NOT particularly early doors, the Breakfast Club assembled unannounced at the Kings Head in Richmond. Probably it was about 9.15, though many of the hotel's handsome old clocks put a different face on it. Though the clocks were monthly maintained, said the waiter, they resolutely declined to live in synch. "Why", we asked? "Dunno", said the waiter.
Built in 1718 as a private house, the Kings has long been a hotel. Liszt stayed there, but not Brahms, the brochure cover records the artist JMW Turner's view that it is the best hotel in Richmondshire.
Since Turner was air-brushed out of the picture precisely 150 years ago, the commendation, like the clocks, may be considered a little dated. That grandmother and grandfather rarely agree, said hotel manager Peter Feather later, was principally because they weren't made to withstand central heating.
Firstly we were shown to a rather elegant lounge, magnificent fire warming to its task, magazines splayed on a table, a dozen or more clocks tick-tocking in quiet cacophony. "Cakes and sundries from 9.30," said a little card - or thereabouts, it might have added. Breakfast was in the restaurant upstairs.
That room's very pleasant, too, views across Richmond's cobbled market place, trees in the corners, three more clocks out of step to the music of time. The radio played, and lost it a mark forthwith. Local colour is one thing, local commercial radio quite another.
The breakfast programme was familiar - fruit juice, cereals and things with which to start, though the Reverend Gentleman had prunes with his All Bran. The rest remained silent, thereby speaking volumes.
Two followed with a very good if slightly parsimonious full English - half a black pudding, for heaven's sake - in which the sausages were particularly outstanding.
The Boss had six slices of enjoyable Yorkshire ham with warm rolls, Mr Macourt - upon whom some sort of post-festive jankers had been imposed by the WeightWatchers Council on Recidivism - had the kippers. It seemed a little unsociable, and in any case he thereafter launched an attempted daylight robbery on the Reverend Gentleman's best bacon. "B****r off," said the Reverend Gentlemen. Whatever the Council on Recidivism shall hear of Mr Macourt, who shall hear of the Reverend Gentleman?
Everything else, it should be said - toast, ample coffee, service, not least the fried bread - was good or better, and at £8 a head an entirely reasonable way to set up the day, and the year.
Downstairs, Richmond gathered timelessly for its cakes and sundries. It may have been half past ten.
IN truth, it was almost lunchtime, because barely two hours later we were in the Pollards in Bishop Auckland for what euphemistically is termed a meeting.
Almost as old as the Kings Head, the Pollards is named after the chap who slew the Beast of Brancepeth - a nasty piece of work, they reckon - which the Bishop of Durham rather urgently wanted shot of.
Bishop Auckland has long lacked decent pubs; the Pollards, in Etherley Lane, is probably the best. Giant cod came with chips, salad, peas, carrot and cauli for £4.95; almost everything else at lunchtime is cheaper. The evening menu is more adventurous, and slightly more expensive.
WITH this column's familiar passion for the thematic, we headed for Clockworks Food Court in the MetroCentre. Not only was it a quiet time, the place was almost deserted. Alarm Clockworks, perhaps.
It is entirely a fast food court, the usual names offering tea for two and a place called Singapore Sam's advertising the Chinese New Year Bogof. Probably it was some sort of joke, but it was lost in the translation.
We ordered large cod and chips and a Coke ("Win a polar bear cup hugger") at Pier 17, £4.25 and served by a young chap in de rigueur baseball cap. (De Rigueur Raiders, probably.)
The fish and chips might have been surprisingly good had they been about two topcoats warmer, but things otherwise were so subdued that it was a toss-up between reading the terms and conditions for winning a polar bear cup hugger or the Church Times in the hope that a passing missionary might stop for a spot of interactive evangelism.
The Church Times hadn't much to write about either, the Bishop of London's wife devoting the first 20 paragraphs of her column to the new episcopal dishwasher. There was, however, rather a nice tailpiece about the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestant who - forsaking all friends, phones and 50-50s - had lost £3,000 by supposing that the Lambeth Conference was a ten-yearly gathering of pearly kings and queens.
IT has been a fish and chippy sort of week, as readers may already have gathered. Amid a downpour in Redcar, we looked for lunch into Russell's "award winning fish and chip restaurant".
The tape, entirely appropriately, played Rhythm of the Rain, which long memory suggests was by the Cascades (or the Torrents, or something similarly pluvial.)
The award is from the Seafish Industry Authority. Whilst it, and they, are to be commended, it is not necessarily for being the best, rather for meeting high standards. Last Tuesday, they fell rather short of them.
The "golden" jumbo cod was too big (which wasn't their fault at all) and too heavy-handed, which was. Those wishing to suggest that, by reason of its nature and antecedents, a fish may not be heavy-handed should write to the Sea Fish Industry Authority, not here.
ALAN Thompson, himself a former inky tradesman, plans further expansion of his flourishing little empire in Stokesley. Already there's Chapters hotel and Good Food Guide listed restaurant; in March a coffee shop and delicatessen - addition Chapters - open further up the High Street.
"It allows us to move into a market that's the fastest growing in catering," says Alan.
The new place, in the former Armstrong Richardson shop, will offer specialist foods from Spain and Italy, fresh fish, cheese and speciality breads, flours, olives and fresh herbs and an extensive charcuterie (you know, cold meat and things.)
A coffee shop feature will be the "fish fridge", from which anything can be grilled with salad. The lad doesn't miss journalism at all.
...and finally, the bairns - they who really make the column tick - wondered if we knew what happened to the egg in the monastery.
It went out of the frying pan and into the friar.
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