King Charles held a State Banquet for the German President on Wednesday evening, and 150 guests including Keir Starmer sat down for a nice evening meal. Meanwhile many thousands will struggle to put food on the table this Christmas even with the help of Food Banks. It could be a scene from Victorian Britain but of course its Britain 2025
The menu for the banquet was a mix of British and German cuisine.
Tartlet of hot smoked trout with langoustines, quail eggs and shellfish sauce
Windsor partridge supreme wrapped in puff pastry with confit cabbage and port sauce
Crushed carrots and swede
Assortment of winter vegetables
Baked Alaska with blackberry, vanilla and raspberry ice creams
There was a special cocktail for the event, made with cherry brandy and chocolate, which was meant to evoke the classic retro flavour of Black Forest gateau.
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it is no accident that Joe Root has scored his first Test century in Australia with the fullest beard he has worn in an England shirt.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, as Joe Root is underlining beard power can win matches
60 years ago the Beatles released Rubber Soul sometimes known as their folk rock album and including instruments such as the sitar and harmonium not previously heard in popular music.
The record was recorded in a couple of months and its release three weeks before Christmas is a sign of different times. It would have been three months before in 2025 to maximise seasonal sales.
The album includes Nowhere Man whose lyrics some might say accurately sum up Starmerism but in reality might easily cover many mainstream politicians. Rubber Soul being the Beatles reference to the inauthenticity of their music compared to the soul and black US musicians they revered.
The Pigs Ear Beer Festival at 41: Only here for the Cask Beer…
I was at the opening night of the 41st Pigs Ear Beer Festival on Tuesday and I’ve been at nearly all of them, from the Bethnal Green days to Stratford and now Hackney. I used to go with my late father, including on the day of the hurricane in October 1987 and this year I raised a glass with friends to my late partner Megan Davies who was a regular attender at the festival for almost as long.
The grade 2 listed Round Chapel does make a great venue, although one might note some accessibility issues. There are lots of steps.
It was again one of the best cask beer ranges I’ve drunk recently in a world where cans from bottle shops and craft keg (more likely to be found in uncertain times because it has a longer life than the few days for a cask) compete for the drinkers interest. As a lifelong cask beer drinker who also enjoys beer in other formats I certainly wasn’t complaining.
The whole beer range (cask, keykeg, cans/bottles) was excellent as ever. In recent times there are of course lots of not just London brewers but east London brewers. In that sense the stand out beer for me was the Redemption/Kernel Victorian mild (6%) first brewed in 2011 in the early days of craft beer and this year brewed at Redemption in Tottenham.
The range of styles from ordinary bitters to stouts, porters, IPAs, sours and much else reflected how much the beer world has changed in the last 15 years or so. As well as the Kernel/Redemption mild I stuck largely to quite strong dark beers. Heritage’s Czar’s P2 (8%) is a recreation of a Bass imperial stout, while the 2025 version of Thomas Hardy Ale (11%) is again brewed at Hepworths. The Thornbridge/Theakstons Masham Ale (6.5%) is another brewed on the Burton Union system while 40 FT’s Eccles Stout brewed in conjunction with St Johns restaurant is designed to compliment the St Johns menu regular of Eccles cake and Lancashire cheese. The 2025 version of Five Points Derailed Porter didn’t seem to me quite as bretted as some years but still very enjoyable. All these beers were on cask. On the keykeg side Cold Shelter’s imperial coffee stout (8%) brewed at Dogs Window- both new wave South Wales breweries was good.
The point being perhaps that when keykeg first appeared at the Pigs Ear it was quite a focus. Now craft keykeg is quite widely available while well-kept and interesting cask is not always quite as easy to find as it should be. In show casing it the Pigs Ear is doing a valuable job. Hard work for the volunteers but enjoyable for the drinker
There was plenty of space and I didn’t feel uncomfortable (plenty of seating down and upstairs) Of course the attendance could always be more diverse but it being Hackney it was rather more diverse than many beer fests and anyway I have no personal issues with senior men with beards.
The 41st Pigs Ear Beer Festival is at the Round Chapel Hackney until Saturday 6th December
The Pink Ball Day/Night Test in Brisbane (plays starts at 4am UK time on Thursday morning) is pitched as the ultimate proof of Bazball or otherwise after England lost the first Test which they could have won.
As the Cricinfo graphic shows England do have decent pink ball bowlers, the problem being they are retired.
Much was made of the ageing nature of the Australian team- all but one over 30 and Anderson and Broad are now 43 and 39 respectively although the former is still playing- but with the Pink Ball it may be experience over age.
The Financial Times (3rd December) has the front page story that Farage wants an election pact with the Tories. Not of course on equal terms but a reverse take over where he presumably would be leader…
I’m no fan of the Treasury focused orthodoxies of Rachel Reeves although it can hardly be claimed they are out with of Labour tradition. Philip Snowden, Labour’s first Chancellor in 1924 was just the same.
That said she is the first ever woman Chancellor and its clear that a certain amount of criticism she receives is from a certain type of man and a certain type of right-wing media that thinks finance and economics are something that must be dealt with by men in suits.
Hence the latest ‘controversy’. Its well known that Reeves was good at chess as student (and probably still is) but it seems that while she was genuinely an under-14 chess champion, there was another championship which was mixed gender where she was not the champion.
