goodrichard.com

It’s been twelve months, to the day. 365 days ago, I posted the first entry on www.goodrichard.com, not knowing how long I would be keep writing for, or what I would be writing about. But, I am still here writing, and, looking back, they have been a very busy twelve months.

So, month by month, what were the highlights?

January
Starting at the end of January 2007, there were only three posts in the first month. Objects around the home were doing their best to test me, with the DVD recorder not recording, and the kitchen radiator ticking. A Watch with Mother night at the South Bank brought happy childhood memories back, though.

February
Not knowing where my journey would take me, I added to the 65,000 bloggers already writing. Carbon footprint worries got bigger while The Archers audience got smaller. There were visits to Framlingham Castle and Southend, and we saw the first snow of the year, while views of Primrose Hill on Valentine’s evening will be remembered for some time yet. Motoring achievements included the Trabant’s 50th anniversary and the driving of Volkswagen’s latest range.

The view from Primrose Hill, February 2007

March
The start of spring produced some long exposure night-time pictures of the South Bank, and some natural word photos at Alton Water reservoir. Keeping with the nature theme, the Luigi Colani – Translating Nature exhibition at the Design Museum provided some organic thinking. I celebrated the Barbican, and Ipswich docks, too, which were both bathed in unseasonal sunlight. I also found out that library borrowing had been brought into the cyber century, while Volkswagen showed technological developments at the Geneva Motor Show, with the launch of the Polo BlueMotion.

Frog at Alton Water Reservoir, Suffolk, March 2007

April
The end of the first third of the year was quieter, but events were no less significant. The first unofficial leaks of Kylie’s X were to be found circling cyberspace, and my musical taste buds were tickled by London six-piece, Lucky Soul. New life was the theme of April, with Will Norris coming into the world, the planting of herb seeds, and my feet being treated to a new pair of running shoes. Geocaching got us out and about in Essex finding treasure and old cars, while Sizewell and Sandford Mill were host to equally entertaining afternoons.

Herbs were planted in April 2007

May
The fifth month of 2007 brought Eurovision fever, and a speedy car and train trip to France. Sticking with an automotive theme, Volkswagen surprised everyone and pulled the covers off the ultimate Super Golf, the GTI W12, and we enjoyed the Stanford Hall VW show, and a spot of camping. Cultural highlights included The News Quiz, a chat by Stephen Bailey at the Design Museum, and the much-talked about Kylie exhibition at the V&A.

Kylie - The Exhibition opened its doors in May 2007

June
The midway point of the year brought visits to the Essex coastal resorts of Frinton and Walton, while Suffolk soil was tramped at Bury St Edmunds. Cardiff was also host to my first visit to Wales. The bike was woken from its somewhat long hibernation, and was used for a day sketching the canals of Chelmsford, while a new Polo GTI whizzed us up to the north east of England for a week away. There were more cars at Canary Wharf’s MotorExpo, and GTI International 2007. Progress on the herbs was encouraging, and we planted out the vegetable patch. Musical highs were brought by the This is Tomorrow Saint Etienne film premiere, and more leaks from Kylie’s X.

VW Polo GTI provided fast and dry transport in June 2007

July
July started with starvation (of email due to account inactivity and termination), but future meals were provided by the making of soup with the first of the herbs, fruit picking, and a visit to Wyken Hall farmers’ market. An almost flooding of the office proved fretful, as did the ongoing gearbox problems with the car, which were finally rectified. Entertainment was provided by a night’s racing and the Pet Shop Boys at Newmarket racecourse.

August
Architectural goings-on trickled through August’s entries. I became a follower of the Save Milton Court campaign, and saw the part-demolotion of the P&O Building in London’s Leadenhall. Ickworth House in Suffolk showed what can be built on a grand scale, while the O2 and the wind turbine at Lowestoft demonstrated that modern structures can be large, too. Looking up to the sky was essential to catch the Event Horizon exhibition, to see where our kite was flying on Aldeburgh beach, and where the planes were soaring through the air at Wings and Wheels.

