hounsfieldjr

Can anyone tell me when wheelie bins first appeared in Broomhill?

Just a quick post to share my enjoyment of a good night out last night at Piccolino in the Peace Gardens. Very nice food, good wine, fantastic and friendly service and a chance to eat outside in surroundings that make you feel like you're on holiday. Well worth £28 for three courses and wine. Sheffield's obviously on the up!

No, in part it's because we watch TV adverts, and we think supermarkets are the only places you can get things. We also live in a sanitised world where we're happy to let the big corporations do the thinking for us.

It's strange how scared some people are of the market. My mother always used to shop in Castle Market. These days, people would rather go to a supermarket and pay twice the price for something that's been plonked on a little polystyrene tray and kept on a shelf for a week. Doesn't look like real food if you do that. I once asked the "butcher" in Morrisons for soup bones. "We don't have bones" he said. So is it even meat? I always try and go to the local market when I travel and it's the heart of most communities. They're always a bit rough, and they always smell a bit (that's usually the detergents, keeping the place clean), but the food is almost always better than the food you get at supermarkets. I've started shopping at Castle Market again and I think it's fab. Great fish and shellfish, a couple of good butchers, one excellent pork butcher, and top veg. It's where restaurants get their food from. Everyone should go there, just because it's cheaper and better than (most of) the supermarkets.

When you say Asda has relocated to Doncaster, that's probably putting it at its highest. In fact, they're building a distribution depot, which is what most of Doncaster's economy consists of. Asda's head office is staying put. This is the problem for Doncaster (and to a significant extent, for Sheffield). In a service-based economy, where are the professional services firms, banks, insurance companies etc which have driven the revivals in Leeds, Manchester and now Birmingham? Doncaster's doing well, but a new shopping centre and bus station and an economy based on the availability of building space do not make a regional capital.

But FG Thomas on Surrey Street is still going and they sell all sorts of tobacco products!

So no more antisocial habits for Fidel then. Unless you count human rights abuse...!!

I thought you could only acquire an easement by prescription after 20 years?!

F G Thomas - The Pen Shop - on Surrey Street used to have a good selection. Not looked for a while though. I think Ruskins sell a range of Cuban cigars but not sure about Montecristos. If you can find one, you could get a Cohiba robusto - the cigar of choice for Fidel Castro!

Where does the line join Sheffield from the ski village? I read somewhere that the train's going to go over the Wicker Arches, but there's no track there any more is there? I thought the Royal Victoria had built their extension on the viaduct that the line used.

I walked past David Wynne's "Horse and Rider" in Balm Green this morning. It's surrounded by shrubs. This is an internationally acclaimed work by a pretty well known sculptor. Given the rubbish street furniture that the Council keeps sticking on Fargate and the Moor, does anyone agree with me that "Horse and Rider" should be put somewhere pretty prominent (eg at the centre of Tudor Square)? It should be featured on Sheffield postcards as far as I'm concerned. Seems a shame to leave it hidden and unnoticed, although not making the most of the city's gems is of course one of the Council's talents.

The Star has being going steadily downhill for a few years. It's not really a newspaper any more, just a social circular with a few adverts. I'd put it on a par with the Sixer, for those who live in Sheffield 6, or those free papers that come round once a week. Compare it with the Yorkshire Post and you find it short on news, current affairs, political comment, business, sport and features. It's a shame for such a big city to have such a parochial, inconsequential paper. All the good stuff went over to the Telegraph ages ago. Maybe that should come out more than once a week.

In fairness, we've had a Labour government for 9 years, and they haven't exactly been running the country either. Unless you count running it into the ground.

What about some Stilton cheese from Hartington in Derbyshire? I think they do mail order (some of the Bakewell pudding shops in Bakewell do as well). Isn't there a sandwich spread factory on Western Road in Crookes? You could send some real genuine potted dog.

Isn't that because the Council have already knocked them down?! For a current example of old buildings under threat, you might want to look at the Bethel Chapel on Cambridge Street and the building on the corner of Cambridge Street and Pinstone Street. Both are due to be demolished to make way for the boxes that will make up the new retail quarter. If you're asking about buildings with hundredS (ie. 200 or more) years of history, maybe it's the wrong question for Sheffield.

Tony is right about Chester. The Tudor buildings the tourists love aren't very old. And I was interested to note nick2's reference to the City Hall as one of our landmark buildings. What I find most fascinating is that architectural hubris wouldn't allow either development to be built today. Both Chester's mock-Tudor designs and the City Hall's neo-classical design were criticised by the "forward-thinkers" of the time. Fast forward a couple of generations and people don't know about that controversy. All they know is that these are attractive buildings that get Japanese and American tourists excited (well, OK, maybe not the City Hall). The "forward-thinkers" don't like to acknowledge it but modern designs don't do it for people. People like old buildings because they're not bland. Modern architecture is about what's cheapest, which usually means a box. Now I'm not putting it forward as a serious proposition for fear of lighting the blue touchpaper, but I reckon if Sheffield's new retail quarter was built in a collonaded neo-classical style and Castlegate was rebuilt as a jumble of mediaeval streets, the Sheffielders of 2100 would find themselves rolling in tourist money. So concrete it is then.

I think we should all make an effort to buy Sheffield cutlery, even if we have to spend weeks looking round factory shops and posting on here and doing all the things you wouldn't do if you weren't bothered about the city! Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm on the hunt!

I do like Sheikhs, but if you want a more genuine Lebanese eating experience, try Rowsha on South Road in Walkley.

I've been looking for some new cutlery, and being a Sheffield lad I'd like to buy local. But I've been hunting all over for some reasonably-priced modern Sheffield cutlery and can't find anything. No wonder Sheffield's cutlery trade is on its a*** if all it produces is old-fashioned stuff for grannies and stately homes. Can anyone recommend any cutlers or shops where I might be able to get something a bit contemporary and made in Sheffield? (I've checked out Sheffield Scene, Don Alexander, David Mellor and Lincoln House, and no joy there). Thanks!

For grown up eating, I'd suggest Boho (Campo Lane) or Artisan (Crosspool). Both are top class. I'd also recommend Seasons (Abbeydale Road ), Marco@Milano (Archer Road) and the Blue Room Brasserie (Chesterfield Road). If you really want the best of the best, you need to go a bit further out of town. I'm told The Old Vicarage (Ridgeway) is the best in the area but I wasn't impressed. Fischer's at Baslow Hall is consistently in the UK's top 20 restaurants. But it really does depend what you want!

Try http://www.houseboathotels.com for something quirky.

Is the 19th century horse-lift being preserved on the H&L building, does anyone know?

Funk's is the best in Hillsborough I reckon. I've been having pork sandwiches from Funk's since I was a kid, and I think it's just one of the best shops ever. I love proper old fashioned pork shops, where everything's fresh and home-made. My girlfriend's from Lancashire, and she'd never heard of a pork shop until I started eulogising about Funk's. Come to think of it, I've never seen a pork shop outside Sheffield. Could it possibly be unique to Sheffield?

Haven't tried Catch yet, but I'd be amazed if it wasn't the best seafood restaurant in Sheffield. Richard Smith is the best chef in the city by a country mile - Smith's was the best restaurant in the city, and when he replaced that with Thyme, that became the best. I've been to the new downstairs bit, Artisan, and it's absolutely fabulous, on a par with the best in the country. So I reckon Catch will be up there too!

And to this day, Catholic priests are celibate....