It is 3 a.m. in The City, & in a dark corner of The Bar, two lovers collide in the beginnings of a passionate & violent affair. Boy: nineteen, beautiful, ready for anyone to take him home, & `O`: the Older Man, cynical, unpredictable, & at the mercy of his personal demons. Their romance is orchestrated & observed by the owner of The Bar, Madame, who looks after her boys & ensures that their haven remains inviolate. At once a joyful celebration of homosexual love & culture, & a devastating evocation of the homophobic climate which stemmed from the 80s AIDS crisis, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall offers a decisively contemporary recasting of the traditional love story. First published in 1990 & immediately acclaimed as the work of a bold new voice in English fiction, Neil Bartlett`s powerful debut continues to shine with an ageless wisdom & wit. ...

This title features cool gardening projects for kids, with the experts at the RHS. Get your child in the garden, get sowing & harvesting & they will learn to grow all kinds of plants, vegetables & fruits quickly & easily! No need to wait months for results: they`ll be able to follow the simple instructions to raise fantastic plants in twelve weeks or much less. Soon they`ll have tasty tomatoes & delicious strawberries, pretty marigolds & sprouting seeds ready to eat in a week. There are fun projects, too: from making a pizza garden & growing a fairy ring, to designing a wildlife windowbox. & you don`t even need a garden: there are lots of ideas for using containers, baskets & boxes. So get ready, get steady & get growing! ...

Cask ale, real ale, bitter...whatever you want to call it, it`s thriving & this book is the perfect drinking companion. Written by acclaimed beer expert Adrian Tierney-Jones, this is an accessible & interactive guide to Britain`s finest beers with reviews of over 150 ales & 40 perfect pubs in which to try them. The unique journal format will help you record & rate every tasting as you work your way through beers of every hue & flavour from the nine regions of the British Isles; from the malty milds of the Midlands to the sweet, fruity golds of the South-West. With guides to beer tasting & styles, plus top ten lists of essential beers for every region, this is a must-have interactive guide to the greatest pints in Britain. ...

Cider is a quite delicious drink which has been known for thousands of years & which has enjoyed a fashionable makeover in recent years. This practical book by Michael Pooley & John Lomax, both cidermakers of national repute for more than 20 years, explores both modern & traditional approaches, & has been designed to enable the enthusiast using any type of apples to make real cider with skill & confidence. The book covers the history of cidermaking, techniques for preserving apple juice for drinking, washing & crushing the apples, pressing the pulp, fermentation, blending & storing, cider-based recipes, the making of perry from pears & also

Includes:: instructions & a set of superb scaled plans for building an inexpensive cider press using hardwood or good quality softwood.

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' Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?' Not Colonel Rodney Foster, a platoon commander of the Kent Home Guard. Dad's Army, the iconic comedy series is as well-known today as it was forty years ago. But the reality of life in the Home Guard was often very different. Here, for the first time, is the full inside story of the Home Guard, the ragtag volunteer army that defended the coast of Britain from German invasion during the Second World War. Colonel Rodney Foster, who retired to Hythe in the south of England after a military career in British India, joined the Home Guard in 1940 & kept a diary every day
- a highly illegal act at the time
- & in it meticulously chronicled his service in the real Dad's Army. Living directly beneath the Battle of Britain on the Kent coast, Foster commanded a company of men in the face of constant aerial bombardment & the ever-present threat of death from above
- the Home Guard were the first barrier to Hitler's crack parachutists. Writing from the village hall, abandoned barns, churches & makeshift officers' messes, he records with a unique wit & wisdom the everyday details of family life during the war: the domestic routine dogged by air raid warnings, the antics of soldiers stationed nearby taking every chance to improve their lot, the quiet strength of a small community faced with great adversity.