The upwards demolition of the P&O Building started in August 2007

September
The last quarter of the year started with stunning scenery and the best-ever holiday at home in the south west. Broomhill Pool in Ipswich held its heritage open day, while train delays made us wish we were only holiday again. Spending a lot of time in the kitchen, beetroot cake, quince jelly, marmalade, and tomato chutney were all baked and made. Heralding a new era in city cars, the Volkswagen up! was revealed, just as the company’s cars were featuring in Hollywood blockbuster, The Bourne Ultimatum. Musically, and to great excitement, the first official details of Kylie’s X were released.

Torquay in early September was unseasonally warm

October
The darker nights saw the near-end of the herbs, while we tried our hands at making sloe gin. Orford Ness provided insights into a secret past, while fine food and a special occasion were enjoyed at The Leaping Hare restaurant. Sleep was economical, as the problems from March resurfaced, and economy of an impressive sort was trumpeted as the Polo BlueMotion finally hit UK shores. The Kylie comeback trail was well and truly blazed, with the premiere of single 2 Hearts, the White Diamond film, and still more leaks from X. Technology was tried and tested with the launch of The Archers podcast, and a download from Channel 4’s on-demand service, 4oD.

October 2007 saw the BBC launch The Archers podcast

November
The month before Christmas gave us a busy day early on, with visits to the MPH car show, Borough Market, and Zaha Hadid and Matthew Williamson exhibitions at the Design Museum. The Save Milton Court campaign stepped up a gear, but demolition was sadly confirmed. Majorcan memories from 2007 gave a European taste, while a visit to Country and Eastern in Norwich offered an altogether Far Eastern influence. With the onset of winter, a review of the heating at the flat proved that it wasn’t in the best of health, while reviews of a musical and literary kind came in the shape of Kylie’s X, and Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn.

December
Christmas and preparations for the festive season dominated December, making for fewer blogging visits. But beyond the homemade cards, colds, and Christmas cake, the Market Café in Aldeburgh brought a welcome reprieve.

January 2008
Strictly speaking the thirteenth month, 2008 dawned with ill trains and an even sicker me. Technologically, the BBC iPlayer impressed, while Fiat’s 500 showed that retro can be cool. Thoughts of slimmed down life were pondered, as was the national state of chicken sheds thanks to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Chicken Out! campaign. A night at The British Museum was a cultural highlight, while being back in the garden was a horticultural delight.

Find out what else has happened in Year One by clicking on any of the month links to the right. If you’re a regular passenger, I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride, and if you’re just an occasional traveller, I hope you’ve found something of interest. Here’s to 2008!

The weekend has gone by in an enjoyable blur.

Saturday’s trip into town to mooch around the shops and market in the late winter sun was all the more enjoyable this week, as we went home loaded with fruit and vegetables in paper bags from the local produce stall.

As well as being much cheaper than mass market and overseas ‘grown and flown’ items, the crops offered by the independent local trader seemed physically much larger, giving not only an ethical piece of mind, but value for money, too.

Walking away with our purchases (together with our Hessian reusable bags from Tesco) we felt that we’d done our ethically-minded and locally-sourced bit for the day, even if we had visited the supermarket first. We did only buy the non-perishable items from there, though.

It was good to be back in the garden today (or at least the greenhouse), where paper potting beans and cat grass were the jobs for the day. Pleasantly warmer than being outside, it was good to get back outdoors, after seemingly being holed up for more time than we have actually been in the darker months.

Rewarding ourselves with another coffee in town, this week we took the dominoes and played a few fast-thinking rounds. We’d never really played for points before, and although a points scoring game requires more thinking and the adding up of numbers (scoring in denominations of 5), the hands are so much more fun.

Low points meant no prizes for me, but from a feelgood and supporting the little guys perspective, I think - this weekend at least - that we’ve done quite well.

The Great Court at the British Museum

Not having been for a while, we took advantage of the British Museum’s late night opening times tonight, and weaved our way through the steadily busy Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, and Middle East galleries. Attracting tourists and Londoners alike, the later openings (until 20.30, although the Great Court is open until 23.00) are clearly popular with museum goers.

