Combibos, Gloucester Green

I've been busy recently so I thought I'd do a quick review of somewhere well known to me and to many other people who regularly pass through Gloucester Green. With its crumpled newspapers, genuinely friendly staff, and the lowest and squashiest sofas in Oxford (from which you have to peer up at the person opposite you), Combibos always has a pleasingly familiar feel.

[Out of Oxford] West Beach, Bournemouth

I do like to be beside the seaside. Perhaps not so much on a damp and windy January day in Bournemouth, but the glass-fronted West Beach restaurant, mere yards from the town's famous beach, was quite a cosy place to stare out at the grey surf beating on the shore, before we strolled along the promenade and found some rather classy beach huts. But would the West Beach similarly unite style and function? As often, the answer is a non-committal 'yes and no'.