Once more, with feline

A cat has arrived. Things will have to change around here. In fact, they already have. 


Three nights in and our four-ish month-old tortoiseshell has well and truly got the measure of us. 


Mark is a changed man. He walked home from the other side of Greenwich yesterday afternoon. A perilous journey across a beautiful park and the open expanse of Blackheath. Dog central, in other words. My husband is an obsessive dog lover and dog worrier in the way that only a non-dog owner can be. 


I made a knowing comment about how he'd be hours chasing dogs around the park. "Not when I've a kitten at home to play with", he came back. 

Veggie Diner: can you eat out and enjoy it?

Earlier this week I posted a heartfelt moan about restaurants that pay lip service to catering for vegetarian customers. How many times have you turned up and found the veggie options run to just one starter and one main course? I've been vegetarian for more than 20 years and am amazed at how poorly we're still treated in many restaurants and cafes. 


Excellent websites such as veggieheaven.com are superb for championing vegetarian and vegan restaurants. But we shouldn't have to eat at a vegetarian or Indian restaurant in order to get a warm welcome and a choice over what we eat. Introducing friends to favourite vegetarian restaurants is great, but well-meaning comments such as "I didn't even think about the fact that it had no meat in it" aren't always received in the spirit in which they are spoken. 


It also gets tiresome as a vegetarian to be the one negating a visit to a restaurant based on the lack of anything palatable on the menu. Dozens of times over the years I've felt the weight of expectation from my dining companion as we've stood perusing the menu outside a restaurant they want to go into. "Is there anything there for you?", comes the hopeful query. 


Sunday lunch is a particularly awkward meal if there's a veggie in the group. Often, there's no vegetarian option on the menu at all - or "I'll do you a plate of veg, love". 


Sunday lunch is the most sociable meal of the week - one that's looked forward to as a treat and a relaxing way to spend time with family and friends. Yet many times we've driven round the country restaurants and pubs near my parents' home on the Welsh border only to end up disappointed that there's nowhere that can accommodate two vegetarians. 


With around 20 percent of the population vegetarian as a lifestyle choice, for health reasons or religious ones, plus many more keen to eat veggie as a change from the norm, this eating out lottery surely makes poor business sense. 


Lately, I've noticed more vegetarian guests getting a mention - and their dining experience commented upon - in restaurant reviews. It's about time and is certainly a welcome development. 


In the meantime, I'll be posting reviews and recommendations of veggie-friendly establishments. I'm starting with Wagamama - an obvious choice for those that have ever been there; an unqualified recommendation for anyone who has yet to discover the chain. 


I'd love to know where you like to eat, too, please, whether that's a vegetarian or vegan haunt or one that is refreshingly veggie-friendly. 

Augmented reality trip

Augmented reality is the sort of thing that sounds as though it occurs after a few too many whiskies or several puffs on a deliciously mellowing joint. Actually, it's more like everyday, but better, more colourful - and confusing. 


Until last month my experience of augmented reality in the gadget-function sense was limited to holding a cleverer-than-average mobile phone a few inches in front of me and remarking on the way the mean streets of King's Cross had been magically mapped out and the thronging traffic magically relegated to the background. 


See - like reality but better. A bit like the human-but-not-quite-all qualities of the characters in a certain TV series called Heroes, in fact. 


Not uncoincidentally, Heroes creator Tim Kring has been in London this summer as part of a project known as the Conspiracy For Good. Being a do-gooder know-it-all, when Nokia got in touch to explain the concept, I was intrigued by the phrase, though how it all worked initially escaped me. 


Part game, part charity fundraiser and awareness-raising project, Conspiracy For Good blends storyline with secret forums and codes and plausible-sounding privacy-busting plans to use the capital's extensive CCTV network to track and record citizen's every movements. It uses technology - including the augmented reality feature on the Nokia X6 mobile phone - to help it kick against the system. 


Managed by the fictional Blackwell Briggs security company, the surveillance society rings alarm bells with Conspiracy For Good Unmembers, who set out to do their best to disrupt the Big Brother-style monitoring. 


Word of the Conspiracy For Good and its forerunner group of Unmember activists has spread organically across the web and through a series of secret websites unlocked by codes hidden in other sites. 


