The BBC Oliver Twist Production 2007 (Starring Sophie Okenado And Tom Hardy) @tomhardy Played A Truly Mean Bill Sykes (The Dickens Museum Celebrates Its 250th Anniversary This Year) – South Cathedral, 1 London Bridge, Montague Close, London SE1 9DA, England – @oma.london – A Member of The Bedales Service Team – Bubbles @BesdalesWines @veuveclicquot – Sweet Pink Blush Roses At Besdales Reception – Barrel Tables At The Back of Bedales Wine Bar, Borough Market @boroughmarket – Saffron Arancini, Devilled Eggs, Sourdough Bread And Brown Butter At Bedales Wine Bar @bedaleswines – Drawing And Photograph of Bedales wine Bar And Merchants At 5 Bedale Street, London Bridge – Business Associates Have A Business Meeting At Bedales From Across The Country And Italy completeairsupplies.co.uk – Three Ladies, Including Business Analyst Daniella Mahawa Jackson @daniellamahawajackson Met Up For ‘A Week Day-Ex-Colleagues-Now-Friends’ Night Out, Which Included Having A Good Old Natter In The Borough Market Thoroughfare For Ages Once The Market Closed For The Evening. A Member of The Bedales Service Team
June 22nd Is Annual Windrush Day Since Theresa May’s Conservative Government Sanctioned It As A National Celebration In 2017. As A Result The Whole of June Is Very Much Windrush Month In Some Quarters. This Year TO.P (TheOrator.Press) Attended A Windrush Concert At The Broadway Theatre, Catford, South East London On Sunday June 22nd 2025 On The Big Day Itself.
Comedy, Live Musical Classics From The Early Windrush Days (Including The Ever Popular ‘My Boy Lollipop’ By Millie Small), A Stunning Opera Performance From A Windrush Daughter, Folk Stories, History Insights, And An Onstage Exhibition of A Typical British Caribbean Family Front Room (Featuring The Now Iconic Plastic Pinapple Ice-Bucket On A Hostess Trolley), All Combined To Provide Two Hours of Celebratory Caribbean Cultural Entertainment.
It Was A Mixed Crowd Including Young, Middle-Aged, And Seniors, Family, Friends, Black, White, Male And Female.
It Was An Especially Great Night Out For The Seniors Who Were Transported Back To The Happier Elements of Their Early New Lives In Britain, After Being Invited By The Government To Help Rebuild Post War Britain Between 1948 – 1971. HMS Windrush Was The First Ship To Bring The New Workforce To Britain To Help Solve The Postwar Labour Shortage Problem Hence This Group of Invited Immigrants Is Known As The Windrush Generation. The New National Health Servive (NHS) Was In The Early Stages of Development And Much Help Was Needed On The Ever Expanding Public Transport System of Trains And Buses. Many Dedicated Their Lives To Guys Hospital Just Across From Borough Market For Instance. Many Had Also Previously Served In The Military.
One of The Most Memorable Moments of The Concert Happened Before The Show Even Began.
The Show’s Producer (Tony Fairweather of Fairweather Productions) Invited His Reverand On Stage To Bless The Production, The Artistes, The Audience And The Pioneers of The Windrush Generation, Those Past And Present And Their Descendants And The New Generations.
Witnessing Such A Theatrical Ecclesiastical Moment Was A New Experience For Us Here At TO.P (TheOrator.Press)So We Simply Felt Compelled To Talk To The Reverand About It Afterwards. You Can Listen To That Interview Also In This Issue Seperately As Part of Another In Our ‘Pods On A Page’ Interview Series’.
Meantime It Transpires That The Reverand Is Based At Southwark Cathedral, Which Is Officially Located At No. 1 London Bridge, Directly Adjacent To The Bustling Borough Street Market, A Gastronomic Gateway To All Kinds of Wonderful Foods, Wines, International Flavours, Fresh Coffees, Bars And Restaurants.