With all the hype and bluster surrounding ‘The Last Emperor‘ exhibition, it’s easy to forget that such iconic artefacts as the Parthenon Marbles can be seen in the London museum, and that most of the galleries have free entry. It was the stolen Greek statues and metopes that I’d wanted to see most, not believing that I’d not made the effort before.

The most impressive thing about them is their age. Over 2,500 years old, the detail on them hasn’t withered much, though missing heads, limbs, and chipped surfaces tell a different story of long travel and custody battles. There has long been a campaign to reunite the fragments of sculpture from the Parthenon temple, which are now spread over a handful of museums in a handful of countries.

Controversially, the British Museum’s position has long been one of defiance, the institution receiving them from the British Government when Lord Elgin sold them in 1816, after taking them from the ruined Parthenon temple in the early 1800s. A new glass-topped museum is being built at the Acropolis site in Greece, where the Greeks are keen to reunite the statues and frieze.

Sources state that it is now inadvisable, and not feasible to send the frieze pediments, metopes, and pediment figures back to their homeland. A fascinating evening then, but we did think it a shame that Greek tourists have to come to London to see large parts of their history.

The sawdust was certainly kicked up, but is the UK now any nearer to enjoying widespread chicken contentment? It’s two media-frenzied weeks since Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall launched his Chicken Out! campaign, and his series ‘Hugh’s Chicken Run‘ highlighted the less than ideal conditions that intensively farmed chickens have to endure to bring the British consumer a value-for-money bird.

Part of Channel 4’s ‘Big Food Fight‘ season, the three-night series told the story of how standard birds are reared and readied for the supermarket shelf, and what a miserable life they have compared to the Free Range chickens which frolic and wander in the great outdoors. The shows also highlighted the fact that most of the standard birds are now sold at rock bottom prices, with many outlets offering ‘2 for £5′ deals.

Turning his home town of Axminster Free Range by the end of the last programme, the TV chef’s campaign has steadily gained support, and by this evening, the sign-up counter rolled over its 114,210th name (well done Chloe from York).

The series made for shocking viewing, made worse by the fact that 95% of the UK’s birds for eating are reared this way. Of course, caged battery hen conditions are even worse, so it does seem that if you do want to have a conscience and give the birds a better life, Free Range birds and eggs are the only way to go.

Ethically-minded and of a compassionate nature, I see no reason why anyone cannot afford to shell out (pun intended) the little extra cost the Free Range products attract. A friend pointed out to me last week that at the end of the day, whether a chicken has roamed the countryside, or roamed (or tried to roam) in its own droppings in an intensive barn, the end result is the same; the chicken is still killed.

Fair point, I thought, but if you were told you had a choice of a nice life or a miserable one, which would you choose? It’s not hard to work out the answer.

It’s the same for other meat, too, I guess. And, the argument goes that if you’re really against all cruelty to animals, then go vegetarian, or at least pescetarian. And yes, I do have chicken breast fillets in my freezer, and I very much doubt they are Free Range. I did buy them before the programme, though, but I will look to seek out the Free Range option when I next need to buy.

That’s if I can. The Chicken Out! campaign website reports that both Tesco and Sainsbury’s have reported a huge increase in Free Range and higher welfare poultry sales since the TV programmes were aired (Sainsbury’s even say that there are availability issues with their Free Range stock), and farmers also state that Free Range birds are very much in demand. As are eggs, which are enjoying their best sales for over 15 years.

The other argument is that free-range produce are much more expensive. This is true, but the price differential isn’t that great. On the Sainsbury’s website tonight, a large standard chicken weighing 2.5kg was £2.19/kg, with the free range West Country bird coming in at £3.99/kg. yes, that’s £1.80/kg more, but it’s not that much more, when economies can be made elsewhere, and is still better value and endlessly healthier than your local KFC.

I’m on a budget, and yes, I only have to worry abut myself, but if other non-necessities are culled from the weekly shopping bill, then free range birds are in the realm of every shopper. It’s only if people want to change things, they’ll buy the kinder option.

