'Freemasons' rog. I go to the Millstones quite regularly and the only meal that I wouldn't recommend is the fish and chips. I've had it twice and found it a very bland experience on both occasions. I must say though an evening at the Millstones can still add up. Not everyone has starters and and no one ever has desert either but we never get away for less than £70 per couple.

Ronnie RIP. In a strange way it's almost a mercy that he didn't witness the lies and deceit of the past 11 months.

It is good. Been in just twice though during the afternoon. For some reason it seems better suited to a daytime meal. Be even better if they'd use 'proper' meat.

You turning into a 'freegan' by any chance? btw dunno if it's kosher but soembody once told me that after 5am is best at Tesco's when they are emptying the shelves for the new day's supplies.

Speaking of brainwashing. It was revealed on the news this morning that the AVERAGE family throws in excess of £700 worth of edible food into the dustbin (and obviously destined for land fill sites) every single year! It's clear that most of the housewives in the country have been brainwashed by sell by / best by dates on packaged food. So yet again it's a compulsive argument for basic Domestic Science to be reintroduced into the school curriculum. These dates must be massively profitable cos they even put them on packets of salt and bottled water etc so who started these? I rem the days before them but was it the Govt's Food Standards Agencies? Large retailers? Or both? If it's down to the retailers it's no wonder they regularly post massive profit figures is it? Sell stuff necessary to sustain life then get the buyer to throw some away and come back for more! An utterly brilliant masterplan! Topical note..... Just think if we all saved that £700 there'd be no need for the public sector to whinge about their pensions would there? They could do like the rest of us and simply man up and provide for themselves in later life. Who knows some might even gain some self respect too.

I disagree completely. Food is absolutely dirt cheap. 3 happy meals and a couple of big macs were £13 I think. Stay out of the pretend cheapies i.e. fast food outlets and most definitely stay away from the major supermarkets and food can be bought almost nothing. A half decent cook is the key. Large portionsof home made Shepherds pie and carrots / green beans / cabbage for 4 will cost a couple of quid. Baked potatoes or rice with chilie con carne similar. Chicken stews or casseroles / Spagbol/carbonara/arabitia can be made for virtually nowt too. Home made mash, chips, roasties are dirt cheap and will go with most meats. I've just roasted a ham joint big enough to provide 2 full meals for a family of 4 or alternatively packed lunches for the week for £3.99! I can buy a tray of 30 small pullet (best eggs ever) eggs for 30 bob.... err £1.50 for you young uns! Find the best greengrocer that you can, a butcher that you can trust, a cheap aldi/netto etc for the tinned stuff/beans/butter/cheese/milk/flour and get all the spices in the local indopak corner shops and the weekly food bill will become virtually nothing whilst the nutrient supply to the family will be maxed and the fats and tribollox or whatever will be minimised. Rem Paul GOOD FOOD IS CHEAP it's the shyte sorry faeces thats costly... and not just to the purse either.

bacup you and Tom deserve all the clogged arteries and spongy brain cells that you get and which your actions are probably ensuring that your kids will get too! Fast food chains are a menace. For about the 4th time in my life I ate in a Macdonalds. Took some of Mrs Drogs relation's 3 kids to the illuminations and for some fish and chips first. Turned out none of the ungrateful little blighters like fish and chips and they all declared an undying devotion to bloody Macdonalds. Obviously under orders and a stern look or two from er indoors I gave in rather then spoil their fun, bless em . Mighty hungry anyway and past caring so I ordered a Big Mac cheeseburger. If ever there was a contravention of the Trades Descriptions Act this is it. If that is Big I dread to think what they consider normal. When my box was handed to me I thought they'd forgotten to put anything in it! There must be sweet fa in em! Tasteless and bland are the adjectives that spring most readily to mind which does not involve the swear filter going into overdrive. The cheese tastes of nowt, the meat too, and the bun is just bloody awful. Best I can offer up is that the chips were good but whether thats a valid comment due to a direct comparison with the burger or just cos I was hungry I don't know and I'll be trying desperately hard for the rest of my days not to find out. Oh and btw I now possess 3 unidentifyable and to the limit of my knowledge effin useless lumps of plastic (manufactured in the far east no doubt from this planets swiftly diminishing oil reserves) which came wrapped up with the kids meal and which they had predictably discarded on the floor of my car! A responsible govt really should be taxing these shameful fast food operations right out of existence! btw 2 what are the point of the illuminations nowadays? They must exhaust the combined output of a few dozen middle east oil fields every year and the kids in these digital days of HD TV and X boxes or whatever are by my recent experience singularly unimpressed by lots of twinkling bulbs and a lit up tram or two. The wonderment experienced by my generation and older has flown right out of the car window... or sunroof in this case.

How hard are this lot? Proper men! Apparently Lee Mossop dislocated his shoulder at wembley but returned to the action once it had been put back in place whilst Josh Charnley played on with the bone sticking out of a finger and a bandage wrapped around it. From Sky Sports report..... "Mossop's shoulder had to be restored to its socket by medical staff in the dressing room at Wembley during the Challenge Cup final against Leeds. And Mossop joined winger Josh Charnley, who played on despite sustaining a compound fracture of his finger in the first minute, in overcoming injury to help the Warriors to a 28-18 victory." I once suggested 'Tiny' Taylor should have spent a pre season training with Wigan rather than going on the clubs pre season tour. It would have done him the world of good and made him a far better player imo. Having said that I can't think of a better injury rehab centre than Wigan Warriors for messrs Dunne and Grella. They do say that 'what doesn't kill you will do you good' don't they? Kinell! I'd pay big money just for tickets to watch their first day in training!