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Discover quick & tasty dishes from Nigel Slater in ” Real Fast Food”. Nigel Slater presents over 350 creative, delicious & nourishing recipes & suggestions for those who`d rather spend more of their time eating than cooking. From simple snacks to dinner-party desserts, all the dishes in Nigel Slater`s ” Real Fast Food” can be ready to eat in 30 minutes or under. ” Makes your stomach rumble.. . Easily my first choice for a simple, good, workable & readable cookery book”. (Nigella Lawson). ” Not just a cookery book for gourmets & foodies, but for real people too”. (Sophie Grigson). ” Nigel Slater offers us a decade`s worth of fresh, original cookery ideas with spoonfuls of wit”. (” Observer”). ” Designed to appeal to people who love food but don`t want to spend hours slaving away at the stove (i.e. nearly everybody in Britain)”. (” Independent on Sunday”). Nigel Slater is the ” Observer`s” food writer, writing a month column for ” Observer Food Monthly”. ” Real Fast Food” was shortlisted for the Andre Simon Award while ” The 30-Minute Cook” was nominated for both the Glenfiddich & Julia Child Awards. In 1995 he won the Glenfiddich Trophy & he has twice won the Cookery Writer of the Year Award as well as being named Media Personality of the Year in the 1996 Good Food Awards. His other bestselling books include ” Real Fast Puddings”, ” Real Food”, ” Appetite” & ” The Kitchen Diaries”. ...

Nigel Slater`s classic guide to comfort food ` Real food means big-flavoured, unpretentious cooking. Good ingredients made into something worth eating. Just nice, uncomplicated food.` Since its publication in 1998, which tied in with his first TV series, the innovative ` Real Food` has become the essential food book to have on the kitchen shelf. From Stickiest Ever Chicken Wings to Baked Goat`s Cheese & Pesto in Filo Pastry to the classic Bacon Butty, it covers Slater`s indispensable signature dishes
- the ones you wouldn`t be without for love or money. Based on Nigel Slater`s favourite foods, this classic helped to create a nation of food lovers. Nigel finds good things to make using all sorts of ingredients
- mass produced sliced white to fine Italian loaves, standard corner shop confectionery to real chocolate made from cocoa solids. These irresistible recipes are still up-to-the-minute & this gorgeous reissue edition proves that ` Real Food` is still a must-have for any cookery enthusiast.

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The Real Food of China is the definitive guide to home-style Chinese cuisine. It is inspired by the authors` personal travels to China & the realisation that what is commonly perceived as ” Chinese food” in the Western world, is only part of the story. While there is a growing appreciation of regional Chinese food in larger cities outside China, a lot of authentic regional cuisine still goes uncelebrated in Chinese restaurants around the world. The main purpose of this book is to capture the essence of simple home cooking & the wide variety of food that changes from region to region. Chapters are broken down into food categories including cold dishes, soups & hotpots, dumplings, breads & noodles, pork, chicken, fish, vegetables & desserts. Dishes include fermented foods from Shaoxing, smoked pork from Hunan, Hakka food from Meizhou, Muslim street fare from Xi`an, fresh river fish from Jiangxi province, fish dumplings & flat breads cooked over stones from Shandong & bowls of fresh, steaming, soft tofu slathered in chilli & peppercorns from Sichuan villages. Captured with stunning location photography from each of the visited regions as well as beautiful food photography throughout, A Taste of China brings a small glimpse of the gutsy, earthy, everyday side of Chinese cooking to light. Food that is incredibly diverse, simple to prepare, full of flavour, & based on seasonal produce & easily procured dry goods. The Real Food of China will change everything you previously thought about traditional Chinese cuisine. ...

This guide will lead you to the pubs throughout the Midlands which still have interiors or internal features of real historic significance. They range from rural `time-warp` pubs to ornate drinking `palaces` & include some unsung interiors from the inter-war period. This is the first guide of its kind for the Midlands & it champions the need to celebrate, understand & protect the genuine pub heritage which remains to us. ...

Compiled by the Campaign for Real Ale`s Pub Heritage Group, this is a guide to the rich pub heritage treasure of the North West. The listed pubs have interiors or features which have remained unaltered for 50 years, & are described in full detail, with colour photography throughout. ...