London Stories

Take a look at the stone carvings on top of the pillars decorating Blackfriars bridge. They are of birds except that the birds aren't all the same, on the West side of the bridge the birds are fresh water species and on the East side they are salt water species. An interesting detail and done because the bridge supposedly marks the place where the river (freshwater) meets and mingles with the sea (saltwater), well who knew!

I could 'a been someone

Sad to read today that ex-Pogues lead singer Shane MacGowan has died. By any measure he (and Kirsty MacColl) have to have come up with the best Christmas song ever (apparently authored as a bet!) It's certainly the only one that, when it comes on the radio, I turn up and not down. An Irish poet in the great tradition of Irish poets, but born in Kent.. ah well ,you can't have everything, although I reckon Shane probably tried! At least we all know what the Christmas #1 will be now...

Thought for Thursday

Can't beat a bit of Larson on a chilly Thursday morning! 

Ever since our species dragged itself off the savanna and into caves where we had time to think about things other than imminent dismemberment by wild animals we've pondered this question, so, was this really how we got here? 

Any thinking person (who's read more than one book) realises that, although seductive in it's childlike simplicity, this scenario would be even more improbable than the way it actually happened. However, if it did then I think we can all agree, the lid must have been a bit loose..

Progress

Just 65 short years apart and yet the bottom computer is thousands of times more powerful and useful than the top computer, shame the same can't be said of our politicians.

Tuesday Titter

Yeah, feels like that sometimes.

Winter Fair

It was our Town's "Winter Fair/Carnival" yesterday so we braved the cold, wandered into town and had a mooch around. It was the usual assortment of charity stalls, kids rides and local food/drink producers and vendors, a decent mix of things and larger than previous years, which was nice to see. I was also pleased to see most of the town's restaurants and pubs pretty full as well, people obviously out making a day of it! The place really came to life after it got dark, a real festival atmosphere, we both had a mulled wine to get in the mood before heading home for some hot food and central heating!

Health Records

 

As regular readers will know I'm quite keen on monitoring various aspects of my health and fitness, I've blogged about it several times before. Last year I was lucky enough to get my 1st generation Apple Watch replaced by a shiny new one for my birthday and I use it to monitor things like exercise levels, calorific output and other biometric measures. At the start of this month (3rd Nov) I passed a significant milestone, that of an unbroken sequence of hitting all my fitness targets every day for five years, that's 1850 days on the trot of completing the dreaded "rings". I'm quite pleased about that and don't seem to be getting bored of doing it, onwards and upwards to 2000 days!

London Stories

Little known fact - we all know where Bond Street tube station is. That well known junction of the Jubilee and Central lines (and now the Lizzy line too) but who knows where the actual "Bond Street" runs? Bit of a trick question as there isn't one, at least not in central London, there's a "New Bond Street" a block or two down from the station but not it's namesake, one of those little London things, the exception that makes the rule!

Pilsner w/Twist

New beer this evening while waiting for our fish supper. It's a Pilsner from local brewers Siren in collaboration with Rooster's Brewing Co. in Harrogate. Pretty standard Pilsner (i.e. clean, crisp and dry) and around 5% ABV, but with an interesting twist, they dry hopped it with Saphir and Mandarina Bavaria hops. This late hop addition gives the beer a slightly resinous and sappy finish, a West Coast Pilsner you could say, I say I like it! 

Friday Smirk

It definitely feels like a Friday... :)

Floyd facts

Can't argue with this..

Sky spheres

 

Fabulous sky over the South East of England this morning, a sign from God or the consequence of living on a spherical planet with an atmosphere, I'll let you decide.

London Stories

One night in the 1850s, big thinker, sociologist, philosopher and piss head, Karl Marx, who lived in Soho at the time, embarked upon a famous pub crawl. A crawl that saw him tackle every "saloon" between Oxford Street and the Hampstead Road, ultimately getting into a scrap with locals and smashing up a bunch of gas lights (what a yob!). 

Essentially the geography of the crawl necessitated a visit to every pub on Tottenham Court Road, back in the day there were 18 watering holes along this route, today there are only 6. We may not possess the stamina of those Victorian heavy weight boozers but let's not forget, it's the thought that counts (see what I did there). The pubs in question (today) are as follows,

1. Jack Horner - Fullers pub, known for it's pies (obvs)

2. The Rising Sun - An ornate, red ceilinged Victorian edifice, seen better days

3. Bar TCR - Lively, more of a lager and cocktail joint.

4. The Fitzrovia Bell - Bit of a tourist trap, Green King, so the beer is naff

5. The Court - UCL student hang out, so cheap food, decent selection of beers

6. The Northumberland Arms - Marx would have been steaming by this point, nuff said.

Amazing what some of the big historical names of the past have gotten up to on these hallowed streets! I can't say I agree with his politics but hat's off to the man for his stamina and choice of pub crawls!

