Words to guide a good life

Do you ever reflect on life when one chapter ends? I've been doing that lately and thought I would share my career and life path so far for your amusement.

When I was still at school I always wanted to be a VET. Bugger knows why because I hate the smell of wet dogs, sneeze whenever a cat is within 10 feet and I detest rodents but anyway, one day, I watched TV Vet James Herriott shove his arm up a cows jacksy and that was enough to change my mind. I knew I needed to see the outside world though (well, outside Cleator Moor anyway) so my next choice was the Forces with my grandads words ringing in my ear,,, face your fears lad! Well my fears were drowning and heights so I joined the Fleet Air Arm as a Mechanical Engineer and had the experience of a crash landing in a Sea King on a Scottish Island as a bonus. At this point I've got to say that every future problem going forward would be solved with my first instructors words (adding to my grandfathers) ringing in my ears 'identify the problem and if you cant adapt it, overcome it but if you cant overcome it, kill it!' Thankfully so far I've never had to resort to the latter but if the words identify, adapt and overcome were put to music, it would be my favourite song.

I thought I was in the Navy for life but the prospect of starting married life with a two year unaccompanied posting to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean meant that chapter needed to close and so began my foray into the world that is Sellafield. A short spell on staff during which I nearly caused a walkout over demarcation after being caught with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver in my pocket (Navy training did not include waiting for a fitter to remove a panel, an electrician to remove a fuse and a mechanic to dismantle a small blocked pump) led me into the Site Fire Service. They were in the process of upskilling and increasing their manpower and a role I adopted for myself was that of shift medical trainer which in turn led onto a 16 week medical technicians course in Glasgow with the Scottish Ambulance service. That was an eye opener, especially the training in the Glasgow City Mortuary with a long serving attendant who really was weirdly at home with the dead. He asked if I wanted a cup of tea then told me to get the milk which he kept in one of the body storage coolers and yes you've guessed it, the cooler had a tennant!

During this period in my life, our family started to grow and I may as well say at this point that we currently have 4 kids and 8 grandkids. The former wont be going up thanks to a skilled surgeon and a nice dose of anaesthetic but the latter may. I was also finding that full time employment and family life werent fully taxing my brain so I became a Magistrate serving on average 3 days a month for the next 19 years. A year after I first sat on the bench (why do they call it that by the way? It was actually a comfy chair with the added appeal of being addressed as Your Worship which was quite endearing for a lad off the Moor) I decided to become a Fine Wine Merchant, a career I still enjoy today. As if this wasnt enough, I had this crazy idea of starting a Festival for Whitehaven and for a short while, I was all of the above at the same time. In 2001, I left the Brigade to focus on getting some people drunk, jailing others and entertaining the rest. The next 18 years saw the business gain a number of celebrity clients and for a short while I was even advising on the Icelandic wine trades change from the public to the private domain (long story and far too good to waste in a condensed version right now). Running alongside sales of wine, we were organising International Festivals, Exhibitions, Military Parades, Tall Ship visits and best of all a couple of Royal Visits by HRH Prince Andrew and later on, HM Queen Elizabeth and the highly entertaining Duke of Edinburgh. During this period you really never knew who you were answering the shop phone to and in fact there was more chance of it being a celebrity, a military officer or even Special Branch with whom we had a close liaison than it was being a customer.

In the midst of all this and as if life wasnt interesting enough, I had the crazy idea of offering a Pardon to John Paul Jones for his heinous crime of unsuccessfully raiding the town for the US Navy in 1778. This eventually led to the shop becoming the Honorary Consulate to the US Navy and an award from the US Ambassador in 2011 for furthering International Relations between the US and the USA (yes, it does actually say that on the certificate which is rather cool). In fact the last decade has been awesome, with some lovely awards for the business, Jean Christophe Novelli cooking dinner for the family on one memorable evening and even a kiss off Katherine Jenkins and how many lads off the Moor can tick that off their bucket list?

Between 2012 and 2015 a Kidney Tumour and severe depression forced me to reconsider what was a rather hectic and ridiculous period of my life and much to Diannes delight I stepped down from the bench, hung up my Festival boots and took up the more serene hobby of writing books. Two recipe books with Jean Christophe Novelli and four local photographic history books later, Im now planning my first novel.

Sometimes while sitting at my desk day dreaming about the paths of my fictional characters, I dwell on my fathers words of advice when I was pondering my secondary school subject choices and worrying about what I wanted to do for a living. He said 'The main thing is to have a good life'. I asked him how I would know if I had and he replied 'Try to imagine getting to retirement and if you have some really good stories to tell your grandkids then you've had a good life'. The spanner in that plan is that I envisaged being an old retired man when it was time to tell the grandkids stories but Im only 55 and have more chapters left to write so they may have to take the stories in instalments!