As Bread And Wine Are At The Heart of So Many Biblical Stories It Seemed Fitting To Visit At Least One of Them Whilst In Town To Interview The Reverand.
So, Having Surveyed The Borough Street Market Website We Decided On The Multifaceted Bedales Wine Merchants, Bar And Restaurant. As Purveyours of Fine Wine (Who Purvey At The Likes of Ascot, Wimbledon And The Chelsea Flower Show)They Have A Cellar Room Available For Event Hire Downstairs, A Generous Roughly Square Shaped Ground Floor Wine Bar, With Outdoor Seating Front And Back, And A Terrace Restaurant Upstairs, Which Overlooks The Market. It Is Fundamentally Fabulous.
The Rumbling of The Trains Provide Great Atmosphere But More Training Would Provide Even Greater Service
Whilst Sadly In Reality All Too Often There’s Not Always Room To Sit Down On A The Train, In Life Invariably There’s Always Room For Improvement. The Bedales Service Though Basically Polite, Swift, And Seemingly Efficient, Let Itself Down By A Lack of Sharpness, Communication, Attention To Detail, And Health & Safety Care. In Our Opinion.
(Continued In Column Two, Opposite.)
Hence What Could Easily Otherwise Have Been Be A 10 Out of 10 For Service Ultimately Became 5 Out 10.
The Food And Drink Was A 6 Out of 10. Portion Size In Particular Was A Disappointment, Leaving Us Wishing “Please Sir May We Have Some More”. It Literally Felt Like Half Was Missing In Some Cases (Especially The Tasty But Tiny Margaritas). Post Covid People Are Still Acclimed To Drinking At Home, So Let’s Get Real People And Recognise No One’s Making Tiny Tiny Portions At Home, Especially When They Can Buy A Whole Bottle of Spirit For The Price of A Tiny Tiny Cocktail Alone (Circa £16).
The Ambience, Decor, General Vibe And Environment – Including The Surrounding Market Thoroughfare Which Can Be Surveyed All Around From Front To Back, Top To Bottom, And Above On High, Was Captivating. But For Steep Stairway, The Birds Eye View of The Bins, And The Lack of Electrical Points For Work Digital Devices, Here Could Have Been A 10 Too.
But It Was An Immaculate 7 Instead.
7 Is Nonetheless Divine.
Dickens Himself Was Born on The 7th (of February).
The Late Strictly Judge Len Goodman Famously Made It His Trademark Decent Number Whilst Judging On The BBC’s Sparkly Celebrity Dance Extravaganza.
It’s God’s Own Number Having Reportedly Taken 7 Days To Create The World (Resting On The 7th Day) According To The Most Enduring Global Story Ever Told.
There 7 Days In A Week, The Foundation of The Timeline By Which The World’s Citizens Run Their Working And Social Lives.
And 7 Is At The Heart of The Christian Concept of Jubilee. So There’s Much To Be Jubilent About.
Ultimately 18 Out of 30 Is Beyond Average And Bedales Is Absolutely Worth A Visit, Not Least of All Because It’s Location Is Iconic. But Possibly It’s Just A Little Complacent At The Moment. With Improved Training And A Little Self Refection This Establishment Has The Potential To Exceed Even The Greatest Expectations And Come Up Smelling of (Sweet Red) Roses.
God’s Honest Truth, We Had One The Best Tasting Margaritas Ever At Bedales (…And We’re Very Particular When It Comes To Our Margaritas As Their Our Favourite Cocktails). The Truly Divine Bedales Brown Butter – Which Without Doubt Would Be Truly Well Placed On Any Exclusive Table Set With The Food of The Gods – Is Worth Going Back For! And, If Like Us, You Love People Watching, It’s Observation Heaven (Especially As We Had The Best Seat In House, Well, On The Terrace – The Only One With An Electrical Point Apparently – And Where The Boss Sits).
However, A Trinty of Service Errors Was Frustrating, Disappointing And Frankly A Misfit With The Prices Asked of Paying Customers. But Better Training May Yet Bring Redeemption.
