Early morning fog over the Park

I woke up this morning to this, lingering fog over the Lido in Herne Hill 

Cake and Eat it

I made a cake at the weekend and here it is. 

A simple lemon zest sponge cake, it took me 20 minutes to make the mix, 30 mins in the oven.

As the cake was cooling I dropped some Lyle's Golden Syrup into the hole at the top which gives it a lovely sticky texture that goes well with the lemon zest in the sponge. 

sweet potato pie

This is a dish recently cooked for me by my friend Dennis whilst visiting here from Australia. I didn't like the look of it at first but was pleasantly taken with the flavour and texture.

sweet potato pie

From what I remember you wrap the sweet potato in foil and bake and then peel off the skins and mash the potato into a thick mix, add some butter, 2 eggs, milk, almonds, sultanas, cinnamon and brown sugar.

You then bake it in the oven until it gets a nice toasty crust. Its an old school comfy pudding, goes well with ice cream.

It fits in well with halloween, conkers and bonfire aromas, school dinners all rolled together.

Poppys in Brockwell Park summer 2013

Wildflower garden Brockwell Park 2013

Distant memories of summer in the park. This is the wild flower garden next to the Lido in Brockwell Park

Customer Service

These days business often seems to be focussed on generating new sales rather than looking after existing customers. It appears the customer is greatly valued at the point of capture, but shortly after this they are passed onto the ‘recently joined queue’ and left there to amuse themselves and pretty much ignored until the time comes to renew their annual subscription.

The beaming smile from the reception desk is reserved for new customers only and not to be given out to every Tom Dick and Harry.
I’ve always believed that if a business focuses on delivering customer satisfaction ensuring that the customer receives complete attention and enjoys their experience with you, then they will return again and they will tell their friends about you. This to me is the best method of gaining new customers; deliver a good product to your existing customers and the new ones will follow from recommendations.

Over the past couple of years I have noticed a developing culture of sales over service. So when I had the need to make a complaint as I did two years ago after a visit to Wembley to see the England football team take on Switzerland I was pleasantly surprised with the manner in which I was treated.

The stadium was vast and it felt like I was entering an enormous shopping mall. We found our seats and after staring round goggled eyed for a few minutes we sat down just as the crowd began to cheer the players onto the pitch. I won’t bore you with details of the team or the match; it’s irrelevant to my piece.

All the fun started when the half time whistle blew and we got to have a look around the see how much money they have spent on the toilets. It was the only thing I knew about the place before I arrived, Wembley had more toilet facilities than any other stadium of its size. They seemed to have enough facilities to cater for the mass crowds, to relieve them of as much cash in ten minutes as was physically possible.

Basically the theory is, get the customers in and out of the toilets as quickly as possible because when their queuing for the loos they ain’t spending money. Unfortunately after you have been to relieve yourself in the toilets you then had to join the queue for the food, which was long and painfully slow. We stood in line for ages and then finally got to order two soft drinks from the bar which were flat, mine was actually undrinkable. I tried to find someone to change my drink or take my complaint, however the staff member couldn’t find the supervisor and the second half was about to start so we didn’t bother to pursue the matter, instead we returned to our seats with a flat coke and a sprite which was made up of only water and had cost me six quid. This was about the time that I kind of lost interest in the game and my whole Wembley experience went a bit flat.

A couple of days later I decided that Wembley should get to hear about it, I sent an email to the business development manager explaining my situation. To my surprise he replied on the same day and promised to address the problem. I was very happy when they offered me two free tickets should I be planning a return visit.

I didn't have reason to return to Wembley until some two years later, when they kept their promise and gave me two free tickets for the England vs Moldova World Cup qualifier and they even threw in a free drink and a bite to eat in Club Wembley.

Wembley 6 September 2013 

I am happy to say that on my return to the national stadium, customer service was back on the menu. We were given great seats, just behind the manager's dugout and everything went smoothly including a win for England on the night.

Although at £500 a pop, Club-Wembley seats are a luxury, one that I hope to enjoy again sometime soon.

Misty October Morning London

A misty October morning over Brockwell Park at 6.47am

Dearly Beloved High Street

Much has been written lately of the demise of the High Street as a shopping experience and various solutions have been put forward as to how we could save it. 

Here’s my question, addressed to Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg

Does the government actually want to save the High Street?

And if so- what plan if any, does the Government have for securing the future of the High Street?

The High Street needs a level playing field if it is to compete with online retailers who enjoy vastly reduced operating costs and as we have seen recently with Amazon very dubious tax liabilities. If the High street based retailers are to compete on price then we need to look at ways in which their overheads could be reduced.

I know from running businesses myself that one of the greatest costs to the retailer is business rates. May I suggest cutting the burden of Business rates which in some cases are almost as high as the rent? Maybe then we would see a return to the High Street with people actually going out to shops to make their purchases.

Here’s an alternative theory for why the government seems to favour the online economy over the high street.

The majority of the population is sat at home watching subscription TV and shopping online, whilst ordering in food, why bother going out of the house?

People are more controllable and less troublesome when they are sitting on their sofa indoors, even better if they are spending money at the same time.