Cat named after Nottingham Forest legend Brian Clough becomes celebrity – by visiting his local pub

The Nottingham Post wins our Headline of the Day Award by a distance:

The feline takes himself down to the Blue Bell pub in Sandiacre at around 7pm each night and has become such a hit with regulars and staff that he has his own stool and a stash of kitty treats behind the bar. 

Brian particularly enjoys Monday's quiz nights and Wednesday's darts – where he helps himself to the leftover cheese cobs and pork pies. 

Now the seven-year-old moggy has even got his own Facebook page, with a helping paw from his owners.

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Douglas Slocombe (1913-2016)

Douglas Slocombe - Behind the Camera from BSC on Vimeo.

The great British cinematographer Douglas Slocombe died this morning at the age of 103.

As this tribute shows, he photographed the classic Ealing films, the Indiana Jones trilogy and many outstanding films in between.

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Lembit Opik with his new face on

The Shropshire Star reports on Lembit Opik's appearance on This Morning talking about the surgery on his jaw, which was broken in a paragliding accident 18 years ago. (Lord Bonkers visited him in hospital, according to his Diary at the time.)

He told Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield:

"It’s given me space to think. I’m 50 now, I feel like I’ve been given a second life, perhaps because I feel so confident about being symmetrical."

My title is, of course, a reference to a 1968 Spencer Davis Group LP.

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The Real Ale Classroom, Leicester

I spent yesterday exploring to pleasant suburban shopping streets in the south of Leicester. They were the Stoneygate shops and Queens Road in Clarendon Park.

Though the former has probably seen better days, there is something pleasing about finding quality shops set in a red-brick terrace.

One reason for going to Stoneygate was to try The Real Ale Classroom.

A write up in the Leicester Mercury last year began:

Two teachers have taken inspiration from the classroom and mixed it with booze to create a new educational ale house in Stoneygate. 

Steven Tabbernor, 40, from Clarendon Park, and Ian Martin, 41, from Rutland, are hoping to bring real ale-ducation to the masses with a new micropub set to open next month. 

The Real Ale Classroom, in Allandale Road, was successfully granted a liquor licence last week and now the race is on fit out the unit in time for Christmas.

The compact bar will stock a selection of beers, ciders, stouts, ales and perrys from around Leicestershire - as well as bordering counties - with educating drinkers on the finer points of locally brewed booze as its main aim.

I tried a bitter brewed somewhere near Melton, but they had just tapped a cask of Citra from Oakham Ales (actually brewed in Peterborough) so I had a taste of that too.

The Real Ale Classroom is like a smaller version of Market Harborough's own Beerhouse, which makes it well worth a visit if you are in Leicester.

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