Friday Smirk

The lads chewing the fat about the Riyadh comedy festival, seems obvious to me that some places are a few centuries behind others when it comes to the nuances of human wellbeing..

Happy Birthday to ya...

So yesterday was my Wife's birthday and although we don't normally imbibe during the week we decided to crack open a bottle of bubbles and celebrate the occasion properly. I had this bottle knocking around undrunk since last Christmas and since it was a Grand Cru I thought it appropriate. We weren't disappointed a lovely dry, creamy and bready champagne and so smooth with it, excellent stuff!

Midweek Mirth

Retirement is wonderful but I don't understand everyone else's obsession with what we do all day..

Party Time

 

My Wife celebrates a significant birthday this week so at the weekend we threw a huge party for all our family and friends in a private room at a pub in town. The evening was a great success, the drinks and music flowed and everyone had great fun. I snapped this picture of the birthday cake before we told anyone it was ready to consume, lucky I did, it was polished off faster than a reform supporter blames immigrants for a shortage of cake!

Brandbulb

Had one of these last night, it's a famous beer by my go to brewery Verdant, called "Lightbulb" it's an extra pale ale seasoned with Simcoe and Centennial hops, bright, zesty and dank AF a cracking beer and now in a brand new can design!

Cry me a river

Had one of these last night, it's a collaboration between Cornish brewers Verdant and French brewers Prizm (Montpellier) Apparent the name comes from a river that flows near to their brewery in the South of France, coincidentally one of my mates has a holiday home in a village in the Pyrenees called "Lez" where that very same river has it's source. Small world. PS the beer is delicious, classic Verdant murk with a ton of Nelson giving it a pleasing white wine and lime vibe, tres bon indeed! 

Friday Smirk

The boys discussing one of the reasons (most) Islamic dogma is incompatible with modern Western values.

Thought for Thursday

I often try this one when my kids are feeling anxious, as so many young people seem to these days, it doesn't work of course because our minds are not separate from "us", perception is reality unless you can grasp this thought fully (which is very difficult without a ton of life-experience). However, if there was one philosophy that might help people most today I'd certainly put in a vote for Stoicism, Marcus was a smart bloke and way, way ahead of his time.

Midweek Mirth

Well, my first week as head of security at the Louvre was terribly exciting...

Cloud 8 and a half

 

So there was an outage (kinda) of the AWS platform yesterday that effectively nobbled a load of business and social systems (like the Inland Revenue and Snapchat) that host their software on that platform. Apparently it was a DNS problem (isn't it always) and although most of the affected applications were ok and still running on the servers in Virginia however the rest of the internet couldn't find them as the traffic signposts (which is what DNS effectively is) disappeared for a time. It's probably going to take a while for things to get back to normal as DNS entries are cached (for performance) in all kinds of places including on your own laptop and usually aren't refreshed for a day or so.

I'm not a huge fan of such systems, or rather the way the market has evolved and how that market for hosting platforms has been more or less sewn up by three big US tech firms, Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (AZURE) and Google (GCP) Cloud platforms are very clever, hugely scalable but not particularly cheap and have some serious downsides IMO, the main ones being,

1. It takes a huge investment to move your business systems into one of these "clouds"
2. Once you're on a cloud platform it's devilishly difficult and expensive to move to another one
3. If the cloud you're in goes pop then you're more or less screwed
4. All the major cloud platforms belong to US companies and the US is proving to be more and more an unreliable trading partner.

I really wish Europe (or even the UK) had the wherewithal to create our own (large-scale) cloud platform provider, preferably more than one. This may seem idealistic as the Americans seem to have already won this battle but we do have some significant existing players in this field that could be encouraged ($$) to scale up, but it would require huge investment! 

I am increasingly nervous about the instability of the US (politically and socially) and these platforms are what I would call "critical infrastructure" at this point in time, on the current trajectory the scope for these private companies to be bullied into imposing sanctions (on undesirable competitors or regimes) under political pressure is already pretty big in my estimation and will only increase in the next couple of years, the risk that we will loose more than just our favourite social network for a couple of hours is something worth pondering!

