Watch the Olympic torch make its way around the world, and one is filled with images that just don’t go together. The journey of the flame is proving more of a divider, not a uniter. Blue-suited Chinese paramilitary, without any seeming executive powers, roughing up interlopers that are oddly obsessed with extinguishing the fire. The knee jerk reaction of all the hodgepodge protestors of today seems to be to do the opposite of what everyone else enjoys….

Whomever is behind this theory that activities that result in the continued mild irritation and bemusement of the public opinion, at the expense of taxpayer money for police enforcement, must believe he or she is really on to something.

On the other hand, some could argue that awarding Beijing the Olympics in the first place was a poor plan. An idea that doesn’t sit well in the first place. In short, ladies and gentlemen nothing about holding the Olympics in China seems to fit. Especially the part about shutting down Mount Everest.

And with that ridiculous segue from one sloppy narrative to another; here is an idea that doesn’t really fit.

Marks & Spencer’s (M&S) once ran the risk of being labelled by InterWined.com as one of the least valuable wine merchants, in terms of our quality to cost ratio. But now, things are getting exciting over there, if some decisions seem a little weird at first.

The 2006 Wrattonbully Tempranillo: A tempranillo from South Australia. Huh? Indeed. But at £7-8 per bottle it’s a winner. Thick with strawberry and unusually effervescent, the Wrattonbully shouldn’t work, but it does. Highly recommended for a try at least once: 8.7 points.

M&S also has a decent table wine from a lesser known Sicilian grape. The supermarket’s own brand of 2007 Nerello Mascalese is a blackberry and cherry bomb. It is erupting with vine fruit flavours. Very light and approachable and ready to drink now. This wine is best chilled slightly, or poured over ice in a plastic cup and consumed with the aid of a straw. You know, a BBQ kind of wine. Walk into a store and it costs around £6. But go online and order a case with M&S and you can get the best current wine offer on the web, equalling £3.37 per bottle. That price should make savvy table wine shoppers, such as Eating Leeds, happy. Stock up now for BBQ season:8.5 points.

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