So, if you're just starting off in life, let me offer you the words that have guided me so far 'face your fears head on, identify and overcome your problems and remember that when it comes time to tell your stories, you really want them to be interesting'!

Who needs Coronation Street when you have Lowther Street

It's 22 years since we started the business, a civilised type of shop we thought. The type where a chap could send his butler in for a 50 year old Madeira or a case of Chablis but then we really didnt know how colourful life could be on the High Street!
Over the years we've heard some cracking conversations both inside and outside the shop, in fact it's almost as if some people dont see us at all. A group of ladies sheltering by the door on a wet day were talking about a friends daughter who had apparently done really well for herself with some recent achievement. Naturally our ears pricked up keen to hear what the young lady had succeeded in doing. Imagine our surprise to hear that her achievement was to get onto long term sick benefits!

Another couple, this time we assumed to be a man and wife were discussing whether we were a new shop (bear in mind this was only two years ago) and also what sort of shop we were. She said to hubby 'it looks like an off licence' to which he replied, 'looks more like a bloody junk shop'.

Then theres the folk who get carried away with our short history, telling their friends on the phone that 'we're in Jeffersons, you know the old ones, been in the town for hundreds of years'. Ive got so used to being called Mr Jefferson now that I dont even blink.

There was also the chap who kept coming in asking if he could have a wooden wine box. Eventually I asked him what he wanted it for and I wish I hadnt. He has a collection of nuts and bolts and wanted to display them better!

An old lady came in several years ago for a bottle of beer to catch slugs in her garden but realised she had forgotten her purse. Recognising her as a local, I said 'don't worry its only £2 just drop it in next time your passing the shop.' She came in three years later and said ' I dont get out much'!

Theres also the people who come in for job interviews that we havent organised. They are of course meant to be attending the off license up the road and have failed the first test. But what about the people who come in the shop in a rush and plonk a bunch of flowers on the counter with a tenner only to discover that the flower shop is next door! Most of them leave the flowers and stomp out muttering under their breath about how confusing it is. Durh our neighbour has flowers outside her flower shop and we have a barrel and an old delivery bike outside ours. On the subject of the barrel, I've had many questions over the years such as how old is it, what did it used to contain etc but the one that really stumped me was 'is that a barrel?'

I particularly love the people who come in and ask for tickets to get into the rum story attraction which is actually two doors down the road. Quite what they are seeing when they enter the shop and get to the counter is anyone's guess.

My all time favourite though has to be the chap who came in applying for a drivers job we were advertising years ago. He told me he was honest, hard working and had a clean license. Unfortunately he didnt recognise me as the Magistrate who had dealt with him on numerous occasions and knew him to be a layabout with a long criminal record and a driving disqualification for being drunk!

You dont need Coronation Street to get your soap opera fix, just a shop on Lowther Street in Whitehaven and an ability to smile regardless.

High Street Retail is dead, long live High Street Retail

So, is retail dead on the High Street? Are we all changing our spending habits to the point where each County will end up with one or two thriving retail towns or cities with the rest of the spend going to the Net or is is all just a slow adaption to a new and exciting future?

If you're a pessimist then we're all doomed and small shops across the country will end up being converted to tattoo parlours, dens of illicit sex or heaven forbid endless amounts of travel and estate agents. If however you have half a brain and a grasp on history, you will dispel such gloomy thoughts and crack open a bottle to celebrate the future. Many years ago when we evolved from clubbing wives and hunting for our own ends and discovered the benefits of trading, retail was born and in the intervening time it's changed a lot but the High Street which started off as rows of market traders selling anything from freshly hacked meat to black bread and cures for boils has always been a magnet for people. Sometimes we come to buy, sometimes to browse but one thing you cant get from shopping on the net is a conversation and thankfully humanity still enjoys those. Unless you were an aristocrat, shopping, right up until the late 19th century was purely for the daily basics and the first changes to this came about with easier access for the masses to refrigeration and the re invention of Christmas. Refrigeration meant you could store food for longer and it freed up some of our time from the constant search for food. The re invention of Christmas happened in the first half of the 19th century with the launch of Dickens novel 'A Christmas Carol' in which he described Christmas not as a time for binge drinking or just religious worship but as a time for benevolence, families and at least a temporary end to social division. It was a book decades ahead of it's time and it had an almost immediate effect with a major factory owner giving his workers extra days off for Christmas after reading it. Along with the help of many canny retailers of essential items who spotted a market for benevolent gifting, the idea of exchanging presents was borne. So next Christmas when your credit card is maxed out and you want to swear out loud, go to your bookstore and get a copy of Dickens masterpiece and you never know, Christmas past present and future may just visit you that evening.

