On wine, tiny bit of good news. There was a big blind tasting of sparkling wines in Italy last month. There are a lot of these competitions, and some of them are fairly meaningless - you often see the result embossed on wine labels: "Medaille d'argent au concours du vin de Clermont-Ferrand, 1967" etc. But the thing about this one is that a British wine came in second place, only just behind Bollinger, one of the greatest names in champagne.
The British wine was ahead of several other champagnes, and way in front of a host of bubblies from round the world. The wine is Camel Valley, and it's made near Bodmin. I hadn't heard of it, but they sent me a bottle, and I could instantly see why it did so well - it's fruity, nutty, fresh, rounded and gorgeous.
It also costs a lot of money, so we may not be able to afford it until around 2012, but I felt a mild surge of patriotic pride that this country is actually producing wine of the highest world class. And in Cornwall! It's a very long time since I met a French winemaker who looked down his nose and said, "Yurr British wine, eet tastes of rain."