July and August has seen the action move from web to mobile web as gamers and CFGers joined together in four London-based live action events. We took part in the first in which singer Nadirah X who, in the guise of a conspirator, was bundled across town with the assistance of CFGers who followed in her path to a temporary safe house thanks to clues in the form of video messages delivered to suitably sophisticated mobile phones - the aforementioned Nokia X6. 

The clues themselves were embedded in buildings and signs scattered across a two-mile stretch of London, with delivery triggered by pointing a specially set up handset at a image described in the previous clue. Object recognition rather than face-recognition drove things, in other words. 

Augmented reality in action: a specially developed version of the Nokia Point & Find app allowed video messages to be embedded in secret locations around London

Though I was sceptical about how much 'good' would come from the Conspiracy For Good, Nokia says several charities have benefitted significantly. Beneficiaries include five libraries in Zambia that are set to receive 100,000 books from the Pearson Foundation and the Room To Read project, donations of new toys to give as Christmas gifts to be distributed by charity Kids' Company and volunteers helping clean up the Thames riverside. 


For more details and to join the game or to become an Unmember, see www.conspiracyforgood.com. 

London Brand and Packaging Museum

This summer we've got to enjoy London at its best. The sun has been shining almost every day and we've been able to get out and about making the most of it. 

Some of the best discoveries have been unplanned. We took our visiting teenage niece to Portobello Market but found it too crowded and hectic. 

Having stopped off at the Hummingbird Bakery for delicious cupcakes, Google Maps tipped us off about the London Brand and Packaging Museum around the corner. 

At £5.80 each for an adult to get in, and £2 for up-to-16s, it's far less expensive than visiting a special exhibition at one of the big museums and far more accessible. Though youngsters won't recognise many of the names emblazoned on the various tins and presentation packages, some brand names have endured. Frosties, Star Wars, Superman and other space-age favourites are all well-represented. 

Colman's, Pears, Cadbury, Heinz and Guinness are some of the best-known brands on show, but we also get to see the many guises and monikers for various soda crystals and soap powders. The tour starts with the now fashionable again vogue for making do, growing your own and self-sufficiency that the Second World War and its aftermath necessitated. Even the Suffragettes were used as a merchandising opportunity.

Suffragette playing cards

Commentary about the various brands on show is spartan, but there's an interesting exhibit showing how tin cans are made - still a staple of the packaging industry. It's also interesting to see how marketing materials have evolved, from simple two or three-colour designs to the more sophisticated photo imposition and graphics of today. 

Once you've had your fill and need a break from the marketing onslaught that several rooms full of branding include, there's a small cafe where you can get a mug of tea and settle down in front of the retro telly and watching classic ads from the 70s and 80s. A pretty good end finish to a worthwhile trip down memory lane. 

The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising is at 2 Colville Mews, Lonsdale Road - just next door to Temperley's mecca of Britpop cool. 
It's open Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am to 6pm and Sundays 11am to 5pm.  

Beatlemania resulted in plenty of spin-off merchandising

Wild mushroom risotto

Our second wedding anniversary is nearly here. A memorable evening is a must, but being wedding season it's not that easy to find a rustic country hotel for a single night, let alone a guaranteed-to-be-quiet night. Our wedding guests were every bit as badly-behaved as British tradition demands. This year's brides and grooms will no doubt find their guests conform to type, too. 


Having shortlisted a few possible hotels, we hit on The Vines - a charming looking place in The Cotswolds with a restaurant I'd read was good. Room and dinner package booked, I decided to check the menu. Sure enough, there it was: wild mushroom risotto - the sole, unashamed vegetarian option. You're not exactly salivating, are you? 


As this blog grows it will no doubt end up with many more references to wild mushroom risotto. It's the token vegetarian option I've come to dread. Not only is it dreary, often adorned with nothing more than a leaf of rocket salad; it's often badly cooked, oversalted and poorly presented. At its best I've had it with balsamic vinegar and generous shavings of padano cheese. 


I'm not alone in my dislike of mushroom risotto. Uninspired and unimaginative, finding them on a menu is usually a giveaway that you're in a lazy kitchen and one where vegetarians are grudgingly catered for. Wild mushrooms don't make it better; they're just there to justify the price tag slapped on a plate of mushrooms and rice. 