High Street retail boomed from this period right through to the late sixties and early seventies depending on where you live (mid 80's in Whitehaven) when a new love blossomed in the form of the edge of town supermarkets, those air conditioned palaces where you could buy everything you wanted while breathing in other peoples re cycled farts and slowly developing a headache due to the unforgiving lighting employed in every aisle. They serve a purpose and most of us at some time will shop there but thankfully even they are having to reinvent themselves as shoppers desire smaller more local feeling buildings again. That brings us to the internet and before you think I'm some sort of troglodyte, think again. Even my shop has a web page. Admittedly we do next to bugger all with it at the moment but we have at last embraced the digital world. That said, think back over the last ten years and try to remember how many internet brands have gone by the wayside and if you're a high street lover, you will be pleased to here its lots. The only difference is when an internet trader goes bust, they dont tend to leave a hole on the high street for the doom mongers to moan about.

We are in a period of retail flux that has much less to do with the amount of money in your pocket than it has to do with how we want to spend it and this current period, like the re discovery of Christmas, the advent of the Supermarkets and the advance of the Internet is a decades long change that we should embrace with excitement rather than Valium.

Theres a reason why stores like ours still survive and a good reason why ours looks like a crash between a Fine Wine Merchants and Steptoes back yard. In periods of uncertainty, we all like the warm comforting feeling of the good old days, and even if your good old days were really crap, we temporarily suspend reality and pretend the minute we see something old or retro. We're well into our third decade now with a shop I was told wouldn't last a month in West Cumbria but last Christmas, I knew I was finally on the right track. The reason? Well, my long suffering shop manager Louise for whom the model ships, old bottles, air planes, model cars and even horse riding accessories (honest, they are genuine oldies, no gimp masks in Richardson's) have all been dust collectors said 'you know something, Frank and I go all over the place and I rarely see a shop as nice and original as this'. Nearly 20 years its taken to secure that accolade but having got it, I'm holding onto it!

High Street retail may change but there will always be room for quality, eccentricity and you so the next time you're stressed and you feel you need the comfort blanket of retail therapy, put the mouse down and take a walk down memory lane, and oh by the way, we're at number 26, Lowther Street, Whitehaven right next to a lovely florist, a fab gift shop and directly opposite a proper jeweller and watch maker. Sadly the candlestick chap went years ago!

The weird world of the Whitehaven Festival

In 1998 I came up with the idea that Whitehaven could stage a major festival (over a couple of glasses of wine mind you) and you would think that the strangest thing of all was that it became a success with one event attracting over 300k visits but no, there were far stranger things behind the scenes!

Take the claimers 

For example, and we had so many people try it on from tripping over cables that wern't there (let's face it that's like a chancers apprenticeship) to the down right ridiculous. How about the lady who claimed she was wearing £2500 Gucci shoes that were ruined by raw sewerage running down the harbour. It was an easy one to disprove as there were no pipes anywhere near her and when we asked to see the shoes, low and behold she had destroyed them by fire to kill the smell!

Then there was the lady who tried to sue for a blistered throat caused by the exhaust pipe of an Ice cream van. She claimed she didn't know the engine we would be running, all we had to ask was what was she doing with the exhaust pipe and the matter blew away (pardon the awful pun). We had a chap tried to claim for damage to cows caused by air shows so we videoed them one year when the Red Arrows were doing their best to get their udders in a pickle but happily the grass was far more interesting to the unpatriotic milk makers. We also had a lady (sorry girls but you really dont come out of this one very well) who tried her best to make us have a silent festival ie no air shows and no fireworks to protect her nervous horse. We even offered to have a Vet on standby for the horse but all she wanted was silence so we chose to give her that and ignored her.

Then theres the plain funny: 

I had arranged for a USA Film crew who were making a documentary about the US Navy to sit on the bow spirit of a tall ship to get a cracking inner harbour view of the Red Arrows. Thankfully they had tied the very expensive kit they were using to their back pack because when the reds did their close fast pass (yes that one, that makes you think they have been smoking something first) the cameraman screamed F,,, me and dropped the camera. That was a spine tingler. Fast forward a year and I was accompanying two senior US officers along the main front when the Reds did it again and the senior of the two officers shouted F,,, me was that a near miss! Fast forward 4 more years and I was taking Jean Christophe Novelli fresh from the stage behind St Nics Church to the harbour to meet one of our sponsors. Now Jean gets stuck right into the whole cooking thing but unless he is fully briefed, he can miss out on the whole scene. So there we were walking towards Stobbarts Marquee on Quay Street, JC was on his mobile and a Hunter Jet (yes it had to be a hunter, all engine no foreplay) came screaming over head causing JC to drop his mobile which smashed and scream F,,, me as I quickly added, Oh sorry did I not tell you about the air shows. Actually F,,, me should have been our motto,,, can anyone translate it to Latin?