Petrol Heads

I see that the BBC is suspending the Top Gear programme ("for the foreseeable future"), a massively popular series that's (amazingly) been running since 1977. Most people will know the show from it's controversial presenter Jeremy Clarkson but he only started on the show in 2002 and there have been many presenters over the years including the likes of Noel Edmonds, Sue Baker, Julia Bradbury, Stirling Moss and Angela Ripon among many others, the list is quite a who's who of TV faces of the last few decades.

Like many blokes, I used to watch the series back in the late 90s and early 00s but found that by the time Clarkson and crew had evolved the show into blowing up caravans and insulting Argentinians I'd out-grown it, the humour had become obvious and it felt more like a spitting image cliché of itself rather than anything to do with actual cars that normal people (like me) might be able to afford. I never bothered getting into the later series, Chris Evans didn't seem to do much for the brand, and the latest trio with Freddie Flintoff also seemed a bit fake to me. 

Anyway, the show was certainly popular and sold a ton of DVD's for the BBC, although the pay-outs to stars who crashed (Flintoff got £9M apparently) must have put a slight dampener on the financial side of things. I'm sure the latest accident has led this ever "health and safety" conscious institution to this point, well that and the whole idea of a bunch of slightly racist, slightly sexist (middle-aged) "lads" larking around in gas-guzzling death traps being totally incompatible with an ultra-woke youth audience of GenZ'ers. Maybe someone will re-invent the programme and take it back to being a simple review show, I'd love to see stuff around alternative fuel cars, like electric and hydrogen, more consumer information and less "show-biz" perhaps, but I guess that doesn't sell DVD's or Netflix downloads at Christmas!

Monday Mirth

Certainly looking that way for the Tories..

Yes Minster

I hopped on a train into Reading on Friday and, for a change, it wasn't hissing down with rain! Lovely blue sky and quite mild so I walked from the station to my destination, on the way I snapped this picture of the front of the Minster which has a rather pleasing geometrical design, it looks like a big chess board.

Pond Life

Isn't Nature a wonderful thing. This little pond, that I pass on my daily walk, didn't used to exist at all, it was created by the house building company that constructed this new estate of houses and flats near to where I live as an ornamental feature outside of their sales office. A year ago the builders decided that since the estate had been mostly sold and the sales office was gone, that they'd rip up the pond and return it to grass, the plastic liner was ripped up and the diggers moved in. Amazingly though, a couple of weeks after the whole thing was mud, the pond was back, I documented the transformation here. Now the pond looks more than ever like it's been here for ever, rushes, pond-life and constant visitations from aquatic birds it's a pleasure to stroll by, always something new to see. Long live the pond! 

We have lift off!

I tried a new Siren beer tonight while knocking up a hearty boeuf Bourgignon for supper, called "One Giant Leap" it's a delicious West Coast IPA featuring Apollo hops (hence the can-art and name etc.). 

Apollo is usually used as a bittering hop in the boil (i.e. hot-side) rather than a flavouring dry hop during the whirlpool and/or fermentation but when married up with some Citra (as in this beer) on the cold-side the result is quite delicious. Grapefruit notes, citrus and resinous with a nice smooth bitterness I could drink this all day long (although at 6.5% probably not all day!) it's a really nice beer well done Siren!

Collabageddon

My Wife was visiting a friend in Winchester yesterday so I took the opportunity to spend a pleasant hour and a half in the Nags Head pub on Russell Street in Reading while I waited to meet her from her train. The reason I made the trip was to partake in the annual "Collabageddon" shindig, run this year by Andy Parker of Elusive Brewing who are based just down the road from me in Finchampstead, Berkshire. The idea of the festival is for around a dozen breweries up and down the country to collaborate by pairing up and producing a number of new and interesting beers that are then launched at a bunch of venues from Edinburgh down to Plymouth and from Barry across to Norwich, yesterday was the day and the Nags Head was the Reading venue for it! 

