Hoorah!  At last the guide book has "gone to bed", now it's just a matter of waiting for publication (6th September) and noting how many or how few restaurants have inconveniently gone bust, changed hands or relocated in the weeks between signing off the proofs and seeing a copy. There is a certain amount of relief in knowing that it is now too late for even the most last minute changes! 

The whole process has been made more scary this year by a spate of filming, nobody seems to know when "Eating with the Enemy" will burst onto your screens but over the last few weeks we have been shooting 20 programmes for the BBC in the glamour of a railway arch in Bermondsey. Various members of the public cook for a panel of food critics - myself, Toby Young, Jay Rayner and Kate Spicer, in a competition to find the best home cook and there's a welcome emphasis on regional ingredients. Thankfully the gastronomic highs just about out-numbered the lows but there was a good deal of uninspiring eating involved.

Meanwhile over at the Rivington the focus was on crayfish when a large party tucked into a "Crayfish Feast" - this is a traditional summer pastime in Sweden. In the U.K. the only freshwater crayfish available in any numbers is the large Signal Crayfish. This American interloper has just about finished off the Native Crayfish and perhaps the best way to get revenge is to eat them. For the feast the crayfish came from the Oxford area and after a crayfish bisque we tried them boiled in beer with wild fennel, and finally served as a salad with rabbit. Each course was paired with a different beer so we had Grolsch wheat beer with the boiled crays, the magnificent White Shield with the salad, and Innis and Gunn with the pud. It's a very good strategy - the best way to rid our countryside of vermin is to eat them! Let's turn our attention to pigeons.

Charles Campion

The Rivington, 28–30 Rivington Street, EC2 (020 7729 7053)