Floyd bless his cotton socks was our first celebrity chef demo in the theatre we built in the rear of St Nics but despite his surroundings, his colourful language kept bubbling to the surface. A member of the local clergy spoke up and said rather light heatedly, Mr Floyd, this is still a house of God, to which he replied, Oh Bugger.

Then theres the tight gits: 

Why do I have to pay to get on the Sugar Tongue? Answer, because theres tall ships to see, chefs to watch and extra entertainment. Reply: Im not interested in any of that, to which we would say well come back on Monday for free then!

Why do I have to pay to get on the Tall ship, Ive been on that one before!

Why are you charging local children to get into the gig (Ndubz were headlining and were Number 1 in the charts that weekend). One woman even told me that if we put more effort into finding sponsors, I wouldn't have to rip kids off!

Can I just photograph the timetable page as I dont need the programme just the page?

£2 to get on a ship, what does that get me? It gets you on the ship; But what can I do on there for the money? What would you like to do, sail it?

How much are tickets for Status Quo? £39 each. How much for locals? £39 each! Fuck it then you can keep them.

We're not going to the gig but we are having a garden party to listen to them, what times are the different acts on and do you have song lists? Would you like to buy a programme? No, just give me the times!

Theres always just the plain daft: 

Are Status Quo staying in a Whitehaven hotel? No, why do you ask? Well if they arent supporting us I'm not buying a ticket to see them!

I've bought tickets for the Rugby ground to watch Status Quo, if it rains on the day will you be putting a roof over the stadium? No, just bring a hat!

This one was a regular after every festival: I missed the event as we booked a weekend away, you need to make the dates clearer and advertise better to which a fairly standard discussion followed; It's been in the local newspapers regularly for a year! I dont read them any more, It's been on BBC local radio and CFM, I  dont listen to them, Its been on Border TV ad BBC North East several times, I only watch Sky News, to which I would finally say well in that case can you give me your address and Ill knock next time!

The Newspaper say's Abba Gold are playing the next festival, is that actually Abba?

Conversation overheard by a local reporter on the Friday of one of the Festivals as crowds were heading to the harbour area, voices reported as locals: There must be something on this weekend!

I got a parking ticket during the festival, what are you going to do about it? 

And  my all time favourite; Why can't we do that every weekend!

Read on if you have a sense of humour!

If only Whitehaven was Monaco, what would life be like?
The heat and the wonderful bright sun would be our first problem. Look at how tempers are flaring about car parking and toilet issues right now and it's barely 16 degrees, can you image peoples impatience and lack of tolerance at 30 degrees? Still on the bright side we would see more and more of those wonderfully honed bodies that Whitehaven is famous for. I particularly love to see the old sea dog sailors who had a stomach tattoo done when they were as fit as a butchers dog and now regret not building some expansion into the art. There's nothing says fuck you quite like f     u     c     k     y     o     u!  Mind you unfortunate tattoos aren't the sole domain of the chaps these days and I often wonder if there's any personal embarrassment when a middle aged lady strips for the doctor and her tender parts are emblazoned with eat here or free milk. Still if we were Monaco, we could tolerate all this under the long hot sun.
I suppose we would have to have signs in the harbour area urging locals not to fly their helicopters off their yachts but surely they would be better than signs asking you not to let your dog crap or telling you theres a fixed penalty for littering,,, or was it loitering? Anyway I dont hang around to find out. Still, the water would be clean and there would be an assortment of multi coloured fish scavenging for waste from the many harbourside restaurants instead floating rubbish and the occasional shit eating mullet. But would we be happy? Personally I like the mullet although I wouldn't eat one and its interesting watching the rubbish float down from Pow Beck, you never know whats coming next, mind you watching seagulls fight over a tampon was a particularly low moment. Another bright side would be our Royal family as we would have to have a prince to be a principality. Who could that possibly be? I reckon Prince Starkie would work well, but where would the palace be? What about converting the top floor of the Beacon into a palace apartment and letting visitors pop in during the day to see portraits of Councillor Wormstrup and others from the old praetorian guard of CBC. The Royal car would have to be an electric leaf with a cycle powered generator in the back pedalled by a graduate on loan from Sellafield.
Lowther Street and King Street (to be renamed Prince Street) would be busier though with all the billionaires shopping. Never again would we see a charity shop with a half price sale in the window or an outdoor clothing store offering half price camping gear at the start of the summer.  Empty shops with long gone gigs advertised in their windows would be history and Poundland would be offering pots of caviare with a very short best before date. Mcdonalds would be upgraded to offer sides of salmon or spear caught squid in baps, presumably still with free coke.
One of the drawbacks in attracting billionaires off their gin palaces though would be the speed bumps. I mean come on, who wouldnt get upset if their brand new Veyron got stuck amid rift on County Council property? Mind you they would also cause issues for the Grand Prix race but I suppose the cars could cut up King Street instead and all the teams could use the old bus station as the pit stop (health and safety permitting of course)
The problem is that even if we were Monacco, many locals would still bitch, it's too hot, that yacht is blocking my view of Tescos, there are not enough charity shops and the ones that are here dont have sales on any more!
But at least we would have the sun

