Best Of

Every single coastal town in the UK should have a version of The Royal Whitstable Oyster Company. A breezy airy lovely old seaside gastropubby restaurant, where you can reliably get good oysters (and everything else seafood)

Britain has some of the very best seafood on the planet. It’s mad that it’s so hard to get, in Britain

I remember some years ago having absolutely delicious crustaceans fresh off the BBQ in Portugal and, I noticed on the boxes, fresh off the boat from Oban in Scotland where they had been harvested. If you found them for sale in this country at all they were some rare delicacy at multiple times the price. It was more than a bit frustrating. Its got a bit better, there are more seafood restaurants than there were but we could still do a lot better.

Yeah, it’s improved (especially in places like the Hebrides, FWIW - also Cornwall), but it’s still quite often dismaying. The Iberians and the French adore seafood and they sensibly realise ours is the best. We don’t

I remember 30 years ago eating at a restaurant in Skye and we ordered fish and it was frozen. Even as we ate it, we could see the local fishermen, outside on the quay, offloading superb fresh fish that was all going for export

We don't like or trust fish. It really is that simple.

If we did, we wouldn't send it for export.

BREAKING

I can report that Whitstable is rather charming, in the mild spring sunshine. In a gritty, authentic English coastal way

We holidayed there in 2022. Had a bad oyster.

Well, I’ve just ordered nine rocks and natives at the Royal Whitstable Oyster Company, so I’m hoping you’re wrong!

It’s a really pleasant gaff, like a really good oyster bar in Brittany mixed with a Cornish gastropub. But in Kent

I might come to Whitstable more often

Aren't you the last person in London to have discovered Whitstable?

Yes. But I rather like the fact I can still unearth HIDDEN GEMS in my own backyard. There are always new places to explore. Even in Kent

Next week our global travel correspondent continues his series of "BACKYARD HIDDEN GEMS" with the surprise realisation that Tower Bridge is an extraordinary bridge, which even lifts up, just IMAGINE!

So the point in this war, was…

To smokescreen the Epstein files and it has worked like a Swiss watch.

I don't understand this. The whole point of a historic allegation is that it's not current. It could re-emerge at any time.

I doubt Trump justifies the war even to himself as a distraction from Epstein but it's the thing leaders looking for distraction do.

I don't know the history but I suspect Galtieri didn't justify the operation against the Falklands as a distraction from his internal woes.