Chateau Nealden

Some photos of me and Catherine's wine-making bonanza. Chateau Nealden anyone will be coming to all good (or more likely bad) wine shops in about 9 months time . . .

Max, sunnies and masterful drumming

My weekend was chocked full of 30th b-day parties. I randomly ended up at an old friend's party on Friday in Fulham, and Saturday was dedicated to Mr Barda's el grande party - in which he'd organised to play a gig at (Mr B's a drummer).

Sunday was spent hanging out with Max - and dressing him up in shades. Dogs in sunglasses never fail to disappoint . . .

My 8 yearold dream come true

When I was a kid one of the things I always dreamt of was owning my own sweet shop - not the most original or ambitious of dreams for an 8 year old kid. I still kinda have this dream - though on a boring economic-level I don't really see how the money-side stacks up . . . I've never seen a Porsche-driving sweet shop owner . . .

So it's nice that Cadbury have created 'the Dairy Milk factory' - a fun little interactive app that allows you to create your own chocolate bar. OK - so it's not "create your own sweet shop" - however arguably this is a better option from an economic perspective . . . as I dare say Mr Cadbury owns a Porsche or two . . .

Food glorious food

This summer we've grown soooo much food from our lovely Brixton mini-garden. The biggest yielders (and winners from my perspective) have been our runner beans and tomatoes. In second place come lettuce and spinach.

Growing your own food is such a great feeling - and super low cost. Especially when you look at the cost of things like lettuce and tommy ts in supermarkets.

Role on the Good Life . . .

Big boys toys

My dad's kinda obsessed by flying and the war - to the extent that 20 years back he set up a war-themed restaurant chain called the Bunker - which was run out of our house cellar (it was a kinda big cellar!).

Anyway, his latest plan is to buy a Spitfire - so he can live-out his boyhood fantasies - pretending to blast Gerry out of the skies . . . The only problem is Spitfires cost £250k! Serious big boys toys . . .

Werk werk werk

So, amongst the many things I spend the days in my life merrily doing is help run a e-consultation company called Delib.

A lot of the work we do is really very high-brow (or high brow compared to most things in my life), however at the mo we're doing a really nice project for the BBC Trust.

What I like most about our e-consultation work, is that a major part of it is aimed at trying to shake up (and improve) the dull old work of consultation - which has been dominated by stale chat and biscuits for far too long.

So it was nice to hear Chris Moyles bigging up our latest project on Radio One last week. Step aside "Saviour of Radio", hello "Saviour of consultation"!