I kicked off with a lager from Devon based Utopian who had collaborated with Sheffield base Abbeydale to produce a Pilsner that had been hopped using NZ Nelson Sauvin hops, it was delicious, a glorious mash up of cream crackers, brioche and white grape flavours. Next I tried the Llanberis Trail, a light 3.8% West Coast pale ale, again good, dark and crystal clear, malty with a satisfying bitterness, next up was a dark beer from Baker's Dozen in Rutland and Merakai of Sussex called "This Time Next Year" (a reference to Only Fools and Horses) and was a Millionaire's Shortbread Stout (obvs!) it was also good, definite caramel, creamy and smooth, just needed a little more body for me. The last one (I had to dash to the station at this point) was from Polly's in Wales teaming up with Tartarus of Leeds with a Passionfruit and Coconut IPA called "Pwyll" (apparently a character from Welsh mythology) , I wasn't sure about this one, quite confected with a rather odd flavour, definitely fruity but the coconut didn't quite jell with the rest of it, my least favourite of the session but still a decent fruited IPA. Overall a pleasant little outing of beer sampling and all that's left to do now is work out how I can get to try the rest!

Citra city!

I tried these two beers last weekend and both heavily featured one of my favourite hops, Citra. Both by Verdant down in Falmouth one was a lager called "Helles Outlier" and the other a real haze bomb of an East Coast IPA called "Even Sharks Need Water". 

The Helles isn't like normal lagers, it's been heavily hopped both hot and cold side with various incarnations of Citra, an American hop usually seen in modern IPA styles. Some of the hops in this are so new that they only have scientific codes for names, for example YCH702 and HBC638 but never mind that, the beer is delicious! So resinous and dank (think cannabis) not your regular Carlsberg type lager, much, much better in my view, this wouldn't win any prizes in a German Oktoberfest, in fact they'd probably throw it out for breaking the Reinheitsgebot but for a great expression of Citra hops it's a winner.

Even Sharks is a classic Verdant hazy IPA, made with their own in-house yeast variety, thick, creamy and so fruity! It features Citra hops but they're backed up by Galaxy, an Australian hop that delivers citrus and orange flavours, a delight to drink perfectly balanced and with just the right amount of bitterness to counter the fruit, great effort.

Friday Smirk

Seems like a perfect role model for Hamas to me?

Best til last

Ok, so I saved the best til last. Here's the final Siren CCC beer in the series and it's a banger. Called "Death by CCC" it's a Vanilla infused beer that has had it's outlandish chocolate and coffee flavours subdued by the use of Cypress and Amburana wood, the effect is similar to barrel aging in wine that tends to smooth out the rough edges and it works very well. At 10% ABV this rich, thick and flavourful beer is as smooth as you like, creamy and so viscous! An excellent beer and my pick of the series without doubt, great work!

Midweek Mirth

Being a miserable old goat myself, I can get onboard with this..

Persistence is needed..

So, here's the third (out of four) of the Siren CCC series of beer and perhaps the most unusual. It's clearly a dark beer but has been flavoured with Cacao nibs, Sea Salt and Cherries as well as Cypress wood. Another strong beer at 7.4% which gives it plenty of body, but there's a heck of a lot going on here. Quite confusing on the palette the salt accentuates all the flavours, like a TV with the contrast turned up full, I wasn't honestly sure I was that keen at first. However, like many things in life, after a few sips and some acclimatisation the drink grew on me. I would still prefer the previous offering (Nitro CCC) over this one but it's definitely an experience, the cherries seem to emerge stronger after a while and the smoky malts and dark chocolate also take a while to shine through, not my favourite so far but a decent effort if you persist with it.

Ambition

Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition :)

Tuesday Titter

I happened to catch the tail end of a "bake-off" episode on TV the other day, TBH I couldn't bring myself to suspend rationality for long enough to give the slightest toss about a bunch of people making chocolate caramel fingers and how they variously turned out! Millions do though, and I'm perfectly aware that my lacklustre feelings about the show probably constitute some kind of blasphemy to many. All I can say in recognition of this fact is that on the subject of soggy bottoms, I'm clearly in the minority! (and quite content to be here)

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

 

Well, I guess we made it through Armistice weekend without anyone getting killed, a bizarre and somewhat surreal notion. We certainly saw the full bell-curve of human depravity on open display, from the ignorant, Jew hating, brain washed Islamist zombies on one side to the knuckle dragging, beer bellied Green Street fantasists on the other. Was anyone's opinion changed? I seriously doubt it. Although, if the events of the day precipitate the removal of our current cartoon figure of a Home Secretary then at least we can say it was somehow worth it. 

