ONE must get one's priorities into some semblance of order. So just for the record, I had a call from a kind lady reader to tell me that Friar Tuck's Ginger Wine Essence can be obtained at one of Malton's chemists. It seems that it was taken off the market for a couple of years but the demand was such that it was brought back. So if, like me, you missed the famous traditional tipple at Christmas time, there is a chance yet. My informant, who didn't leave her name or location, wasn't too sure of the current name of the chemist in question, but it shouldn't take too much tracking down if the market has got cornered. Meanwhile, she tells me, she is enjoying tucking (no pun intended) into one of the six bottles she made. Can't wait!

- I hadn't realised it, but France is still refusing to accept British beef despite condemnation by the European Court of Justice. It seems that a refusal to obey EU instructions is something about which little can be done. However Great Britain seems to knuckle under and do as it is told all the time, yet I am sure there must be many times when we ought to do what we want to do without fear of reprisals. These could surely only be a refusal to give us back some of our own money and, if we hadn't joined in the first place, we wouldn't be dictated to by other countries which can quite happily do without as far as overseas trading is concerned.

- I often go to Woolies yet am often happy to get out again fairly quickly and away from its 'background' so-called music. This is often worse than that which comes down at you at Kwik Save, which is often some young female just screaming. I appreciate the shops will claim they are 'singing', but singing just ain't what it used to be. Woolies' answer to my comments on the quality of the music, be it vocal or just a never-ending banging of a drum, was that it 'has' to only play things which are at the top of the charts, so there is little hope that anyone older than 14 will hear something they can happily shop with.

- Looking back, I seem to have missed a few opportunities. In the early '50s, I won a prize for the design of a pen with a larger barrel capacity than that which the usual 'sac' held. Someone seeing this, and with ideas about marketing a marker pen, wrote to me, enclosing his bank book (yes, unbelievable) and asking if I could make pressure valves to control ink flow for a felt marker pen which he would like to market. There were no such things as felt-tip markers then and it was thought that the flow of ink would need controlling, whereas it evolved that the density of the ink itself was the limiting factor. I was busy at work in those days and couldn't see how I could make sufficient valves on a small Super Adept lathe to make the thing profitable, so I turned down the offer and sent the chap back his bank book. Can't remember his name now, and wonder if he ever got into production.

Next came the pastry roller. My elder sister used to complain that she could never guarantee to get her pastry the right thickness, be it thin for biscuits or thicker for pie crusts. So I set to and designed a variable-depth roller so that pastry could be consistently rolled out at the required thickness. I turned up a prototype on the wood lathe and sent it to a large national plastics manufacturer which, after testing it, said that it was committed for that year and perhaps I might like to try another manufacturer which had some spare production capacity. I didn't go any further with this and the original lies in a cupboard in the box in which it was returned. This week, I had a catalogue with 'my' invention in, an "Ingenious Programmable Rolling Pin" at £14.95. That must have taken 40 years since I first produced mine.

And then came the plate warmer - warming plates so that hot toast has somewhere warm to be served on was the next hurdle. And why not use the heat from the toaster itself, which just disappeared up to the ceiling? So I invented a folding rack on which a couple of plates could sit whilst the bread was being toasted and then it folded up to enable the bread to be taken out. Simple and effective, it has been in use for five years or so and can be used for keeping any food warm, be it a bowl of soup or whatever. I saw such a thing a few months ago in a catalogue so, once again, I ought to have found out how to market such things. Ah well...

- A cycling associate writes as follows: "Our digestive system is geared to the breakdown and synthesis of carbon compounds which consitute that branch of chemistry called 'organic' so, when I see foodstuffs labelled 'organic', I try to think of any food which isn't organic but can only come up with water." Is this another word-meaning change?

- Food! "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti." Sophia Loren (b 1934).

Updated: 11:09 Thursday, January 10, 2002