pumpkinstrokemarrow

The day before yesterday there was a brain storm. BH tried out a new recipe which did not involve pre-soaking the bread in water, used brown sugar rather than white sugar and used mixed fruit - that is to say including a fair bit of peel - rather than currants and raisins. A much more chewy article; texture completely different. Stronger flavour. Hot nothing like as good as the traditional version but it did have the merit of being better than cold traditional when cold. Stands better. More like a cake than a pudding.

A deviation of a rather different sort resulted from the fish man from Hastings at Cheam having surplus herrings, of which he gifted me three. Not something that we have eaten for a very long time. Two of them came with large (relative to the size of the fish that is) creamy white roes which BH will have for breakfast. The other one had a rather different looking organ where the roe might otherwise have been. Smaller, yellow rather than cream with a quite different texture. Not sure what this was or whether it was edible so we discarded it. Cleaned and split the fish. Grilled skin side up for 2 or 3 minutes and flesh side up for 7 or 8 minutes. Good, delicate flavour. A bit fiddly and a bit small so better as a supper dish rather than as a dinner dish.

We shall have another go should occasion arise. And maybe we will give sprats another go - something else which we have not eaten for a good while.

While exploring these culinary matters, have also been thinking about retail price maintenance, the abolition of which in 1964 was one of the big things that Edward Heath achieved in his time at the top. An abolition which excluded books and such like, covered by something called the net book agreement, until much more recently. Thinking prompted by increasing irritation that there is no longer anything like a set price for a book. Like with insurance, prices vary a good deal and one has to shop around if one cares about one's pennies. So, for example, I see a review of a book priced at £30 and find that it is £20 at Amazon. Or the DT advertises a special offer for its readers at the bargain basement price of £35 when the same thing is to be had from Amazon at £30. Or possibly to be had from one of the remainder stores for £5: I have made at least two purchases of this sort in the last year or so. While I might be getting the book cheaper than I might otherwise be, I find all the variation a bit irritating. I am much more comfortable with the idea - quite probably unrealistic - that goods and services have a proper price which is what people will charge one - and that one does not have to bother about it. One just trusts people to charge the proper price.

Mr G. digs up all kinds of material about this. The OECD published a lengthy and learned review of the whole subject in 1997. The Columbia Journal of European Law offers a much more recent 'RESALE PRICE MAINTENANCE IN E.U. COMPETITION LAW: THOUGHTS IN RELATION TO THE VERTICAL RESTRAINTS REVIEW PROCEDURE'. Which seems to suggest that we in Europe might well follow the US in applying the rule of reason. Whatever that might mean.

It seems likely that small booksellers have been badly hurt by the big boys in all this. I am not sure that I am that too bothered. If I know what I want I am happy to use the efficient Amazon and if I don't know what I want I go to a big book shop like Foyles for a browse and a graze, it not being proper to browse in one place and graze in another. Small book shops not much good for browsing except for fiction, travel and cooking, which only account for a small proportion of my consumption.

So I think I have burbled myself into deciding that abolition of the net book agreement is a good thing, despite my irritations. The same price at Foyles and Amazon is not fair on Foyles and is unlikely to deliver the best result for the consumer.