Hmmm. I think we also need to know from Ms Reeves that in winning the championship she did not use any of the chess moves favoured by Marx and described below
William Liebknecht’s 1896 memoir of Marx mentions in some detail his interest in chess and, in the 1850s, a certain obsession with playing it. While chess is mentioned in the many volumes of Marx and Engels correspondence it relates to political analogies rather than Marx playing chess games
Marx was an excellent player on the checkerboard. He had acquired such a dexterity at this game that it was difficult to win a game from him. He also liked to play chess, but here his art did not amount to much. He tried to make up what he lacked in science by zeal, impetuousness of attack and surprise.
In the beginning of the 1850s, chess was played frequently in our society of fugitives; we had more time, and in spite of the adage “time is money” less money than was agreeable to us, and under the direction of the red Wolff, who had chanced to gain access to the best society of chess players in Paris and had learned something, the “Game of the Wise” was zealously cultivated. We had many a hotly contested chess match. The loser did not have to provide any derision; and even while the match was in progress, the hilarity was always great and sometimes very loud. When Marx was hard pressed, he lost his temper, and when he lost a game, he was furious. In the model lodging house[1*] of Old Compton street, where several of us lived for a time at three shillings and sixpence per week, we always were surrounded by a circle of Englishmen who watched our game – chess is much cultivated in England, particularly among workingmen – with great attention and were amused by our merry, noisy ways. For two Germans make more noise than six dozen Englishmen.
One day Marx announced triumphantly that he had discovered a new move by which he would drive us all under cover. The challenge was accepted. And really he defeated us all one after the other. Gradually, however, we learned victory from defeat, and I succeeded In checkmating Marx. It had become very late, and he grimly demanded revenge for next morning, in his house.
At 11 o’clock sharp, very early for London, I was on the spot. I did not find Marx in his room, but he would be in immediately. Mrs Marx was invisible, Lenchen did not make an over-friendly face. Before I could ask whether anything had happened, Marx entered, shook hands and at once fetched the chessboard. And now the battle began. Marx had studied out an improvement of his move overnight, and it was not long before I was in a tight place from which I could not escape any more. I was checkmated, and Marx was Jubilant – his good humour had suddenly reappeared, he ordered something to drink and a few sandwiches. And a new battle began – this time I was the winner. And thus we fought with changing luck and changing humour without taking time to eat, satisfying our hunger by hastily taking from a plate that Lenchen had brought us meat, cheese and bread. Mrs Marx remained invisible, neither did any one of the children dare to enter, and thus the battle raged, surging up and down, until I had checkmated Marx twice in succession – and midnight had arrived. He insisted on playing more, but Lenchen, the dictator of the house under the supremacy of Mrs Marx, declared categorically: “Now you stop!” And I took leave.
Next morning, when I had just risen from my bed, somebody knocked at my door, and in came Lenchen.
“Library”- the children had dubbed me thus and Lenchen had accepted this title, for the title “Mister” was not in use among us. “Library, Mrs Marx begs that you play no more chess with Mohr in the evening. When he loses the game, he is most disagreeable.” And she told me how his bad humour had vented itself so severely that Mrs Marx lost her patience.
Henceforth I did not accept any more invitations from Marx to play chess in the evening. Chess playing, moreover, was forced to the background in proportion to our regaining regular occupations. As for myself who had acquired a certain reputation as a player in our little circle, I convinced myself in the course of time of the correctness of Lessing’s criticism of chess: “For a play too earnest, for earnest too much play.” I was Invited by prominent players; and in the company of professionals I soon found out that the moves I had invented and of which I had been so proud had been discovered centuries before my time; I thus saw myself placed in the position of that farmer in the Pyrenees who had discovered anew during the reign of Louis Philippe the tower clocks that had already been discovered four centuries before. I learned that a voluminous literature on chess existed and that, if I expected to excel, I should have to study this literature and devote myself entirely to chess. And to take up chess as a vocation I could not well make up my mind. So I gave it up. I have not played a game of chess since, but I delight in watching good players when I have the opportunity.
Megan Davies 1958-2025. Details of live stream for the funeral, Friday 5th December 2pm
While I agree that there is much to be done to improve end-of-life care (Editorial, 29 October; Letters, 2 November), in Megan’s case, she was able to stay at home and enjoy many of the things she liked until a final two-day stay in hospital, where she also received good care.
This was achieved by a combination of support from family, friends and her local GP, together with targeted assistance from hospice-based palliative care nurses.
It was not, of course, perfect and sometimes required chasing up treatment and medication, but that web of care seems to me an important matter, if, of course, it can be achieved with a stretched NHS and still austere Britain. Keith Flett Tottenham, London (letter in the Guardian)
Funeral details
Megan’s funeral will be on Friday 5 December at 2.00 pm, at Briwnant Chapel, Thornhill Crematorium, Cardiff, CF14 9UA.
Everybody who knew Megan is welcome to join her family as we gather to celebrate her life and commit her body back to the earth and the air.
Afterwards please join us for refreshments at the Manor Parc Hotel, Thornhill Road, CF14 9UA
Please note, there will also be a celebration of Megan’s life in north London, in the New Year (date and venue to be confirmed in due course).”
Streaming details for the service of Megan Davies (No name on screen) at 14:00 (GMT) on Friday 5th December, at Thornhill – Briwnant Chapel, run by Ivor Thomas Funerals Ltd. are as below.
The Attorney General has suggested that Nigel Farage apologise for alleged anti-Semitic comments he made when at Dulwich College.
While Boris Johnson regularly apologised for his numerous outrageous statements, invariably insincerely, Farage is in a different game. An apology would not go down well with his hardcore fan base
