Charley's Horse revisited

In my younger and child-free days, my wife and I (ooh, posh) sang in a vocal group called Nonessence, loosely based around Slough and Windsor. There were eight singers and the musical director/arranger/keyboardist. And on our good days we weren't bad at all.

It was with this bunch that I discovered a new and exciting cuisine - Mexican. At the time (we're talking the 1980s) Mexican food was pretty unusual in the UK, but lurking in a railway arch in Windsor (and yes, it was as dark and lurkacious as it sounds) was a newly opened 'Mexican cantina' called Charley's Horse. We went there a number of times, in part I suspect because it was reasonably priced, but also because of the novelty. After all, as the sign eventually and proudly stated, this was only the second Mexican cantina in all of England.

What is delightful about all this, and why I mention it is that we were in Windsor last Friday to attend a creakingly painful play at the theatre. (Never did I think I would have Liza Goddard looking me straight in the eye in a curtain call and I would look back with a big smile out of sympathy.) Usually we go somewhere like Brown's to eat, but as we queued to get into the town (the Horse Show was on), we drove under the railway arches and there was a sign for Charley's Horse, still standing after all these years.

And it was just the same. Of course memory plays tricks, but I would swear it was just the same. The menu was good, Mexican rather than Tex-Mex, and still reasonably priced (hence, I suspect, the way the rest of the clientele made us feel ancient). I won't bore you with details of the food, but the nachos I started with, including the likes of homemade guacamole and chorizo, were miles better than the typical chain joint nachos.

So if you are ever in Windsor, in search of an unsophisticated but enjoyable meal, don't be put off by the location or the rather grim entrance that looks like a cross between a municipal dog's home and a seedy nightclub - take a look at Charley's Horse. (If you are tight like me, I'd particularly recommend going between 6 and 7 on Wednesday to Saturday, when they do starter + main for £10.50.)

It's here:

View Larger Map

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

Search This Blog