There are so many other attractive, tasty, colourful vegetarian dishes you could serve. Why choose something grey? 


Many vegetarians dislike mushrooms of all varieties. The texture and taste is often used as a substitute for meat - and few vegetarians want their food to remind them of this. Vegetarian food isn't about putting something on the plate in place of a fat, juicy steak or chicken thigh. 


Texture and taste are not the only issues. I get a very weird reaction to eating mushrooms. The fancy varieties almost always get me. It's not quite hallucinogenic and not quite upset tum, but there's a definite aftertaste and unpleasantness that lasts sometimes for days. And the last thing you want from an expensive dinner is a nasty taste in your mouth - especially if you know it's coming even before you get the bill. 

London Bike Scheme merry-go-round

Like many people, we've been intrigued by the installation of bike stands to house the new London Bike Hire Scheme bikes close to our offices. Excitement rose as it became clear that were to be lots and lots of bike hire points, making the idea of grabbing a bike and freewheeling off into the sunset for a few precious minutes become a practical travel option as well as a fanciful notion.


Armed with a year's membership of £45, an electronic key for which a £3 deposit had been paid, and an active account, we looked forward to Friday 30th July as the date on which an interesting lunchtime cycling interlude could take place. With  all the above in place we could be among the first Londoners to get to enjoy a 'free' half hour of cycling. To encourage the 'free movement' of hire bikes, the first 30 minutes hire won't cost you anything but it's £1 for every hour thereafter.


Unfortunately, we ended up with a 'free' half hour or more of entertaining merry-go-round as we inserted our electronic key in first one then almost every bike's electronic lock at Cartwright Gardens in Bloomsbury. Frustrated by consistently getting the amber processing signal followed by a fixed red light, we consulted the helpful map on the electronic information post and found there was another cycle hire stand two streets away. Here, all but a handful of bikes were absent (unlike our first stop where only one had been hired and a would-be hire bike returnee tried in vain to dock his steed). Someone was clearly finding it easy enough to hire a bike. Why not us?


Having tried our key without success in more bike stands we turned in frustration to the telephone helpline. They confirmed our suspicions - a dodgy key was spoiling our fun. A reset was in order - something they were good enough to call back and inform us was in motion after the telephone system cut us off (sheer weight of frustrated wannabe cyclist calls or simple first-day overload). Amazingly, some minutes later we were able to enjoy our first bike ride.


The bike is hardly something we'll be using for a quick getaway. (We mused on how quickly the Boris Bike as getaway vehicle storyline would be written into EastEnders and whether it was worth having a flutter based on it being within the next fortnight.) But the ride is comfortable and reassuringly stable and overall we totally love the idea of a convenient bike to hand whenever you fancy taking to two pedals. Now to iron out the kinks. 

The Little Stranger no more

They say you should never meet your heroes. You'll only be disappointed. I've met the occasional ageing rock star. 'They' have a point. 


Literary heroes, I hope, will be different. Overwhelming and overly articulate, sure, but I'm more likely to be monosyllabic and tongue-tied than unimpressed. 


In the case of Sarah Waters, who is to take part in a Guardian book club debate at King's Place in London about her Gothic Victorian novel The Little Stranger, I'm more than willing to take a punt on being impressed. 


The Little Stranger is compelling reading. I couldn't put it down, but couldn't sleep for the images it put in my mind. It's a heck of a long time since a book affected me so profoundly simply for the melodramatic tone in which it was written. 


A year after reading the book I still find myself staring at crumbling old mansions and half expecting to find an anguished, overwrought face at the window. Inevitably, I also find myself wondering whether each venue would be a suitable location for the TV dramatisation of the book. Both Fingersmith and Tipping The Velvet got the BBC costume drama treatment. 


The Little Stranger would be an obvious Gothic thriller to serialise. It's got all the suspense of The Woman In Black and, unlike the theatre production we attended last year, the suspense won't be marred by the histrionics of a class of 14-year-old girls screaming in unison. 


Anyway, I've booked a place at the Guardian Book Club's Evening with Sarah Waters.
I recently came across the intriguing fact that the hotel used to film many of the Hammer Horror films and The Rocky Horror Show is still in business. It's not far from Oxford and I'm due a weekend away. I might just try and scare myself silly and book in for a night, Little Stranger in hand.