Daily Post

Whatever Happened to the Tate & Lyle Workers? ; Beefing Up a Tasty Favourite Heathcote's Recipe Travels with My Family Up to the Algrve

DOWN the streets, the frontdoors clunked and keys jangled into pockets, as the rhythm of day began. So it had been for generations.

Food & Drink: Raise the Steaks ; Beefing Up the Flavour of the Good Old Steak

BRITISH beef has been back for some time. White meat, vegetarianism and fish may have increased in popularity but traditionally we still like our roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. A grilled steak on a Saturday night is still the most popular choice in restaurants. Here is a recipe we have been trying at the Olive Press. The marinade is quick and simple and

Food & Drink: The Stock in Trade of a Really Good Cook

FRESHLY made stock is a great thing to have at hand in the kitchen. It adds richness and depth to even the dullest of recipes and, best of all, it's a synch to make. While the ubiquitous stock cube is great, if you have a bit of time to spare their really is no replacement for a freshly-made stock. It is essential for risottos, but will also boost the flavour of soups and sauces tremendously.

Food & Drink: Take Five ... Soups

Asda "Good for You" spicy lentil and vegetable soup (600g) pounds 1.17. DOESN'T taste like diet soup at all. Thickish, wholesome, wonderfully warming - and tasty, too.

The Essentials ; I Would Rather Be Rula Lenska's Pussy Cat Than George Bush's Poodle

WHO do you think has the best hair in British pop? Well, despite the fact that most of us didn't have a clue who he was until Celebrity Big Brother, it seems it is Ordinary Boys front man Preston, left. A survey for Brylcreem put his "short, sharp, mod" hairstyle top of the crops. Other close contenders for the award came in the form of Franz Ferdinand's slick front man, Alex Kapranos (2nd), Kaiser Chiefs' singer Ricky Wilson (3rd).

Hot

THE Daily Post becoming an official partner in Capital of Culture 2008 so we can help ensure Liverpool really is the best ever holder of the title. LESS than three weeks until the Met Quarter shopping centre opens. We hope you have been saving up.

Not

PEPSI Max Cino Coffee flavoured cola. If yu want coffeee you make coffee, if you want cola you have cola and never should they be in the same bottle. GREY love in EastEnders. We don't mind Pauline and Jo but the Pat/ Patrick love affair is a bit toe-curling.

Supermarket Shopping

Questions ; John Marsden, 44, Lives with His Partner, Angela, and Three Children in Anfield

What is your philosophy of life: To have a positive approach to both my working and home life, so I always have something to look forward to. Idea of Happiness: Watching plans come together at work, seeing my children grow up and developing their own personalities.

Great Work

LIVERPOOL playwright Alan Bleasdale became the unofficial bard of the recession in Liverpool, with some likening him to Charles Dickens, His great work was Boys from the Black Stuff. It began as a one- off play about a team of tarmac-layers in 1980 and then was developed into a five-part series screened on BBC2 in 1982.

Late Break

UK/IRELAND LONDON: Superbreak (01904 644 455) offers two nights' B&B at three star hotel in Russell Square, Bloomsbury for pounds 85, incl one dinner, until Feb 28.

And Baby Came, Too ; Jane Brown Braves a Holiday Abroad with the Family and Finds a Warm Welcome the Smile Says It All: Contented Baby Equals Happy Parents

IT WAS our first trip abroad since the birth of our baby, and I have to admit I was finding the whole thing exhausting. And that was before we even boarded the plane. Gone were the days of simply chucking a bikini and a couple of key outfits into a suitcase the day before we left. These days, I was about to discover, going on holiday requires everything to be planned with military precision.

Deal of the Week

THE devastation of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Boxing Day 2004 transformed demand for gap year travel and persuaded many over-30 year olds to interrupt careers to spend months, sometimes years, in distant parts of the globe. "The tsunami was a big fillip to the gap year business," says David Stitt, managing director of travel firm Real Gap Experience which launches a new Gap Year for Grown Ups programme - for over-30 year olds - on March 1 with mainly basic accommodation, or living with host ...

Funny

FUNNY (or not) how one person's treasured memory is perceived as a threat to another's precious livelihood. Best current example I can think of, is the Government's ongoing consultation on a possible badger cull in battle against bovine TB.

Putting a Price On Club Loyalty

YES, it means a trip down the M6, but if you've watched your local team religiously every Saturday, and saved every ticket stub, programme and autograph carrying on the family tradition that's as old as anyone can remember, it might be worth a run to Newcastle- under-Lyme golf club next Monday evening. Graham Budd, the former Sotheby's specialist behind such sporting sales as the Stanley Matthews and

Desperate Search for the Best

DAILY Telegraph art market correspondent Will Bennett quoted one dealer as describing the bid-fest at last week's Impressionist and Contemporary sales at Sotheby's and Christie's as "irrational exuberance". Sales totalling pounds 259m in a week - the gross national product of a small country - certainly seem to bear that out. Bennett opines that the surge in prices is the result of a broader market in which more people from more continents are prepared to pay more than pounds 1m. I take a dif...

What's It Worth?

Q: THIS plate has a cup and saucer which go with it, and it is perfect apart from a crack in the handle. I think it is a popular pattern that has been around for many years and appears to be from the Royal Worcester family judging by the stamp. Barbara Jackson, Ellesmere Port

The Estate of Poetry Today ; Jane Canning's Poems Are so Potent She's Been Banned From Reading Them Aloud at Meetings. Peter Elson Meets the Boot Estate's Poet Laureate

HAVING the gift of the gab is a birthright hereabouts, but Jane Canning can go further: she has a gift of the poetic gab. The mother of three literally speaks in verse. In an age where the word has been supplanted by the image, Jane Canning's powerful message has caused problems.

Gone but Never to Be Forgotten

SHE'S gone now, a statistic of policies gone mad' But Dolly was a fixture here, whose departure left us sad. No more will we see her busy with her plants Which we witnessed being trampled by a herd of human ants.

A Dream That has Turned Sour - Over and Over

THE Boot estate, whose curious name honours its builder, was constructed in the 1920s with 495 brick-built houses, in Norris Green, Liverpool 11. Later a further 1,511 others, built of concrete and steel, were added but they started deteriorating on completion. Some houses are rented, others privately owned. After residents' complaints, Liverpool City Council in 1999 announced demolition and about 500 homes have gone. Some 490 houses are still occupied, grimly beleaguered homes between boarde...