Baked Bean Fixes

Sometimes the bounty of Gelson's or Whole Foods or Von's just doesn't cut it and when that happens, I either head down the mountain to PCH and onwards to the King's Head in Santa Monica or down the other side to the 101 and onwards to Thousand Oaks. Tucked conveniently into the tidy middle of that (T.oaks) rather conservative suburban community is The Fox and Hounds. Like the King's Head, this place is stocked full of 'nursery' food...the simple foods of an English childhood and, as such, the foods of dreams. Yesterday I stocked up on a few of our favorites: tins of Heinz Baked Beans (they just taste different), boxes of PG Tips tea, frozen sausages, small jars of mint sauce, Rich Tea and Digestive biscuits, a Crunchie bar, some mushy peas and a few other low on the totem pole foods (total bill $74.51). No shock there. British foods are easily quadruple their UK shelf price on this side of the Atlantic. You can't leave the shop without one of the two elderly ladies (one Scottish gal who sounds exactly like the housekeeper on Doctor Finlay's Casebook) and t'other a moody but goodhearted octogenarian lass from the South (Essex) pushing the 'papers' on you. Yesterday was no exception and they chirpily handed over The British Weekly and the Union Jack, the Scottish lady purring, "You'll be wanting to read these dear, now won't you?" Damn straight, I thought, especially with articles like this...and I quote.

"Drunken Bishop Has No Memory of Antics

After throwing children's toys from a stranger's car before being pulled out and splitting open his head, a Bishop said he didn't remember the incident.

The Rt. Rev. Tom Butler, 66, the Bishop of Southwark, when asked what he was doing, reportedly replied: "I'm the Bishop of Southwark. It's what I do."

He then 'staggered' off into the night leaving his cross, personal organiser and Home Office correspondence in the car.

At first the bishop claimed he'd been mugged as he made his way back from an embassy function in central London to his home in Streatham. But his spokesman later said: "He'd clearly had a glass of wine but does not recall being drunk as a skunk. He finds it incredible to believe he was in a different part of town in a car and left belongings there. But he doesn't recall."

Mercedes owner Nicola Sumpter, 33, said the first she knew of the incident was when her car alarm went off. She said: "My boyfriend and his pal raced outside and were stunned to see a grey-haired man in the back seat. He was throwing my one-year old son's toys everywhere. He wouldn't get out so they pulled him away. He couldn't stand up straight and fell over, bashing his head."