Electric is here to stay baby

I've driven an Electric Nissan Leaf for three years now, so a cynic could say I've served my penance for mother nature and that I could return to the dirty world of fossil fuel with my head held high but guess what? You can keep fossil fuels and regular trips to the garage because I'm a convert. No, Im not a tree hugger, badger campaigner, stop cutting the hedges and save the dolphin type of chap, in fact the only things I get heated about lately are Man Utds away performances and the latest Donald Trump announcements. I know, I know the latter really arent important but the former definitely is.

Actually one of the best things about the Leaf is that Donald Trump would hate it and that gives me a bit of a kick every time I switch it on. Anyway, I have a habit of digressing but I was just about to tell you I had taken on my second Leaf from Edgars Rowrah and it was the easiest decision I've ever made. Trust me I've thought longer over whether its to be a tea or cappuccino!

The new leaf has a higher power battery, not that I ever had any issues with the old one. I used to charge it three times a week overnight and send the car an email first thing in the morning to switch on the heated seats and climate control,, yes you can do that with the Leaf so no more cold mornings waiting for the windows to defrost, its all done ready for your arrival in the car a bit like an electronic concierge. Anyhow, I had a meeting to attend in Grasmere and with the A591 Lakes road still impassible it was either the diversion from Hell via the M6 or the springtime pleasures of Hardknott Pass. For those of you who have never done Hardknott and Wrynose Passes let me just say they have to be on your bucket list and preferably before you end up as a possible cardiac patient because while stunning, they aint for the faint of heart. For me it was the first time over the pass in a Leaf so I did have a little fear in the back of my mind that it could be embarrassing but I needn't have worried. About half way up the first part of the pass and it was going well but I was worried that the Leaf was holding back a little until I remembered to switch it out of Eco mode which greatly reduces the supply of power. It should be called something far more exotic though such as turbo boost or launch control because that's exactly what it did halfway up the pass. It went into launch mode causing me to pull back sharply on the power because this baby would have eaten up Hardknott and spat it out. The fabulous but sometimes hairy thing about this wonderful Pass is that rather like The Duke of York, once you've marched all the way up, you have to march all the way back down and that's where the fun really starts. The fun starts there because as regular Pass drivers know there's an awful lot of braking going down the other side and the wonderful Leaf generates electricity every time you brake, now isn't that a cool trick!

I plugged it in at Grasmere for an hour during the meeting and then set off back over the same Pass but this time having got the hang of how much electricity I was going to use, I switched on the heated seats and steering wheel and trust me the latter is a blessing to anyone with bad circulation or arthritis! I got back home with 16 miles of charge to spare and four christmas trees on the dashboard. Yes, Christmas Trees because for some reason known only to Mr Nissan the Leaf rewards you with a tree every few miles of ecological driving and four meant that I had been really kind to mother earth while having a cracking time behind the wheel.

One more thing worth noting when you are out on a journey in the Leaf is the sound system by Bose. Its quite incredible and feels so immersive that even the Blues sounded really good. Yep, the Leaf has it all and some, more tech than the space shuttle, the smoothest of rides due to there being no gear changes and some really potent power when you need it. Go Leaf Go!

Is wine really bad for you

Common sense is not so common.

Voltaire

It seems that after 20 years of promoting and loving the wine business, I now find myself on the wrong side of the Government health watchdogs. Alcohol is bad for you they proclaimed, Hogwash I replied, no level of alcohol is safe they shouted, tell that to a Scot I cried, but we are only looking out for your good health they announced, mind your own sodding business I retorted, but we know best they screamed, not according to my pleasure receptors you dont I yelled and so the argument goes on. The Editor and I had convened an urgent COBRA meeting (Cumbrians Opposed to Bureaucratic Ratifications on Alcohol) and we discussed whether continuing this wine column could see either of us taking a trip to see the big man in a black maria. After much discussion about our abilities to withstand questioning and whether we would have to abandon our families and accept a new life engaged to a Scouse drug dealer named Big Bob, we have bravely decided to take the risk for you our wonderful readers. However if we are snatched off the street and flown to Guantanamo Bay, please turn out in force and remember the Cumbrian Two, united we stand, while  divided we could be writing love letters to Big Bob.

