Dorset

It's the only county in England without motorways (and the only one with an erect giant's cock drawn on the hillside).

On a blue skies day, there is nowhere in the world more enchanting than Shaftesbury or the villages of the Piddle valley, and the walk from the Square and Compass pub down through a grassy valley to the sea is one of the most beautiful I can remember. Especially if you've had eight pints beforehand.

It is said that Bourneouth has more nightclubs than the west end of London. I wouldn't put moeny on that, though.

the odd thing about the place is just how many Portlanders are, like me, *really* from either the south-east (I lived in the SE London / Kent borders until I was 14) or the West Coast Main Line corridor (especially Birmingham, so it seems). I like that, I like the fact that it isn't inbred the way parts of inland Dorset are, I like the ruggedness and the harshness and the fact that there's no chance of it being prettified because it isn't full of bloody Tories like parts of inland etc etc. I like the fact that nobody bats an eyelid at satellite dishes being on the front of old cottages, because they aren't snobbish like that. we hate Dorchester people round here, it has to be said ...

the other thing that Portlanders universally seem to know is what I call the House at World's End (for those who know the Monica Dickens book of that name, it reminded me of her description of said house - no doubt others allude to her great-grandfather by calling it Bleak House, but I could never do that because that's the name of bloody T*ny M*rt*n's farm). it's an old disused farmhouse surrounded by a lot of what has become wild and uncultivated land - I'm guessing it ceased to be a working farm in about 1970, and became uninhabited altogether around 1987 (my relatives who lived just up the road from World's End from 1988 to the late 90s certainly can't recall it being lived in). nobody here seems to know who owns it, or why it was never sold or rented out, but everyone has their story to tell about it, the kids who've defied danger warnings to play there, the rotting piece of farming machinery abandoned for decades in its grounds, the garden so overgrown with weeds that you can barely walk through it these days ... to be honest I find it very depressing now. a few months ago, even, it looked salvageable, but the other week a lot of the windows were broken, last week's storms are already corroding the house inside ... the House at World's End on Portland, or whatever you want to call it, is one of those local semi-legends, and none the worse for that.

incidentally the Weymouth Quay line is now part of the past; regular boat trains over the line, connected to Channel Islands ferries, finished at the end of the 1987 summer timetable. special trains continued to use it into the 90s, but it's a sign of the line's rusting weed-covered decay that even Railtrack declared it unsafe and closed it for good. when I was last there in 1997, on a March day of white skies and deep ennui, the Weymouth Quay terminal was a haunting ghost station, the sort of thing I might have dreamed. it's probably gone now.

http://www.moores-biscuits.co.uk/images/dk.jpg

Still, not many places in England where there is a prison inside a hill.

The best parts of Portland seem to surround Trafalgar Square.

so yeah, sea air (connossieurs choice - Cove House Inn Portland in a fall storm), Weymouth = most depressing place ever,

all in all a beautiful, beautiful inspiring place apart from one thing:

SEX

last week i pulled out my still wrapped packet of durex 'safe play' and found the expiry date was august 2001. i swear Douglas Bader has more chance of posthumously scoring for england than i have of getting a shag in this stupid fucking bunghole of a county.

oh and it's full of racists.

Hello. Can anyone recommend a nice, cheapish hotel or B&B in the Dorchester/Weymouth area? We'll be driving, so accessibility by public transport is not essential.

We'll only be there a couple of days and mainly visiting family (who are now too old and frail to impose upon as houseguests) rather than sightseeing, but bonus points for being near nice coastline and/or a good pub.

Stayed in Portland for a few days. The "cottage" had an information file, with two leaflets at the front. The first detailed what to do in the event of flooding (park car up a hill); the second described what to do in the event of a radiation leak from a nuclear submarine (stay in doors, close windows; wait for army to deliver medication).

^ And yet still we have booked another Dorset holiday.

Recommendations for Milborne St Andrews, Blandford Forum and thereabouts?

Has anyone done Crying Mat from Masterchef at the Casterbridge?

Any recommendations around Toller Fratrum/Dorchester?

Went to (Masterchef winner) Mat Follas' new café, Bramble, in Poundbury. It was a bit ... nothing. He actually seems to cook on a Friday/Saturday evening so perhaps it picks up then?