Wordpress - kitchapman.wordpress.com - Kit Chapman's Blog
General Information:
Latest News:
Are bankers nice, honest, understanding people after all? Barclays say sorry! 25 Jul 2013 | 04:17 pm
The Castle at Taunton, my family’s business, has received an extraordinary letter from Barclays, our bankers of sixty and more years. Suddenly, like a fairy godmother, Mr Patrick Moynihan, billing hi...
Margaret Thatcher inspired my life, my business and my writing 9 Apr 2013 | 05:28 pm
I was a young thirty-something when Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979. Three years before, Louise and I had left London to join the family business in Taunton. At that time, the country was an econom...
“Faites simple!” A famous dictum ignored by too many chefs 16 Mar 2013 | 04:39 pm
“Faites simple!” commanded the legendary chef, Auguste Escoffier. These two immortal words are probably the most famous in the culinary lexicon. They are also the two words most ignored and abused by ...
The Spirits of George Perry-Smith and Elizabeth David are alive in Ashburton today! 4 Mar 2013 | 04:43 pm
The A38 linking Exeter to Plymouth is a super-expressway so fast that you bypass Ashburton in a blink. Casual hearsay led us this small town on the southern fringes of Dartmoor National Park - more ou...
The Curse of the Smartphone! The Joy of French L’Art de Vivre! 18 Feb 2013 | 12:34 pm
In the sixty-something years my family has run The Castle at Taunton, the world has changed with alarming speed. Today, for example, the instant society we inhabit has grafted the smartphone to our sk...
From Claridge’s to Torquay’s Grosvenor: Hotels as reality TV 7 Jan 2013 | 01:07 pm
It’s taken a while for programme makers to twig that hotels offer rich material for their ”reality” television shows. Hotels are perfect locations for holding up a mirror at modern society. The best a...
The Incredible Hulk invades the Heart of Ancient Taunton 18 Nov 2012 | 04:11 pm
An Appeal to Taunton Deane Borough Council Sometimes I despair of the town I love. The town I grew up in. Our local authority has been telling us they have a vision for Taunton and, over the past mont...
Kostas Vaxevanis, Champion of Freedom, Democracy and the Greek People. 3 Nov 2012 | 10:22 pm
A week ago, Mr Kostas Vaxevanis was an obscure editor of an obscure Greek magazine called Hot Doc. No one had heard of him. Today he is a hero of the Greek people, and lovers of freedom and democracy....
Dumped by the Good Food Guide,The Castle at Taunton faces the winds of change 29 Sep 2012 | 04:38 pm
Three years ago, the BBC 2 series, Keep it in the Family, forced both senior and junior members of the Chapman family to start thinking seriously about the future of the hotel we owned. Dominic, Miche...
Castle Bow Bar + Grill opens to the TripAdvisor Merry-Go-Round. 8 Aug 2012 | 01:31 am
The paint on the front door of our new Castle Bow Bar & Grill hardly had time to dry and Liam Finnegan, our new Head Chef, had barely unpacked his kitchen knives when a small platoon of local restaura...
