Travel

Useful PDF guide to the polite amount to tip in various countries is here. (Via a discussion at Word of Mouth).

A dinner stop on the way back from Basingstoke at the Bell Hotel in the pretty town of New Alresford in Hampshire. Very friendly service on a quiet Sunday evening and OK food. Steak was nicely presented with good accompaniments, but was a very English medium. Tom had kid-sized cod

Dinner tonight at the very cool and clean Alba restaurant on the harbour in St Ives. Friendly service and thoughtful local food on the upside, slightly overpriced and portions on the small side, however. Probably one of the best places to eat in the town, but you pay for the

Haweli 509 Hagley Road, Birmingham, 0121-434 5717 Birmingham is blessed with many fine curry houses – this is one of the finest. The food is consistently great, particularly the karahi and naan bread that’s perfectly light and puffy. Many of the regulars are Asian, which is testament to the quality

At the end of the M4, very seventies but does a good breakfast.

Not sure what it is about the prosperous Wiltshire town, but Marlborough, where the kids and I have stopped off on our way to Ireland, is proving hard to buy pizza in. Ask (where we are now) has sat us down on the condition we eat up and get out

I picked up three bottles of local beer when I was down in St Ives and I’ve just been sampling them in front of England v. Brazil. The Brazil of the bunch was One and All from the Carn Brea Brewery (near Camborne), which was a really rich and

Via Porthcurno, which hasn’t changed a bit in the 20 years since I was there last, and Cape Cornwall, the thinking man’s Lands End, we made St Ives for dinner. Coast restaurant, on a first floor overlooking the harbour, provided very tasty, filling food for not much money,