We Hope So, As We’d Love To Return Again And Meantime We Thoroughly Recommend It.
Just Temper Any Great Expectations.
Until Further Notice.
(Continued In Column Three, Opposite.)
French Cheese & Onion Dip
Some Establishments Are Better Than Others At Acknowleding The Truth of That Dynamic And Training Staff To Ensure That It Never Happens.
One Can Distinguish Who They Are By The Attitude, Awareness And Attentiveness of The Staff (And Management). Despite Differences In Personalities The Establishments Who Genuinely Care About Excellent Service (Rather Than Just Turning Tables) All Work To The Same High Standard.
If A Customer Request Is Made To Place One’s Order (Whilst It’s Quiet At The Start of The Service Session And The Red Wine Is Breathing) But Have The Order Held On Hold Until Sometime After Finishing Apperitifs – Firstly That Should Be Something All The Service Team Know How To Do. And If The Request Was Made To The Waiter Who Took The Order But Then Another Waiter Takes Over From That Waiter There Should Be A Mechanism Where The Waiter Taking Over Can Check The Service Requests of The Table or The Departing Waiter Can Debrief The One Taking Over.
Good Electronic Restaurant Ordering Systems Do Allow For Such Notifications -For Both The Kitchen And The Floor). And At A Minimum Waiting Should At Least Talk To Each Other On Takeover.
Having One’s Food Arrive Before One Is Ready For It Is Not Great. Just Like When It Arrives Too Late. We Chose Not To Send Our Premature Plates Back As We Did Not Want To Upset The Chef. (But Their Arrival Unexpectedly Crashed The Twenty Minutes of Writing We Were About To Do Whilst Enjoying Our Margarita And The Alfresco Atmosphere)
Conversley, But Similarly, We Discussed The Dessert Options With Our Waiter, Some Significant Time Later And Said We’d Think About Which One To Go For. When We Finally Ordered A Little While Later We Were Told The Kitchen Was Closed. A Warning That The Kitchen Was Going To Close Would Have Been Good (Like The Standard Last Orders Warning From Pubs And Bars).
Talking of Bars – Second Only To A Rum Punch, A Margarita Is Our Favourite Cocktail. We Love The Simplicity of The Ingredients And The Sharpness of The Lime And Tequilla Against The Sweetness of The Cane Sugar (Monin Our Favourite) And Triple Sec (Sometimes Cointreau).
Ornamental (And Inedible) Dried Limes Are Omnipresent Right Now In Cocktail World. In Our Second of Two Aperitiff Cocktails This Decoration Sat Flat, Whole, Uncut, Floating On Top. We Are Currently Unsure If This Was By Accident or Design But Thankfully It Was Safer Than The First One Which Was A Potential Choke Hazard Which We Only Narrowly Avoided.
With The First Margarita Came With The Dried Lime Sitting Perched On The Side of The Glass As A Little Piece Had Been Cut Out of It To Make That Geometrically Possible.
It’s A Standard Move With Fresh Lime.
But As This Was A Dried Lime The Cut Out Now Became A Shard of Hard Dried Decoration Lurking In The Glass. Only By God’s Grace It Did Not Slip Down The Throat, Cutting, Scratching or Chocking Along The Way, Which We Pointed Out To Our Waiter And Asked Him To Relay To The Barman.
Having Heard Nothing Back From The Bar or The Waiter Sometime Later We Enquired About The Response. After Looking Somewhat Sheepish And Saying “I Don’t Know How To Say This…” We Gleaned That The Barman Was Annoyed Because The Bar Was Busy And “A Bit of Lime In A Margarita Should Not Be A Problem”.
Although That Barman’s Response Was Shocking In It’s Complete And Total Failure To Grasp The Obvious Health And Safety Issue We’d Tried To Alert Him To, We Got The Sense That Was That Was Probably The Polite Version of What He Actually Said, As Relayed To Us! (Continued In Column Four, Below. On Page 2)
Amuse Buche Style Iberico (Ham) Croquettes
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