Would you like a flake with that?

Mrs Brinkster brought the following to my attention from the Sutton Guardian and it rates fairly high on the yuck-o-meter....

"Police pounced on an ice cream man who was caught on camera performing a solo sex act while on duty in his van.

Vincenzo Coffaro, 81, was filmed on a mobile phone when he was spied in full view through the serving hatch of his van pleasuring himself while parked at one of his regular pitches in Overton Road, Sutton."
So far, so disgusting. It doesn't get any better.

"But after being released from custody Coffaro, from Sutton, was spotted selling ice creams the next day.

When confronted by the Sutton Guardian he insisted he would continue to ply his trade around the borough’s schools and parks – despite hygiene concerns.

Sutton trading standards said it could not stop him working because his offence was not sufficient for an immediate trading ban."

So when you hear an ice-cream van plying it's trade in Worcester Park stick your head out of the window and check it's not Vincenzo before you send the kids out.

And so it begins

As one door closes

As I came home on Sunday afternoon from a trip to London I noticed that work was going on in the former Megabytes premises to transform it into something else. By this morning the transformation seemed to be nearly complete and the shop wasn't just sporting one door as before but a whole variety of them, indicating that all of KT4's door requisitioning needs may soon be met closer to home than before. Megabytes get premises close to their old one and Central Road gets another unit occupied so it could be described as a win-win situation. At least it's not another hairdresser's...

Megabytes on the move

If you've been wondering where Megabytes, the computer shop, has gone they're moving across the road to 3 Windsor Road because their current lease has expired. Passing the old shop last night it was in the process of being gutted so are we getting a new shop there?

Beechdean Motorsports - Brands Hatch 2011

Hopefully you'll have seen from my recent posts that the newly-opened Nonsuch Pantry has taken on a range of Beechdean ice creams so in probably one of the most tangentally connected posts you're likely to read on a blog I went to watch the 007 car of Beechdean Motorsports compete in the Brands Hatch round of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship.

The Beechdean Motorsports car is a black and yellow six-litre Aston Martin DBRS9 capable of 0-60 in under 4 seconds in the GT3 class with ice-cream company director Andrew Howard and professional driver Jonny Adams behind the wheel. Things were looking promising after a good run in qualifying but on an alternately sunny and rainy day in Kent it'd be fair to say that they had a bad day at the office. Starting from 4th on the grid an early spin dropped them down the field and a later puncture, slowing them to a crawl for an almost complete lap of Brands Hatch's Grand Prix circuit, and a couple of trips into the gravel meant that it was not going to be their day. They finished the race in a disappointing 20th and will be hoping to regroup before the next race in Spa, Belgium in three weeks time.

Nice car though. And nice ice cream.

*n.b. They don't sponsor me and didn't get me into Brands Hatch. Promise!

Two car crash on Central Road

As I made my way home up Central from work yesterday afternoon I came on the scene of an accident. A large BMW, driven by an elderly gentleman, had uprooted two very sturdy metal bollards from the pavement and he was seated in a chair waiting for the arrival of an ambulance. I noticed that his airbag had deployed so it must have been quite some whack to set that off and uproot the bollards.

Slightly further down the hill at the bus stop there was another car, with a young man in attendance, showing damage to its front left and seemed to have been involved in the accident, but I couldn't quite work out the chain of events. Any ideas anyone?

Nonsuch Pantry - update

If you saw my post about the Nonsuch Pantry the other day you'll know I had a couple of questions and I've got a couple of answers.

Firstly there's loads of outdoor seating as, in addition to the tables I saw on Thursday they had some nice round wooden tables and chairs.

Secondly if you're not into artisan lemonades and the like then you can still get a can of Diet Coke!

Thirdly Brinkster Minor's very impressed that he could get a "Bambaccino" (Pizza Express customers should know what I'm talking about).

We didn't get as far as ice creams but their Twitter feed says they're going to do cones so I think all should be good there.

Brinkster Minor and myself sat on the benches in the entrance hall to have our drinks and it was interesting to watch people's first reaction when they walked in, which was normally "Wow", followed by "WOW" when they saw the main cafe itself. Prices compare favourably with the Starbucks and Costas of this world so if you've been do let me know what you think in the comments below.

Nonsuch Park - The new Nonsuch Park cafe

Tap, tap.

You still here?

I'd have thought I'd have shaken off even the most devoted reader by now with my prolonged silence but I guess there's no accounting for taste.

Anyway, we're not here to talk about me, we're here to talk about the the new cafe in Nonsuch Park, called the Nonsuch Pantry which is replacing the old cafe in the house and they're planning to open tomorrow, Friday 26th May.

They kindly let me in to take some sneak pics today as they're ready to open tomorrow and it'd be fair to say that they've changed a lot, as the photos show.

They've redone it in the style of the renovation of the Mansion interior and it certainly is spectacular. The counter and shelves are laden with all kinds of lovely things from Bovingdons, the caterers, that I'm looking forward to sampling but there are a few questions in the Brinkster household which, at this time, I'm singularly unable to give a conclusive answer.

Those questions are, in order,
1) "What about ice-creams?" (It does mention ice creams on their Twitter page but I didn't see any), and
2) "What about the slushee machine?"

Sorry. I can't help. I'd really like to, as those are two things that figure prominently in our Nonsuch walks so if those don't happen then the young Brinksters might be driven to head down there with pitchforks and blazing torches to give the management a seeing to. The arrangement inside is also different and I'm not sure whether there's more or less seating than before as I almost always used the tables outside , and I'm not sure if there's as much of that as before, but it's early days and I know they're feeling their way into this so what is there on day 1 is not necessarily the finished product and things will undoubtedly change. Helpful suggestions will, I'm sure, be welcomed.

In the meantime you can follow them on Twitter here and enjoy the jumble of pics that I'm left with because I've forgotten how to format the layout .