Preston to London, my new commute

I wish that I could pay Lancashire overheads but be paid London prices for the bespoke kitchens I fit.
I've got a mate who's making it big in London at the moment. We started out together and I know that the quality of my work compares favourably to his. But the truth is that he's earning sometimes as much as four times what I do for the same kind of project – a bitter pill to swallow and one that encapsulates much of what characterises the "North-South Divide".

Things have been tough up here ever since the credit crunch first put a squeeze on business, yet down in London my mate has had to take on another van and another man just to cope with the business – lets just say that it's not a comparison of situations to lift the spirits.

Things have been so quiet up here recently that I ended up driving my Ford Transit van down to London last month to lend my mate a hand. Yep, what I found there confirmed what I knew already: same quality of work but a completely different level of invoicing.

So I decided to get proactive – I've now got my first London contract. Yes, I may be commuting in the van from Preston, but the plan is that staying in London four nights a week, although expensive, is going to make me a packet more than I'd be making at home.

And it keeps me away from the wife. So, if all goes well, more money and less nag time versus less money and more nag time – there's no comparison to be made. Only problem is that the fish and chips down here are rubbish – so far I've not found anything to compare with Preston's or Blackpool's finest.

So my question is this, does anyone know a good chippie in London, cause so far there's no comparison? I'm perfectly prepared to drive my van right the way across the city – there's little else to do in the evenings – so don't be shy about coming up with suggestions about the one you think is the best.

Oh, and one proviso: I'm looking for a real chippie, so pretentious, over-priced fish and chip restaurants need not apply.

Redefining our understanding of dog food

I know it's extravagant, but I spend so much time driving about in the van that a couple of years ago I decided to install a state-of-the-art Bang & Olufsen system, second-hand – it means I never miss a word, whether I'm listening to the Moral Maze, In Our Time or Question Time.

Aside from a Fiat Fiorino van, which I bought because it was the most viable low C02 van on the market at the time, the sound system is my largest ever single purchase.

Actually, I felt a bit embarrassed by the extravagance of it until learning the other day that my neighbour has spent over £18,000 on buying two dogs – that's right, dogs.

Although I admit that the Siberian Samoyed is kind of cute in a miniature polar bear kind of way, I can't help but feel that there is something obscene about the purchase.

Firstly, that kind of money could be put to good use. You know to actually benefit the planet, you know, the one we live on, the one where poverty and environmental degradation threaten our very existence.

Perhaps it could have gone on charity at home or an aid abroad. That kind of money could easily feed and clothe whole families for a year. That's not even factoring in the £60,000+ it will cost to raise the dogs over the course of their lives, which makes the initial outlay pale in comparison.

But what about the environmental question? In order to serve what is little more than a gross kind of vanity project, a kind of canine extension of the owner's human identity, these dogs and their forbears have been painstakingly bred and inbred by crackpot canine eugenics experts.

And for what? So that my neighbour can drive up to the park in her 4WD, creating carbon emissions and unnecessary traffic? So that she can employ dog walkers on the days she's having her hair done or jetting off to Turkey for a Yoga holiday? So that the dogs can leave excrement all over the park, bagged or unbagged? Or perhaps it's so that we can discard the bits of livestock we feel too superior to eat and then produce even more carbon emissions by using mass industrial processes to add to the millions of tonnes of pet food each year?

I know that my neighbour likes to advertise her environmental credentials. She's a big advocate for organic meat and drives a Prius when she's not using the 4WD to transport the dog or the kids. I've also noticed that her recycling bins tend to overflow each week.

So my advice to her: well, I won't say it directly, but I might send her a copy of Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living.

Don't get me wrong, I love animals, dogs too and I'm not in any way suggesting that they should be on the menu. You see, what I object to is the selfish and vain desire of well-to-do humans to own animals on their own terms, eat them on their own terms and "love" them on their own terms.

I love animals in the wild, living free of human self-interest. I love animals that are at liberty to roam open spaces, not bred to live a kind of gilded anthropomorphic captivity.

Having pedigree pampered pets is not about loving animals, it's about loving ourselves, and in an overstretched and overpopulated world it's time to reconsider the ethical implications of this decadent extravagance.

I certainly won't be putting a couple of Samoyeds in the back of my van and taking them for a walk in the park any time soon. I'll stick to the companionship of the radio, there's no comparison.

Van Compared - the blog for van heads

This is Van Compared – the blog for people who love vans; panel vans, small vans, white vans, work vans, any old van and new vans too.
I'm a van driver and as I travel up and down the country I'm always hearing people going on about why their van is the best, why they are the best van driver, the worst vans ever, and that their local catering van does the best brew or the best bacon butty and I've always thought it would be good to get a lot of us together to get the van-talk flowing.
So, now I've started this blog for anyone who wants to talk about vans, compare vans, get van maintenance tips and advice or just to find out what van drivers would recommend for the best routes, the best motorway service stops, or even the cheapest fuel stations.
Now, I know my van is the best – a 2006 Ford Transit Panel, TDCI 280, ply lined, 58,000 miles and still drives like a dream. It's never once let me down, even in last year's freezing winter, and doesn't cost me an arm and a leg in fuel either.
I've carried everything in the back from concrete slabs to bonsai trees and I've helped at least ten of my mates move house with it.
Yep, my van is the tops, so you'll have to go a long way to beat it.