Double Benedictine the best cure for that 'pogged' feeling. He'd have been back on the beer within 10 mins. Dunno how it works but it just does.

Quite right! I nearly always spill it when changing gear.

Is the Castle Dairy still going? I doubt the ladies who ran it 25 years ago will still be around never mind running a restaurant but it had an excellent if not rather 'quirky'reputation back then.... .

Stayed fairly local and with nothing arranged it was the Clog and Billycock last night. Nothing remarkeable except that this is still the single best place to drink Wainrights in the entire Kingdom! However not wanting to be niggardly but I noticed on the bill thay had taken a 40p 'charity' donation. Now 40p is neither here nor there but it's my 40p and giving to charity should be my decision. Charity must always be voluntary and not to satisfy someones over inflated ego. If the management at Ribble Valley Inns want to donate to worthy causes (in this case apparently it's some youth club for up and coming rioters and looters in the Darwen St area...... btw wtf happened to bob a job and sponsored walks etc?) out of their profits then thats just fine and dandy but imo this is just a cheap publicity gimmick and one probably being done solely with the intention of picking up some future gong or similar. Am I just being cynical? Whatever next time we choose to eat locally it'll likely back to the ever reliable Millstone..... the second best place to drink Wainrights btw.

No. It was a random guesstimate. But I think you need to take into account that even when we stay home to cook we still have to buy the ingredients and pay for the leki/gas etc.

Maybe Paul, Whittle Blue etc can add to this but after dropping someone off at Preston Station last week er indoors and myself turned up at the Dressers Arms for a steak night deal on our way home. A quite decent bottle of wine which the missus has seen on the shelves in Asda along with two of the tastiest and tenderest steaks that I have had in a while, all with the usual accompanyments and all for £11.95! On top of that I had a pint of 'Dressers Bitter' which was really quaffable too (I'm told since that they brew their own on the premises somewhere). I got change out of £2.50 for that too! Places like this make me wonder why we are in the process of buying a new kitchen! Using a quick mental calculation and if other places were to provide meals at the same value, then for the cost of a new kitchen we could eat out every single night for the next 10 years!

Or even a 'wafty crank'.

btw Ewood Spark... my arguments did not run out so don't be so eager with the supercillious comments please. You say 50:50 makes no difference!! Well imagine there being no split in another 20 years or so and the population becoming 75% teetotal1! Do you still think the town centre will return to former glories? How about when it's 100%? There simply will be non of your issues to "hopefully address" will there? Like Nero you are fiddling whilst Blackburn burns. You simply cannot see the wood for the trees or more likely your outdated liberal principles won't let you. Think of Blackburn town centre as a business, which business can lose 50% of it's customers, recognise the downward curve continuing and not be in serious trouble? Until you can recognise all the sides to the situation there really is no point continuing debating this topic with you.

Town centre nightlife is for meeing mates and pulling (or the possibility that one might) as well as drinking cletus. People can't do that at home with just a few cans of stella and MoTD for company. If there are no members of the opposite sex down town then people go where there are some. And a few closed off shops wont stop em either.

Now I've only met you briefly once or twice Neil and from that I have got to say I do quite like you, and that is why I have selected these carefully and in the order that I want them to be interpreted...... . . No hard feelings I hope.

Id imagine that wou will have a better command of the Queens English than the average punter in'th Navvy matt. Personally I'd put it down to tribalism.

Alrighty Neil.... For one it's complete piffle cos geography doesn't come into it at all and demographics have had a massive effect. Blackburn shopping centre is hardly the Great Wall of China or the Siegfried Line is it? A few acres thats all, it's not even a tiny fraction of the trafford centre is it? Crikey if Tom didn't go up those steps he'd have to take a massive detour of 100 yards along Northgate. Point is as you very well know is that a town of approx 120,000 people of whom alcohol is part of the culture to a town nowadys with an approx 50:50 christain:muslim split of individuals between 18 and 30. Market forces and the birth figures have done and are doing the rest.

About as far as Queens Park A&E.

True k-Hod ...... But looking at the situation dispassionately and with a business head on would you be prepared to sink your savings to invest in a nightspot in Blackburn? I may be Cat but I'm not a lying one, nor do I have my head up my esra like you. So please feel free to point out which part of my post contains any innaccuracies. Off you go. I posted a couple of paragraphs but as I posted the internet went down. I'll give it another go later.

Neil that is absolute and utter piffle.

Geography??? Absolute piffle Neil. Blackburn's tiny shopping centre is hardly akin to either the Great Rift valley or the the bloody Siegfried Line is it? Going via Northgate instead of up the stairs would have seen Tom add about 100yards to his journey (and call in at FJ's, Blakeys or North on his way. If the 'tee totallers' were normal people with normal habits the town centre would be absolutely heaving. It'd be chocker at weekends like it was when I was young. You cannot dismiss the demographics just like that cos if for arguments sake the indigenous population and those of immigrant descent is roughly 50:50 then the %age of 18-25 year olds living within the boundaries of Blackburn will be strongly tilted in favour of the immigrants. A glance at the birth records of the past 20 years will surely support my point. I will give you that the authorities contributed massively by allowing late night drinking on the outskirts thus negating the need for people to taxi in at 11.00pm. Do you for one minute though think that hard up youngsters of today would pay massive taxi fares to and from neighbouring towns every weekend if there was a decent option in our town?

Took the words out of my mouth wily. matt... don't talk posh or stare at anyone.