Of course the way the media pitch these things to us is also part of the problem, the balkanised view that the various narrow interest bubbles present does nothing to promote a sense of communicating truth (which, I believe, is what good journalism should be about) For example the way in which some (including some mainstream channels) presented the pro-Palestinian protestors as "peaceful" and the, predominantly racially White, counter-protestors as "right wing thugs" was dubious in the highest degree, my read was that there were undoubtedly Neanderthals on BOTH sides, but the old political debating trick of comparing the best of one side with the worst of the other doesn't wash with me, and I would hope the majority of reasonable people can see through this obvious fallacy.

There were plenty of examples of idiotic brown people intimidating innocent white people on tube trains and in railway stations as there are equally numerous examples of idiotic white people intimidating innocent brown people on street corners and in London squares. However, I would also say that equating a chant of "you're not English anymore" with a chant of "kill the Jews", is a false equivalence, one is quite clearly more problematic than the other, both infantile and ignorant, but ultimately only one with hateful/murderous intent, and that's a concern for everyone here who wishes to live in a safe, stable and respectful community, particularly those of a Jewish persuasion.

Should the march have been banned? Was it disrespectful to hold it on Armistice day? these are reasonable questions but I think on balance it was right to allow it to happen at a different time, and also the correct strategy to segregate the EDL hooligans, as is done at football matches up and down the country on Saturday afternoons. I thought it was telling that the self-appointed leader of that group (Tommy Robinson) fled the scene in a taxi as soon as the riot police turned up! Luckily, the nationalist crew seem as badly organised as the Islamist crew, the police didn't have too much trouble in keeping them apart and impeding their progress throughout the day, CCTV must make that job so much easier these days.

So what are we to conclude from all of this? The complexion of this country, particularly London has certainly changed in the last couple of decades, the various troubles of the world will undoubtedly surface here now, the population of the city is so diverse. You could reasonably argue that this has always been the case and that from the Romans onwards this special place has invariably reflected the zeitgeist of the ruling classes and the status-quo thrust, aggressively, against against the disruptive and aspirational desires of the underclasses and the struggles of the latest wave of immigrants. I guess this protest should be viewed as just the latest of many that the city has seen and successfully weathered, of one thing we can all be certain, it won't be the last.

Nitro CCC

Second beer of the series, the Nitro CCC, notice the smoother Nitrogen bubbled head more like chocolate mousse than an aero bar. This one is a much more serious effort, a ton of cacao nibs went into this and you can tell, chocolate for days, smooth, creamy and at 7.4% ABV a rich and full body. A really accomplished beer this one, perfect for a winters day in a country pub, sitting in a comfy leather chair by the fire, a contemplative drink, I bet it would go great with a top notch cigar too!

Cupcake

So, first up we have Caribbean Chocolate Cupcake, tan coloured head with big bubbles (not a Nitro can this one), loads of chocolate on the nose with a touch of leather too. Good mouthfeel for the ABV (this one is only 5.4%), smooth, some coffee back notes and very noticeable wood character on the finish. I see that the can says there's vanilla in there too but I didn't pick it up, anyway a very good start!

Sunny Saturday Smile

Can't beat a bit of ModernToss toilet humour for a sunny Saturday morning..

They're here..

Snagged these beauties this evening, the full set of the new CCC beers by Siren, as described here. Such pretty cans, lets' hope the beer lives up to the hype, we shall see, reviews of each beer forthcoming.

Philosophy Corner

 A fine aspiration, we can all live in hope.

Friday Smirk

Usual quality from J and M, it's turtles all the way down!

Questions, questions..

Many Muslims are getting increasingly hot under the collar about what's going on in Gaza, this would be understandable if their primary concern was the civilian population in Gaza and how they might reach a peace deal with Israel, i.e. by stopping Hamas inflicting terror attacks on Israel. However, many of these people seem to place other situational factors above this basic concern. You hear many Muslim commentators refuse to condemn Hamas or the attacks and claim that their "anger" is for "the murder of their fellow Muslims" while asserting that Israel is either committing genocide and/or are "invaders / colonisers / occupiers" (take your pick) and/or even that Israel (and by implication Israelis) should be erased completely, "from the river to the sea" as the popular slogan goes. 

I have some serious questions about these claims.

