Local radio stations can be funny beasts. Full of cheesy inane chatter, mistakes galore, mispronunciations but also very lovable in their own peculiar way.

I had liked Original 106 for a while now. The broad range of music was great as it would literally jump all over the decades and was a refreshing change from the blooming playlists of say Radio 1, where it could actually put you off a really great song because it gets played to death.

Seems like Original 106 is morphing into The Coast, whatever that will be. Hopefully they will keep going with the mix of music and not boil down to current top 20 playlists.

The BBC currently running a series on Chinese cooking called - Chinese Food Made Easy.

Not sure about it really. It tries to be a clone of the other ones but you can tell she isn't greatly adept in the kitchen, unless it is nerves.

Some of her cutting and prep skills seem pretty poor. She stubbed the cleaver onto the carrot and a sad little chunk fell off. Surely they should have edited it out.

She said it wasn't until she was 11 before she ate dim sum and that was because she was in Hong Kong and her aunt took her. What's all that about?! Even when I grew up in a provisional backwater my parents were able to take us to Newcastle on a weekend for some.

Give up with the xiao shing wine already...

Popped over to the Christchurch Food Festival on this sunny Sunday. 24 degrees and hopefully that will continue into the summer and beyond! Lots of stalls along the High Street plus some more on Church Street.

Picked up some interesting fish cakes from a stall called Flying Fish Feasts. They have a web site called devonfishcakes.com. I went for the Salmon and Watercress plus the Smoked Haddock and Horseradish.

There is a new Iranian restaurant in Bournemouth called Kolbeh.

The kebab style main dishes that we got were very tasty, tender and juicy kebabs of minced lamb and flattened lamb fillet.

It is opposite the police station on Lansdowne Road.

There is more of a review here: Bournemouth Restaurant review on Kolbeh. 

I called into the No.1 South African Shop which is near St. Catharine's Hill, on 5 Marlow Drive, Christchurch.

They have a wide range of South African products on sale as well as frozen fish, seafood, game and meats.

I was hoping to get some Impala, but had to make do with Kudu and Kangaroo steaks. I also ended up with a tin of Waterblommetjies, edible lillies. That will be interesting. 

I do commend Tesco on getting an interesting range of exotic fruits. I saw that they had Dragon Fruit, Pomelo and Chikoo. I got a packet of the Chikoo to try as from the packaging it said it tasted just like caramel and should be nice and sweet. It wasn't quite like that but therein lies the problem. The kind of bulk buying and planning that goes on, I do tend to fine that the fruits, although look like and colourful, never come up to expectations when compared to other stores.

The sweetest oranges and pomelos I have found outside of the smaller asian shops were from Lidl. OK, they may not have the biggest ranges but what they do have in terms of fresh fruit and veg is all at the point where they are ready to be eaten.