Anyway, regardless of Government pressure, I will fight on in the business even if I end up hovering outside Costa with a big overcoat on, pockets full of illicit claret while trying to decide if any of my street clients are working for the man. In the evenings you will have to call my mobile number which I’ll change every few days so dont forget to step into the BT phone booth on Lowther Street where my number will be constantly updated, Ill probably be alongside Micky who can fix you up with umpteen different powders to snort up your nose and Scary Mary who promises lots of love for under a fiver. This is where having an electric car could come in handy as deliveries in the wee hours of the morning would be silent and stealthy but what about the legal ramifications for you the end abuser of alcohol. If a police search of your house turned up a decanter and glasses would that in the future arouse as much suspicion as gold scales found in a two up two down on Kells? Would possesion of alcohol become an offence or merely consumption? Can you imagine sitting down to a re run of Downton Abbey with a glass of Port and having the front door kicked in by the police. Then again if alcohol gets banned the bureaucracy will probably be in such a state of political correctness that police decision will be made by committees rather than officers. They will be forced to consider so many things before signing off on a raid that you should have time to drink the evidence and wash the offending glasses.

The Rum Story would probably be able to continue but without the sale or sampling of Rum. The new narrative would be written by Kim Yong Ill’s former speech writer who now finds the UK a far more receptive place for his talents. Whether coach loads of people would actually want to visit to be lectured on the hazards of the past and how much more beneficial a carrot and turnip smoothie is to your future longevity I dont know. Then again the cellar under their front shop window could once again be filled with stone bottles of illegal alcohol accessed via the stern assistant who is actually secretly allied to the Cumbrian Two and to whom a secret handshake grants access to medicine bottles full of rum. The number of Grandparents with bottles of Calpol in their overcoats would triple over night. Deli counters in the Supermarkets would ask you to sign a waiver stating that under no circumstances would the pumpkin seeded wedge cheddar you purchased  be washed down with alcohol. Council allotments would have regular inspections by the fruits for fruits sake committee and heaven help you if you seem to be focussing too much on elderberries, blackcurrants or heaven forbid grapes. Theres another product whose sales would be restricted. Grapes would probably have a colour changing ingredient genetically bred into them that turns the resultant liquid high vis yellow if it comes into contact with alcohol. A visit to Wilkos could get you on the terrorist watch list if you ended up combining buckets, yeast, sugar and bottles in the same basket.

Still, despite all the new red tape, you can always rely on the Cumbrian Two to bring the truth (as we see it anyway) to your palate regardless of the looming attention of Big Bob or a bed in Cuba.

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth. ~George Burns

The term ‘over the top’ which as we all know refers to examples of extremism or excessiveness is thought to have originated in the WW1 British Trenches when officers would order their men over the top of the trenches but how many of us have genuinely experienced an over the top moment?

What is over the top though? Rolls Royce fit an umbrella inside the door frame of their cars, even the ones destined for the Middle East but is that a luxurious touch or excess? Wayne Rooney is paid £300k per week but often puts in a third division performance, Bugatti built the Veyron, a car with twin engines and a maximum speed in excess of 200mph when the only place you can really open it up is a racetrack and Royal Dragon place genuine 23 carat Gold leaf in their Vodka even though it adds zero to the flavour. Examples of excess or justified under any conditions? Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times with long wide bodied blades when experts have often predicted one would have done the job. Excess or safe planning? Some wines from Burgundy can be worth £2k per bottle while their neighbours literally over the adjoining fence can be as little as £10 so is that over the top or coincidental geography?

I’ve enjoyed wrestling with conundrums like those above for years and usually come down on the side of good planning and luxurious touches as I don’t really believe I’ve ever seen anything that couldn’t be justified in some way, even Rooneys wages; that is until Friday night in London. Dianne and I were staying in a lovely hotel in Kensington, London which boasted a Michelin starred chef and we decided to try his food out. I considered the Scampi and changed my mind but thankfully the neighbouring table ordered it and I say thankfully because I don’t think I will ever erase the Silence of the Seafood image from my mind. The actual Scampi themselves were wrapped in some sort of pink fluff that made them look like candy floss but the plate decoration was the star of the show. The Chef had taken a langoustine and publically humiliated it. Not only was it not destined to be consumed, it was mounted high above the plate with four extra long cocktail sticks shoved up its Jacksy. An ignominious end to a graceful creature. I ordered the Lamb chops which would have been a shining example of the ridiculous had it not been for mr Langoustine simply because of their size. They should really have been termed Embryo chops because they were genuinely so tiny but then we saw another table being served up some sort of plastic globe with a bright pink syrup inside and a cocktail stick in the top. I asked the waiter who started to explain what sauce it was when he veered off to say that the Chef likes people to interact with the food. Silly me, I thought our part of the interaction was to eat it!  Dianne ordered a tiramisu for a sweet and I joked that it would really make my evening if it arrived on a cocktail stick which made her laugh but guess what,, it did! Try to imagine it and if you cant, pop into the shop and I’ll explain in more detail but if there was ever an example of Over the Top it was our chef that evening.

