Twitter at mattapple1

Blog at Telegraph 

1. Happy New Year. Or HNY as I say to save time. 263 people have said Happy New Year to me so far this year. Is this about right? 453 said Merry Christmas. I said Merry Xmas to save time. And have a cool yule to be a t##t.

2. Xmas TV: Victoria Wood special: Duncan Preston: “My life seems completely grey, bleak and pointless.”
Julie Walters: “Sometimes it's God's way of getting you to enjoy Gardener's World.”
 
3. Look-alikes special.You do the matching.

Richard E Grant and James Alexander Sinclair

Hayley Monckton and Ali Bastian

Leigh Hunt and Corpse bride

Ben Fogle and Christian Jessen

4. Glee trade show for garden centres in September has a logo that is a tiny bit like new E4 US TV hit Glee. The title track of Glee is Journey’s Don’t stop believing. That little Joe McElderry sang on X Factor.

5. Sad to hear of the death of John Cushnie, the only Gardeners Question Time panellist with industry landscaping experience. He predicted in Daily Telegraph 2 January he would ask more gardeners to grow posh veg. There are no immediate plans to replace him at Gardeners’ Question Time. A tribute edition is on Radio 4 on 15 January at 3pm repeated on 17 January at 2pm.

6. Charlie Dimmock is to strip off and appear in full bloom at the Princess Theatre in a touring production of Calendar Girls.

The bra-less presenter, who found fame through BBC gardening show Groundforce, has been receiving acting tuition and vocal coaching in preparation for her stage debut.

She will play Celia, the more curvaceous member of the Women's Institute featured in the show.

It's a role previously played by Jerry Hall, and Kelly Brook now has the part in the West End production running at the Noel Coward Theatre.

In Torquay the production will run from July 5 to 10 and will form one of the linchpins of the venue's summer season.

Her fellow cast members will include Gemma Craven, Sue Holderness and former EastEnders stars Hannah Waterman and Letitia Dean as the women from the Rylstone and District WI who laid the foundations of an extraordinary charitable enterprise when they disrobed and posed naked for a racy calendar.

Tickets go on sale in mid January.

7. Ian Mcmillan-Yorkshire Post

I have a shelf full of chutney standing there like skittles in a bowling alley, and it'll probably last me for most of 2010, but the burning question is: "What on earth will I do now in garden centres?"
You see, despite my best efforts over the decades, I've never really enjoyed my many visits to garden centres. My lovely wife is a big fan
of gardening and, for her, a visit to a garden centre is the equivalent
of an art lover visiting the National Gallery or a train spotter catching a glimpse of something rare and steamy chugging through
Doncaster station.
It's bliss for her. She's in Garden Heaven, where the angels sit on water features and their harps are made of canes and twine. For me, on the other hand, it's not quite that exciting. My lovely wife looks at a plant. She doesn't like it. She looks at another plant which to me looks exactly like the previous plant but she declares this to be superior in every possible way.
It's her hobby so I don't mind but I always say, at this point, "I'm just off to look at the chutney" and I spend many happy minutes gazing at Farmhouse Chutney or Mango Chutney or Tomato and Cucumber Chutney. I take it from the shelf: like a version of a wine expert, I hold the jar up to the light and see the rays of the sun filtered through the chutney. I read the ingredients aloud and they sound like a little poem. Then, just to keep the economy going in a recession, I always buy some.

8. I have boring Facebook friends-all on about the cold, their cats and their babies. My baby is well wrapped up for the snow thankfully. Twitter is better. FisherTomlin Wondered where all the snowmen went? http://post.ly/HOaS

I also learnt compost worms don’t eat when bedding is below 3 degrees from Wiggly Wigglers.

9. Anna Pavord in the Independent mag says: “Websites and blogs have multiplied, fertilised by a curious anxiety about the natural world. But that world is not going to get more familiar by way of a computer screen.” She recommends getting out into the garden rather than wittering on about it.

10. Garden centre consultant Eve Tigwell quiz:

What kind of pie is traditionally eaten on Thanksgiving Day in America?

What is also known as a Love-Apple?

What kind of fruit is a Muscat? 

What is the alternative name for a Chinese Gooseberry?           

What fruit is the main ingredient of Eve’s Pudding?

What is a Huckleberry?

Which of these is not a vegetable?

Cabbage: Cucumber: Cauliflower

Which drink is flavoured with juniper berries?

A Savoy is a variety if which vegetable?

Which member of the onion family is said to repel vampires?

Answers

Pumpkin

Tomato

Grape

Kiwi Fruit

Apple

Blueberry

Cucumber

Gin

Cabbage

Garlic