind. Remember, you're doing them a favour. Somewhere in the room there's an older family member who could see it and never forget. It's disinheritance stuff. It also gives rise to the great postprandial game of 'Cheese!' where guests can swap their share of cheese for another. Tastier than Monopoly and far less cardboardy, cheeses can be traded like currency or commodities. Hard and soft cheeses, dependent on their relative strengths, normally settle at close to parity but I've seen blue cheeses trade at less than half the price. It's a Stilton lover's paradise, if you can hold your nerve. Goat cheese lovers can clean up, but need to beware. As volatile as the 1970's Argentinian Peso, it's up and down like a bride's nightie. I think I'll stick to Neal's Yard, then.

If you're going British, Marks and Sparks do a fantastic Cornish Cruncher Cheddar (get the three year old if it's on offer) and a Stilton/Stichelton which are wrapped in something more like wax paper. I'm pretty sure they used to do a Stinking Bishop which had minimal plastic wrapping, as well.

If you can track down the owners of the now defunct Heritage Cheese in the village, there could be some stock-clearance bargains if you don't mind your cheese a little pre-nibbled.

Precisely. He's either the luckiest man in show business, the poor man's Peter Kay or just a talentless tit depending on your view of his work. The BBC don't use him so much since he took over Question of Sport and Top Gear and tanked them both - around 100 years of broadcasting between them before he went near them. They still pay him £250k a year not to be on TV, though. It's because of the unique way the BBC is funded.

I'd settle for just BBC3 being defunded and Paddy McGuiness being decapitated.

In what way? Maybe it just felt more intelligent and considered coming directly after Question Time, which was a barely watchable bun fight.

There was an excellent discussion on Newscast last night between the BBC Political Editor, the director of the IFS and the director of More In Common - all highly intelligent people with no party political agenda and far more across their briefs than any minister I've seen in years. The consensus was that Labour are so unpopular and untrusted by the electorate already, as are the Conservatives, that breaking the manifesto pledge on income tax wouldn't drive their approval ratings any lower, so they should, and I quote, 'Roll The Dice', hope for the best and see where we are in a couple of years time. As a strategy, i don't know whether I find that quite worrying or just an honest appraisal of what most governments actually do in practice.