So, when faced with a prime example of edible excess, what is the best wine to counter it with? Thankfully on Friday, I had ordered wine in my safe zone because the menu looked like a tad pretentious and when in doubt about flavours, Ive always found solace in a Gran Reserva Rioja. Slightly closed on the nose, Riojas rarely clash with food aromas and their vanilla dominated palate is an easy match with a huge range of foods from meats to fish and pasta. Rioja is still mainly produced from Tempranillo or Grenache grapes. I prefer a majority of the former grape because it takes to oak like a duck to water. The fruit tends to be soft and dumbed down but absorbs and releases the vanilla flavours of the wood with ease. Soft, creamy fudge flavours with ripe juicy tannins, the Gran Reservas are the easiest food match ever. They can take the sting out of curry while adding velvety fruit to a good steak and body to a pasta dish. Gran Reserva Riojas are aged for a minimum of 5 years of which two must be in cask but many of the ones Ive fallen in love with over the years have seen more than a decade of ageing. Some of the big international Rioja houses such as Faustino occasionally release very old stocks and its currently possible to purchase off the shelf 1964’s and 1970 vintages which says a lot about the structure of the wine and even more about the particular producer. In the past, it was not uncommon for some bodegas to age their red wines for 15–20 years or even more before their release. One notable example of this is the Marqués de Murrieta which released its 1942 vintage gran reserva in 1983 after 41 years of aging and it was absolutely delightful and yet other products including spirits such as Bourbon and Malts can get what is often termed Oak Burn from excessive time in a cask and it leaves them tasting dry, bland and sometimes smoky.

The other thing I like about Rioja is that they often bottle their wines in the full range of sizes, especially the gigantic bottles which are perfect for parties where you want to impress the neighbours. I opened a Matuzalem of Rioja to celebrate 20 years in business last week and it poured nearly 60 glasses to happy punters before running itself dry.

Anyway, I apologise for digressing today but the poor langoustine was there for the taking to be honest and the look on its face with those four lances poking up its bum will be with me forever.

Gerards Picks

Don Jacobo Gran Reserva Rioja

Stunningly presented with a gold label, this dark crimson red wine is a soft explosion of stewed fruits and fudge with vanilla custard and a few cigars thrown in for good measure.

 Richardsons £21.99

Faustino 1 Gran Reserva Rioja

Similar to the Don Jacobo but without the hints of cedar wood and cigar smoke. Faustino 1 does have more visible tannins as well which makes it absolutely perfect with barbeque steaks and burgers (posh burgers mind you)

Widely available £19 to £23

Life is definitely too short to miss trying this wine

Hello and welcome to the first of me wine blogs, tasting notes or drivel, whichever title you prefer.
The question I keep asking myself as I approach the 20th year of our Fine Wine business is how did a chap who thought peach Concorde was the height of middle class desire end up selling wine at up to £400 a bottle in a small town in West Cumbria? Tis a long story and over the next few blogs, Ill gradually introduce the history of our business in between offering you some personal suggestions to try at home.

Although I can remember having wine in the house as a youngster, it was mainly Sanatagen Tonic wine or Cyprus Sherry, both of which are quite disgusting so my first experience of a decent red wine was always going to be make or break. I remember it being a merlot from Chile and I remember thinking it was quite fantastic that you could get so many complex flavours out of a singe grape variety. Later that year, Dianne bought me Oz Clarkes wine guide for Christmas and the following year, we were listed in the next edition as specialist fine wine merchants! Over the nearly 20 years since, we've take the business and ourselves on a journey most people couldnt even dream of involving celebrities, submarines and Iceland! Yes, I did get that last sentence right and the strange thing is it all feels normal now.

Anyway, this is called Tasting Note No 1 so I guess we need something wet, alcoholic and preferably sealed with a cork. The latter is neither here nor there in terms of the quality of the wine anymore but I do like the whole ceremony around removing the cork, far more romantic than unscrewing a stelvin but then I am a tad old fashioned.

Im going to start the tasting notes with a long time personal favourite red wine called Method Ancienne Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 from the Springfield Estate in South Africa. Ive tasted numerous wines from Springfield, none of which have ever let me down but up until this lovely creature came along they were all commercial mid week specials ie wines that were okay with fish and chips or a packet of cheese and onion crisps.

