Thought for Tuesday

How true is this cartoon, especially in todays over hyped, virtue signaling culture!

 

Caption Competition

Couldn't resist this one, only in America of course, I'd caption the poor dog who's clearly thinking to himself, "No bloody injection for me when I get poorly"..

 

Daily Fail

Saw this on the interwebs the other day, summed up my view of this publication perfectly.

 

Sherry Lager

Tried a new beer last night while making dinner from my local craft brewery Siren over in Finchampstead. Called "Starry Messenger" it's a "barrel aged lager", this somewhat unusual combination of those words intrigued me sufficiently to purchase a can. The barrels used were old white wine casks and the main flavour imparted was that of sherry rather than wine, although old wine does take on a sherry like character after a while. I couldn't really detect much lager character, no biscuit or toasty notes at all, just a dominance of sherry. The beer was OK I guess, an interesting flavour experience, but not a huge success in my estimation, still, I admire the spirit of experimentation, keeps us all on our toes!

 

Weekend Wine

Last weekend I cooked some belly pork for my wife and I on the Saturday evening and we decided to push the boat out a bit and open a good bottle of wine. Many wines go well with pork but one classic pairing are the white wines from the Alsace region of Eastern France. Being right on the border with Germany this part of France has changed hands many times over the centuries and produces mainly wines made from Riesling and Pinot Gris grapes (among a few others) and these wines are characterized by being light, fruity and distinctive, being somewhat a blend of Burgundian and German in style. 

The particular wine we opened was a top flight Riesling from one of the regions best producers Zind-Humbrecht and from one of the most sought after "fields" or "clos" in the Hunawihr area which is nestled in between the towns of Riquewihr (which I visited some years ago with my Dad) and Ribeauville. I love the way the towns in this region have hybrid French / German names, it evokes the turbulent history of the place. The wine had some age on it (as you can see in the photo), I purchased it many years ago (2003) for about £20, but it was holding up admirably! A light-amber colour and a delightful aroma of lychees, toast and white flowers it was dense, oily and rich and accompanied the dish perfectly, we both loved it.

I find it fascinating the way old wines like this are able to transport you back to the time and place where you first tried them or where they featured in memorable meals or parties etc. This one reminds me very much of my Father who loved this style of wine and I remember vividly the weekend we spent in Riquewihr and that region travelling around trying wines of this exact kind with great food and buying a few bottles (like this one) to take home, good memories.

 

Thirsty Work

Had a rare day off work yesterday (Friday) and after doing a bunch of house-jobs I walked into town (which was buzzing) in the glorious sunshine. I decided to go the long way around so as to combine my daily walk with the chores I had to do in town so I ended up doing about 7 km, it was really enjoyable to be walking around in a tee shirt rather than layers and waterproofs! Anyway, after the long walk in the Sun I had worked up a bit of a thirst so on the way home I decided to pop into our local craft beer bar and grab an ice cold pint of a pale ale made by local brewers Siren, it was delicious, and felt very odd (like being on holiday) to be drinking  beer mid-afternoon on a week-day, and made even more satisfying by the perception that I'd earned it! Unfortunately I only had time for one before I had to scuttle back home to cook dinner for everyone, but it's amazing what a bit of sunshine does for everyone, let's hope it continues next week when we're all off!

 

Friday Smirk

J and M pointing out how many religious people simply can't fathom the fact that it's possible and indeed more than reasonable for people to simply not believe what they believe. It seems even more incredible that in every other sphere of their lives this idea is both accepted and everyday, the power of childhood indoctrination on primates is really something to behold!

 

One of those days

Went for my usual lunchtime stroll today and although I could see sunshine all around me a dirty great rain laden grey monster followed me around for an hour, it was so persistent that I took a photo of it (see above) evil looking blighter isn't he!

 

Thorsday

Thor approves this message..

 

Midweek Mirth

I must say I like the look of number 20 on this burger joint menu..

 

Commenting on inaction

There's not much we can say about events in Texas yesterday that hasn't already been said! Clearly (to most of the world at least) what's needed is action, but as usual that doesn't seem to be any closer than after the many previous instances of such blatant infanticide. All we can do is observe and comment and for those virtue signaling celebrities and politicians out there, I'm making the rational assumption that sending thoughts and prayers are the equivalent of doing the absolute minimum, i.e. nothing..

Here are a few comments I thought particularly note worthy regarding this latest atrocity.

• In news today we see that American seem to love the lack of sensible gun laws more than their school children.

• March 2020 (a month of pandemic lockdown) was the first March since 2002 without a school shooting in the USA.

• Everyone would agree that it takes a monster to walk into a school and shoot young children, but to watch monsters kill children again and again while doing nothing to prevent it is either pure evil or plain insanity.

• In 2001 a guy tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his shoe. Security changed the very next day for every flight around the world. There have been 27 school shootings in the U.S. so far in 2022 and nothing has been done.