Firstly, while the deaths of any civilians in war is clearly awful, I'd like to understand why I don't see demonstrations or protests about the 350,000+ Muslim civilians killed by Bashar al-Assad and his thugs. I'd also like to understand why I don't see protests and Muslim uproar about the 220,000+ Yemeni Muslims killed by the Islamist Houthis (another extremist group, like Hamas) And yet hundreds of thousands of people march in cities around the world for the Palestinians, what's the difference? There is of course one clear and distinct difference, the Palestinians are fighting Jews and the poor buggers getting bombed back to the stone-age in Aleppo are not, this fact perhaps opens the kimono a fraction and reveals something else going on?

Then there is the claim of genocide, this seems like a logical fallacy to me, clearly Israel has the firepower to obliterate Gaza, and all it's inhabitants but has not, and, critically, wouldn't be doing what they're doing now if Hamas hadn't killed 1500 people in Israel 4 weeks ago. If the boot were on the other foot and Hamas had jet fighters, ships, missiles and hundreds of thousands of heavily armed and trained troops then I think it would be a safe bet that there would be no more Israel. It's the latter that has the "genocidal" intent, simply by definition.

What about "occupation / apartheid / colonisation" etc. Well this is perhaps the more complex of the claims and the one where I think the opposition to Israel has most traction. There is no doubt that Israel has committed wrongs (and continues to do so) against Arabs since 1948, there is too much evidence of prejudice, forced removals, destruction of property and illegal settlement etc. to claim that the Israeli hands are clean. However, the position (as seen in many youngsters in the West) that all Palestinians were forcefully herded out of a country that they once owned is hopelessly simplistic, for example the territory of Israel remains 20% Arab by population even today. A proper reading of history shows that the situation is far more nuanced and complicated than that, there are faults and atrocities on both sides and, of course this is easier to say than do, Israel exists now, just like America and Ukraine exist now, so people should look forward not back although, it's difficult to see how this is going to get resolved without significant and prolonged bloodshed on both sides, including many civilians. 

I watched a debate at the Cambridge Union the other day between a prominent supporter of Israel and many pro-Palestinian students. It was mostly civil but one Muslim student got slightly animated over her claim that the Israelis were "immoral" actors because their response to the terror attacks is not "proportionate", i.e. far more Palestinian people are being killed than Israelis. The speaker made a good point in response, he said that according to this logic it would mean that the Allies in WWII were acting "immorally" in destroying the Nazi regime because far more Germans were killed than Brits, she paused for a second and said "but the Allies weren't bombing civilians", quick as a flash he retorted with, "well you should ask the civilian Women and Children of Dresden, ah no, you can't, they're all dead". On that point the conversation finished but it made me think about the issues at play here and the historical context of it all, when you're faced with an existential threat, as the UK was in 1939/40 and Israel has been many times in the last half century then you see things differently.

And the prize goes to...

Surely a contender for the crappiest day of the year so far today, at least in the South East of the country. I managed to fight my way around an 8km route this lunchtime, soaking wet now and, thanks to the  wind gusts and umbrella work, feeling like I've gone 3 rounds with Mike Tyson, roll on Summer :(

Tuesday Titter

One of my all time favourite Larson's

Excitement mounting..

Excitement is mounting among the craft beer bubble inhabitants, as the annual release of the "CCC" beers from Siren approaches. The three C's stand for Caribbean Chocolate Cake, a series of beers that started in 2013 with a collaboration between Siren and Cigar City Brewing (Florida) that delivered a monumental beer that broke all the rules and featured experimentation with chocolate, wood, barrel aging, dark beer and adjuncts like cacao nibs and coffee. This year (2023) we have three more additions to the series (pictured above) they launch on November 10th with a party at their Tap-Yard (I'll be there!) I, for one, can't wait to taste these new additions to the series! It will be hard to top the beers from last year as they were outstanding, but you never know!

Contradictions

Had one of these last night, it's called a "Braggot" which is a mixture of beer and mead which you would think would be quite sweet with all that honey but the clever people at Siren deliberately soured the drink with an inoculation of lactobacillus which lowers the PH, it's wild! Sweet, sour, fruity, zesty, smooth and yet spikey (like sucking a lemon) at the same time, a real contradiction of a drink, wonderful stuff. It's 8% ABV too which gives it great body and mouthfeel but with everything else going on in this drink, if you had it blind you'd never know it.

Genocide?