The Method Ancienne is in a different league. Planted on a rocky outcrop of land that was previously thought unusable for vines, the plants have had to work hard to present the fruit and what they create are tiny rich almost over ripe grapes that are densely packed with flavour. The Cabernet is aged for 2 years in French Oak  barrels and a further 3 in bottle before it leaves the vineyard and the patience shows on first taste. Bottled unfiltered, so it may throw a small sediment after standing for some time (the extra flavour benefits of unfiltered wines far outweigh the issues with sediment), the fruit is litterally bursting to get out when you free the cork. Warm almost sweet aromas of violets and pencil shavings lead into a sumptuous palate of almost syrupy blackcurrant fruits held together by lush soft tannins. The finish is long and I found the Method Ancienne at its best with a rich hard cheese or the full Sunday Roast although I have been quite decadent in the recent past and just enjoyed it for what it is, a superb and rightly described Fine Wine.

£29.99 per bottle in Richardsons, 26 Lowther Street, Whitehaven

For those of you new to our strange business, we're based in a tiny Georgian Shop on Lowther Street Whitehaven from where we hold stocks of all manner of old Port and Madeira as well as a wide range of fine wine including the classics from Bordeaux and Burgundy. We also roast our own coffee and as of late, we stock ranges of products from several Lakes suppliers such as Brysons Plum Bread, Bedrock Gin and Farrers Lakeland Blend Tea. We also major in hampers so if you need a special gift at any time of the year just give us a few hours notice and we will prepare a bespoke Hamper gift. In Dewcember please give at least a days notice.

Anyway ladies and Gents, more to follow next week and I'll put formal tasting sheets on our web for download from this coming weekend.

Bottoms up

Gerard Richardson MBE

Was that okay for you?

Well, we completed our major events programme for the summer last weekend with a fabulous gig by Big Country, The Stranglers and Bob Geldof only for a chap to walk in the shop on Saturday afternoon asking when the festival was happening. I reminded him that it was finished for good and was being replaced by a series of other events and then proceeded to list them for him. His next question? When do the events start? If he had ignited a fart over my pavement sign I wouldnt have been as surprised but you know what, in the true spirit of a seasoned local, I told him the events started next May and watched him leave peacefully, probably off to his padded cell to count his sea shell collection.

Anyway, in case you werent there, the gig itself was superb, as was the weather. Dianne and I were invited backstage to talk wine to Bob Geldof who turned out to be the most unassuming person you could imagine. A nicer gentleman you would find it hard to meet. Turns out Bob (just to his friends, Sir Bob to the rest of you) has just bought the state vineyards off the Ethiopian Government and was keen to talk to Jancis Robinson arguably the worlds leading wine expert. Twas Bobs lucky day as Jancis and I go back a long way so he should now be on his way to securing world class advice courtesy of a little gig in Whitehaven last Saturday. Big Country were superb musicians and opened the gig. Sadly their set seemed to end as fast as it had begun but Bruce and the team were so lovely, they joined the crowd to watch the Stranglers. As usual a few minor issues came up meaning I missed about half their set but I was back in the crowd for the big hits and by the time the opening chords of No More Heroes drifted across the pitch, my brain had turned back the clock 30 years and I had to forcibly stop myself from doing the pogo stick. Remember that crazy dance? It was actually inspired by bands like the Stranglers but while my brain kicked into gear just in time to save my dignity, lots of others didnt. I can only assume they were numbed by alcohol in the pit area of the crowd, either that or someone was making a killing selling his parents supply of Tramadols to the audience.

Anyhow almost before we knew it Bob Geldof and the Rats were taking to the stage and no one could argue that the guy had stage presence. Crikey, singing was optional with him but thankfully he did. Musically the Rats were as close to perfection as Madness and Geldof only matched by that other charismatic performer we had a few years ago, Boy George. I watched as respectable pillars of the community became engrossed in the moment and turned back into teenage punk rockers, probably railing in their minds against the very establishment they now represented. Sometimes the power of music is just awesome. Anyway, after a final blistering 'We are the Boomtown Rats' was belted out towards Dent fell, I popped backstage where I was asked the most surreal question of all by Mr Geldof; Was that okay for you? Thankfully my breath was taken away because the only reply on my mind was Ooh, yes, yes, yes, Oh my God yes, true Meg Ryan style.

Anyway, from the heights of the events and hobnobbing with legends back to reality is a bit of a fall and gets no easier no matter how many times you do it so heres to a humdrum existence for a few weeks, reading stock catalogues, planning Christmas orders, roasting coffee and so on, while all the time remembering that Sir Bob Geldof called me Gerard and asked if the gig was okay for me?