 

If, for our time..

Seems appropriate right now..

 

Evolution, explained

For those (religious) brothers and sisters who are struggling with the concept of evolution think of it this way. The picture above is better explained by the facts (i.e. what we know and can show to be true) if we don't think of it as a picture of a Human finger next to an Ape finger, but rather, a picture of two fingers of two different but very closely related species of Ape.

Monday Mirth

 Nine inch snails anyone?

Labels

Excited to try out  the new Elizabeth line through the centre of London now that it's open. I've already sampled it out to the West and very quiet and efficient it is too; the only slightly weird thing for me is why it's got the word "line" in the label, none of the other "lines" have this?

 

Sunday Smile

Funny, although what with all the strife in the world ATM I fear a bit of a fiscal crunch coming.

 

Parting shots

I attended a leaving party last night for a colleague who, after 10 years at my company, has decided to leave for a complete change of career. I think this is something we're going to see a lot more of in future years, people are going to switch tracks, job wise, much more often than they historically have. I think the days of most of us having one role or one specialty throughout our entire career are almost over. Anyway, it was a nice evening, kicked off in the Brewdog bar in Reading and then onto a pub/restaurant by the station and finally a taxi home.

 

The final frontier

Scientists at JPL have a bit of a mystery on their hands at the moment, Voyager 1 (pictured above), a spacecraft launched in 1977 and currently 14.5 billion miles from Earth has started sending back telemetry data that is simply impossible. No one knows why this is the case and in all other respects the craft is operating normally. It's amazing to think that this little tin can of a spaceship is so far away now that it takes roughly two days for messages (travelling at the speed of light) to make the round trip from home. Let's hope that this current glitch (there have been several past glitches) won't incapacitate this stoic craft and the uber brains at JPL/NASA can figure it out and fix it remotely.

Voyager is now travelling through interstellar space meaning it's left the region of influence of our Sun and is truly in Star Trek territory! The distances involved are staggering, our Sun exerts it's influence out to a zone called the Heliosheath which is around 3.25 billion miles thick, that's pretty thick, still not as thick as Nadine Dorries of course but certainly not a distance you'd want to sit on a flight for, it makes you wonder if we'll ever find little green men, statistically there should be tons of them out there but the distances are so great that we'll probably destroy our planet (or Putin will) long before their EM transmissions ever reach us.

 

Friday Smirk

Excellent point by J&M, why doesn't God (the Abrahamic flavours) deal with Satan once and for all? Apologists the world over have come up with many complex, contorted and circular reasons for that. A much simpler explanation is that neither really exist, and if they don't then we observe our universe exactly how we'd expect it to be, i.e. shit happens, fairly randomly!

Jokes for a sunny Thursday

 

• I got shot with an upholstery gun the other day! Don't worry, I'm fully recovered now
• War is God's way of teaching Americans Geography...
• Today I made a Burger from scratch, my daughter won't eat any, she loved that cat
• FOR SALE. One Iron Curtain, mint condition, not used since 1989

Midweek Mirth

Possibly the best museum notice in the history of museum notices..?

 

Invisible Bias

XKCD pointing out the meaning of good old selection bias! Like confirmation bias, it's almost invisible to most people until it works against them, then, of course it's completely outrageous!

 

Loving memories..

I'm liking the cut of Huw's jib..

 

Heavy Lion

It was a lovely day yesterday so we decided to hop on the train into town (Reading) and have a wander around soaking up the sun and the sights (such as they are) There was some kind of fayre going on in Forbury gardens (above) so we popped in to have a look. The Maiwand Lion was looking particularly fierce against the azure sky. I've passed by this spot many times but never stopped to read the plaque on the base of the statue, apparently it commemorates the death of 329 men of the 66th Berkshire regiment during the second Afghan war in the 1880's and Dr Watson (of Sherlock Holmes fame) was based on the regiment's medical officer who was injured in the battle of Maiwand. Cast in Iron the lion weighs an amazing 16 tons, it's officially called the Maiwand Lion but locals just call it the Forbury Lion, it's ironic to think that 120 years later there were British troops again stationed around Kandahar and even now that we're out (again) the place is still a hotbed of violence and superpower wrangling.

 

Cloud Streets

Spotted what looked like some cloud streets today on my lunchtime walk. These are rows of cumulus clouds that are oriented parallel to the wind direction and originate from thermal sources dotted across the countryside or ocean at regular distances, i.e. where the sun heats up a particular spot (perhaps because it's darker than the surrounds, i.e. a freshly ploughed field) until a bubble of warmer air rises up and condenses into clouds at altitude and is carried by the prevailing wind into long "streets", as per what you can see in the photo!

 

Friday Smirk

It'd be funny if it wasn't so desperately and tragically true..