The 800 million chickens reared in these awful conditions need our support. So, go on, go Free Range, and get those chickens out.

An icon reinvented for a modern generation: the new Fiat 500

Launched in Turin on July 4 last year to a rapturous reception, the new Fiat 500 goes on sale officially in the UK today. That mid-summer date was significant enough: 50 years ago to the day, the Italian manufacturer pulled the covers off its original diminutive 500.

And now, it’s time for the UK to get a sprinkling of new 500 excitement.

There was even a party on the Thames tonight, with eager 500 fans revelling in the arrival of their new icon at the London Eye. Fiat, wanting to ‘make the country smile’, unveiled the new 500 at 8pm ‘flying’ in one of the capsules, precisely 500 hours from the start of the New Year.

Smile! New Fiat 500 in the London Eye (Source: Fiat UK/nf500.com)

But, beneath all the marketing date tie-ins, ‘Everyday Masterpieces’ advertising campaign, and cutesy city car puff, is the car likely to be any good?

Based on the current revered Panda chassis, and with engines of 69, 75, and 100bhp, it fills both the city and boutique fun car niches perfectly. A modern interpretation of Fiat’s iconic baby from the 1950s, it won’t - and doesn’t need to - revolutionise or mobilise a nation this time around, but it should provide lots of smiles per mile.

And I certainly wouldn’t mind tooling around in one.

Cheaper and roomier than BMW’s reinvented Mini (up until now the boutique car class darling), it should deservedly become the car of choice for style-led drivers everywhere, and give the city car market a much-needed design boost. After all, what would you choose - Japanese or Korean hatchback, Smart Fortwo, or new Fiat 500?

Almost 4 million of the original 500 were built from 1957 to 1975, galvanising individuals into independence and providing real motoring for the masses, just like the precursor of that other reinvented icon, Volkswagen’s New Beetle (the original Mini played a part, too). But, the new 500 has better-resolved styling than both its contemporaries, and, for the moment at least, that all important desirability factor.

Old or new? 2008 Fiat 500 builds on the style of the 1957 original

The initial drive reports are promising. Riding on the crest of an euphoric wave, the multi-award winner has received plaudits from both the Top Gear and Fifth Gear TV programmes, as well as Car magazine, and has also earned the coveted ‘Car of the Year 2008′ title, for which 58 journalists from 22 European countries vote.

With a possible 549,936 variations, made up from combinations of three trim levels, three engines, twelve colours (including six vintage shades), seven alloy wheel and two hubcap designs, eight sticker kits, ten badge designs, two interior trims, and fourteen choices of upholstery, it really is ‘a car for the people, made by the people, for the people’, just as Fiat says.

There really should be something for everyone, then. And that’s before the hotter Abarth and Abarth SS, the convertible, and the Giardiniera estate versions come along. Everyone played a part in the 500’s development, too, with over 3 million people involved via the www.500wantsyou.com website.

Obviously, nostalgia for the original model plays a big part in the new car’s success story. And, what’s wrong with that? Fiat seems to have kept a handle on the whole 500 project, and the newcomer doesn’t appear too retro or too modern, steering a fine balance between misty-eyed reminiscences and future forward-looking glances.

The new Fiat 500 ‘flys’ the London Eye until 3 February (Source: Fiat UK/nf500.com)

After all, it needs to - the old 500 is still a national motoring icon in its home country over 30 years after production ended, not to mention a symbol of Italy’s post-war recovery. And Fiat wants to get it right; being careful to not dent it’s conservatively estimated 120,000 annual production run.

The company did get it right - it should be one of the best and long-awaited cars to come along for quite some time (I can’t wait for the Giardiniera version). The price is right, too, with the cheapest 1.2-litre Pop trim cars starting at £7,900, rising to the range-topping £10,700 1.4 Lounge.

While it doesn’t have to be the revolution the original was, it’s certainly caught the public’s imagination in a similar way. And it is making its own revolution of sorts - catch it on the London Eye until 3 February.