IT must be ages, weeks anyway, since last we mentioned coming top of journalism's infant class at Darlington Tech. It didn't say much for the others.

The prize was an appropriately brief stage appearance - famous for 15 seconds, as Mr Andy Warhol almost observed - and a £2 book token, with which we were able to buy 16 Penguin paperbacks.

The books included Catcher in the Rye, radical at the time, 1984 - futuristic - and Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh. A scoop thereafter became something for dishing out ice cream.

Last week we were once again invited to a journalism course presentation, the new intake distinguished from the rye catchers because the young uns deliberately wear shirts outside trousers and the venerable do it as an unwitting impression of Cushy Butterfield.

Ms Butterfield, it will be recalled, was like a sack of something or other tied round with a string. She still stole hearts, though.

The do was in Darlington Arts Centre, 7pm start. Since there was to be no grub, we flew out instead for the Early Birds menu at the Grange Hotel.

(The Arts Centre, it should be added before we start, is about a three minute walk from the College. The bar, which sells several real ales, now closes on weekday lunchtimes because the only person from the journalism course who ever went in was the lecturer. What's the inky trade coming to?)

The Grange Hotel, formidably inaccessible, is off the roundabout at the top of Grange Road. Whatever else early birds may catch - nothing suitable rhymes with 'worm' - there's a tremendous bargain to be had.

Three courses are £7.95, served in a handsome and high-ceilinged dining room with seats in an attractively lawned garden out the back. Never mind early birds, there are any amount of chefs who wouldn't get out of bed for such prices.

Though at the top of Darlington's market, it remains (as an oxymoron might say) formally informal. Since the crispy things on the bar tables belied their appearance and were soggy, we suggested they replace them.

"They're sweet potato, home made," said the urbane head lad, but willingly brought some more.

They weren't much better. Perhaps you can't crisp sweet potatoes. They'll never replace Pringles, anyway.

Each course offers two choices: she had chicken liver pate, sea bass - can fish swim? - and the sticky toffee pudding; we ordered leek soup, bangers and mash and (since the alternative was chocolate fudge cake) also stuck into the sticky toffee. Nothing could possibly be faulted.

The Boss considered the pate manifestly home made, the sea bass with linguini perfectly good but regrettably without adornment.

The soup was hot, substantial and full of flavour, the bangers and mash - said by the hopefully embarrassed waiter to be "famous" - were encircled on top of a vast mound by a couple of very good onion rings, like low clouds around Ben Nevis.

However inexpensive, there is no skimping whatever on quantity and (so far as we can tell) on quality. Famous or not, however, and readers will recall the poet Henry Dobson...

Fame is a food that dead men eat

I have no stomach for such meat...

The bangers and mash remain a mere supporting act to the sticky toffee pudding. The pudding is a sweet toothed sensation: moist, succulent, magnificent in every way.

Coffee and things were extra, but were equally good. Service is relaxed - rush hour outside, maybe, but no great hurry here.

At the journalism presentation they acknowledged a smattering of editors - a better collective noun might be a chair - and spoke of essential qualities like enthusiasm and stuff. The prizes cost approximately 40 times as much as in the column's transient glory hour.

We recommend that the boys and girls spend a small part of it at The Grange - something very good to write home about.

* The Grange Hotel's "early bird" menu is served seven days a week from 5-7pm, £7.95 for three courses. Two course lunch is £4.95. Two courses from the summer carte are £12, three courses £15. No problem for the disabled, but best to book on (01325) 365859.

EARLY birds at the other end of the day, we looked for breakfast in the Little Bistro - alongside the A1, a few miles south of Leeming Bar. To the mutual despair of customer and owner, the power had gone off and the electricity company was wringing its corporate hands in a Pontius Pilate sort of a way. It looked pretty canny, too, the "has browns" particularly intriguing. Before they read this, however, we hope to have seen the Little Bistro restored.

TOW Law Town FC's real ale festival, an annual oasis in those parts, takes place this Friday (7-11 30pm) and on Saturday from 12-3pm and 7-11.30pm. This year, there's a malt whisky tasting, too.

Kevin McCormick - bookie, club treasurer, man about Tow Law - has also issued a "Stork from Butter" challenge that the column can't tell John Smith's Smooth (and one or two others from the Roughwith manger) from the real thing.

A prize of a thermal vest is, for some reason, on offer. Odds-on we shall have the shirt, and the vest, off his back.

BERNARD Gent, organising a motoring writers' weekend at the Redworth Hall Hotel near Shildon, sought a recommendation for a good nearby pub meal, too. We steered them towards the Countryman at Bolam, long admired hereabouts for its excellent and generous food, meticulous housekeeping and commitment to real ale.

The writers agreed - "quite magnificent food" e-mailed Bernard - but then added the bad news. The pub was expected to close any day.

We reported several months ago that, hit by foot-and-mouth and falling business, they were trying to sell. There hasn't been a buyer. "It seems a crying shame for people with such an original menu who cook so appetisingly," says Bernard. The column's calls have gone unanswered - but we echo every word he says.

A YEAR after leaving The Stile restaurant in Willington - long lauded in the Good Food Guide - Mike Boustred and Jenny James are taking paying guests, B&B or gite, at their new home in south-west France. It's taken a year to convert, twice the time they spent on the former pit manager's house in Willington High Street. "It's even insulated against the heat," says Mike. The house is by the riverside in Saint Savinien, details on www. saintsavinien.com.

THE opulent Swinton Park hotel at Masham, North Yorkshire, sumptuous setting for last year's best Sunday lunch, is adding ten bedrooms in the north wing. From September there'll be 30. The Cunliffe-Listers' family home opened as a hotel in March 2001. "Despite the foot-and-mouth setbacks we feel we are well on track," says Mark Cunliffe-Lister.

Congratulations to Phil Gilhespy of Consett, who's in the final of the national 2002 Create A Soup competition with his chicken, chicory and chive soup. The winner will be announced on Friday, so watch this space.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew the title of the fruitiest film ever made.

Return to the Planet of the Apricots.

Published:02/07/2002