The Palestinian situation is undoubtedly complex and made orders of magnitude more complex because of Islam, or more specifically the un-compromising political ideology of Islamism. When I was in my 20s and a student, full of idealistic thoughts, I shared a flat in London for a while with a Palestinian chap and I supported the Palestinian position unequivocally (as do many students today) but now, with older and wiser eyes, I see the see the rocket attacks and watch the uncensored videos of the Hamas terrorists and how they went about their business and I conclude that I don't want such people to exist on the same planet as me, and yet, these are the people that represent Gaza, they are the Government there! It's a horrible dilemma, and every thinking person knows that no one is going to "win" this, the best we can hope for is the rapid removal of Hamas and an end to the escalating bloodshed.

I came across an interesting thought-provoking track on the interwebs today (below)  Semantics are important, but many Western media outlets seem to have forgotten this for the sake of a few more clicks..

"Israel is committing genocide"
-every critic

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”
-Inigo Montoya

Genocide: “the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group” or “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”

Israel could annihilate all of Gaza & the Palestinians if it wanted.

It doesn't because it is not a genocidal nation, Hamas on the other hand wish to commit genocide on Israel and have enshrined that desire into their constitution, it's a strange old world we live in.

Massacre?

I'd never seen pictures of the Tiananmen Square "massacre" before (apart from the one with the student and the tank etc.), it had always been an artefact of Western media reporting for me. However, this (original) photo recently turned up on one of my news feeds and shows a different viewpoint; this is what you'd expect to see if troops opened fire on unarmed civilians riding bicycles. I guess as long as they manufacture our iPhones more cheaply than anyone else then everything is fine?

Missing friends...

Whatever their faults, we can really miss friends..

Storms

What with storm Ciarán just about over with now I thought this cartoon was amusing (and fitting)..

Friday Smirk

J&M pointing out the blatant, some people will go to any length to be offended, particularly when it comes to their pet beliefs.

How low can we go?

 

So, came down to the kitchen today with a stinking headache and walked over to the coffee machine to grab my morning capo and noticed a big pool of something around the base of the machine. When I went to wipe it up I discovered that it wasn't water overspill from filling the machine (as I suspected) but was sticky! 

Anyway in a moment of unusual clarity for that time in the morning, I suddenly twigged what was going on; low pressure! Because of storm Ciaran there is a region of very low pressure hovering over the Southern half of the UK at the moment (970-980mb), low pressure means that a differential between the pressure in my Monin caramel syrup bottle (pictured above) and the ambient pressure in the room had been created overnight, pressure in the bottle was higher than outside, and therefore the contents of the bottle would be trying to exit the bottle, which is exactly what they were doing, also explains my headache!

Is it coz i'z black?

While in London at the weekend we had an hour or so to kill while waiting to meet my Son who was catching the train from Bristol, we chose to spend that hour in one of our favourite bars. While there I decided that I'd have a pint of London Black from Anspach and Hobday a Bermondsey brewer and one of my favourites. Much like Guinness the beer is carbonated with Nitrogen rather than Carbon Dioxide, this makes the bubbles much smaller and the beer taste much smoother, it's been a trick that Guinness has traded on for years, anyway, quite often you see pubs serving this beer and serving it like normal ale or lager, i.e. in one go. It's not a good look, to get the full effect of the nitrogen you really need to pour it in two goes, letting the first pour settle out before topping up. 

It's a shame that a lot of pubs don't realise this (poor training!) as this beer really sings when served properly, giving the (other) black stuff a run for it's money, and in good condition London Black is better in my humble.

Full Swing

Autumn getting into full swing around here, snapped this while out for my daily constitutional walk today

Pinch Punch

So, November already, where did that year go!? 

I always wondered why, in the UK, we say "pinch, punch" on the first of the month, it's a slightly bizarre thing to say (and do!) however after a bit of Googling I see that the origins of this playground staple are not only widely disputed but range from the unrealistically specific to the downright macabre! Many say it dates back to the middle ages when the god faring population used to believe in witches, the pinch refers  to salt to weaken them and punch to deliver a blow that wards them off for the next 30 days. I guess this is plausible, if somewhat optimistic, however the follow up schoolboy retort of "white rabbits" to prevent the recipient of your pinch and punch from retaliating seems even more abstract? I guess it's something to do with lucky rabbit's feet or Easter bunnies, but to be honest sometimes there's simply no accounting for what nonsense our ancestors believed, just smile and nod.