 

Road Works

I guess it's a universal bugbear for many people, and possibly one of those "first world problems", but I can't help thinking that in the SE of England we're going through some kind of road-work frenzy at the moment? 

In my own neighborhood the main road into town has been dug up at some location or other constantly for around 2 years now, I know because since the pandemic started I walk it at least once or twice every week, and make a mental note of any road works (sad git that I am) Quite often it's different utility companies digging up the same spot in the same road, separated by a few weeks, you'd think that the council would have a simple Gantt chart on the wall showing what projects were scheduled for what dates and allow workmen access to holes previously dug by other utilities the week before, anyway, I guess that kind of utopia is for dreamers! 

In the meantime it's estimated that we lose roughly 7 million days of time due to people digging up our roads, if accurate, that's quite the number, it equates to roughly 255 average lifetimes of time lost being stuck in traffic! Obscene wealth is coming to the person who figures out how to disrupt that little lot!

 

How much can you bench?

It's incredible what you find sometimes while you're out walking! Luckily it wasn't raining for my daily walk yesterday (it was miserable and windy today) and since I was dropping someone off I decided to try a new ad-hoc (Google Earth guided) route and while wandering around in a park I came across this! Apparently it's the longest picnic bench in England, well well! Amazing what's on your doorstep and you don't even know it! (and pity the poor souls who'll have to hear all about it from me at some future dinner party..)

Midweek Mirth

Ukrainians honor Boris Johnson by naming a street after him..

 

Tuesday Titter

Not sure why but these statue meme's always make me chuckle a lot..

 

Guildford Treats

We had an energetic day yesterday as it was decided by management that we catch a train over to Guildford to do a bit of shopping. My Wife is after a new chair for our lounge and I offered my design consulting expertise (haha) to help her pick one! My only criteria was that I could safely fall asleep in any proposed chair without falling out of it! (these fancy designer jobs with tiny arms are a nightmare!) Anyway we had a good old mooch around in Guildford's ample furniture shops, a bit of lunch, more mooching and then had forty minutes to kill waiting for the return train. As a special treat, since I'd been a good boy and discussed fabrics all afternoon without moaning, I was bought a delicious craft beer in Guildford's only craft beer establishment (pictured above) called "Growlers & Cans" it's a little hole in the wall place that sells around 8 taps of various crafty goodness, I've been a couple of times before and they usually have something interesting on. I opted for a pint of Sonoma from Track Brewing (Manchester) a crusher at only 3.8% delicious, set me up perfectly for the train ride home and the rather sweaty walk back from the station followed by a nice relaxing evening in front of the telly, a productive and enjoyable day!

 

Friday Smirk

Great result in the local elections for the Conservatives, err, hold on..

 

Abortion Debate

 

It's obvious to anyone with half a brain, the only abortions that'll be stopped in the USA by a ban will be the safe ones!

Back to the future

Welcome to 2022..

 

Fighter Escort

Plane over West London being escorted by two fighter jets, wonder what's going on?

**Update**  Ahh, panic over, it was a refueling plane..

 

Future

 

The future is bright. Unfortunately, when you scan the news lately it becomes abundantly clear that's not where we're headed!

Skool night beers

Since it's a bank holiday (and we've walked miles today!) we decided to have a beer or two this evening! So, to kick off here's a new brew from our local brewery (Siren) called "New Favourite Day" it's what's called a "DIPA" or in normal speak a double IPA i.e. a stronger pale ale with additional adjuncts and hops that accentuate flavour (ideally) This one from Siren is delicious, hazy, smooth and full of classic American hop flavours, i.e. grapefruit, citrus etc. those flavours hide a scary 8.5% ABV far too well, it's thick and juicy with a soft mouthfeel. Luckily I have one more can left so I think I'll save it for a week or two, see what a bit of age does to the blend..

 

NZ weekend beer

Tried a new beer this weekend, from one of my favorite breweries, Verdant in Cornwall. It's a hazy, soft IPA called "E Soul Cultura" made in their classic mid-range IPA style but featuring a trio of wonderful NZ ingredients. The beer was loaded with Riwaka, Nelson Sauvin and Motueka hops (all native to NZ) that imparted a delicious zippy vinous vibe to the beer, alongside limes, melon and assorted citrus fruits with a slight bitterness on the finish, totally addictive combined with the usual Verdant softness and house yeast backdrop, very good indeed! (the can art was pretty impressive too!)

 

Wet Morris men

Slightly overcast for the May fayre in our town today, still, didn't seem to dull spirits in anyway! A great turnout and a welcome buzz around the place for a change. Lot's of pints of beer, donuts and hog roast being consumed which is nice to see and people seem to have more or less dressed for a typical English Spring day, i.e. some in shorts and tee-shirts and others in full puffer jackets and wooly hats! Let's hope the rain holds off and the Morris men don't get wet, nothing worse than the smell of a wet Morris man (or Woman!)..