Soanes Obelisk

I was fortunate enough to visit Sir John Soanes museum and country seat in Ealing last year, a fascinating place, and while doing some research on him I discovered that he'd had a commission to design an obelisk in Reading town centre (I blogged about it at the time) Soanes was commissioned to create the monument and it was paid for by a wealthy Reading merchant (Edward Simeon) back in 1804 and is called the "Soane Obelisk" We happened to be walking through that very spot the other day and I snapped this photo..

Reminders

If you know what this is it's a reminder to take your meds for back pain and blood pressure.

Friday Smirk

The boys pointing out how our religious brothers and sisters tend to bend the dogmas of their religions to fit the parochial wishes of men (mainly the scientifically illiterate ones)

Midweek Mirth

Just about every "marketing meeting" I've ever been in...

Autumn Colours II

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas :)

Autumn Colours

Gorgeous yellows and golds among the autumn reeds at a local pond today..

Villages Wedding Suits

We popped into London last Friday to meet up with our Son and buy him a new suit, he's been asked to be best man at his University buddy's wedding this November which is in New York as his friend is marrying an American girl. It was fun doing the whole "fitting" experience and somewhat sobering as being 24 years old everything fitted him perfectly and looked fabulous, now I'm the wrong side of 60 the memory of that feeling is somewhat distant!

Anyway, we also popped into one of our favourite little wine bars. Called "Ten Cases" it's in Endell Street in Covent Garden and does a cracking "steak-frites" in pepper sauce, I ordered a nice Macon Village to go with it and it certainly went down a treat, good acidity, apples and green fruits with a long oaky/creamy finish, a delightful wine, I must look out for it.

Abbey Vibes

Had one of these at the weekend, it's a Belgian style Saison made by Bristol based brewery Lost and Grounded and fermented with an "Abbey Yeast" giving it a banana and clove vibe, it's a tasty beer that grows on you as you sup it.

Stag do's

We took a walk through Windsor great park today and spotted this magnificent stag sitting in the afternoon sun, just chillin!

Favourites II

Another old-time favourite beer, sampled last weekend and called "Neal Gets Things Done" (must be some kind of in-joke) this Verdant beauty is a murk monster that's mostly hopped with Nelson Sauvin which delivers flavour in spades. Dense and fragrant it's a beer like no other absolutely world beating  and all from a little village outside of Falmouth in Cornwall..

Friday Smirk

Ha, ha, the boys pointing out that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones! 

Gaza thoughts

 

So, the (orange skinned) global political powers that be have decided that the war in Gaza (aka the defeat of Hamas and the people that put them into power) is to cease, in return for the release of some 20 (possibly alive) Jewish hostages (i.e. ordinary people caught up in a medieval, religiously motivated power struggle). Seems like a "bare minimum" kinda deal to me? Don't get me wrong, any kind of war is awful and unnecessary and is to be avoided at all costs but sometimes you have to respond to an aggressor, i.e. when some external power decides to attack your country with thousands of rockets per month and a barbaric ground invasion, after which they retreat and claim victimhood, I would feel inclined to ask some more probing questions? 

At this unfortunate late stage, I would be inclined to want to press home my military advantage, like the UK/US did in Germany and Japan in 1945 with overwhelming force (i.e. disproportionate) but apparently Jews aren't allowed to do that, they must compromise and pull up short of the kind of "total victory" that we we thought obvious and necessary back in the day. Such is Middle Eastern politics, like the invisible gods that supposedly oversee that part of the world, it works in mysterious ways..

So, we all hope the killing (on both sides) has stopped but what next? If I were Jewish, then I would try to figure out how to deal with an enemy who seems to have developed, over many years, a PR and social media following sufficient to persuade the majority of university students in the "West" to support your terrorist activities and for any retaliation to cause enough faux outrage to make your politicians doubt their own common sense in favour of popularity. It's a tricky conundrum for our leaders, admit the plain logic of the situation or yield to the populist emotional reaction of the voting masses (who may in part also be rabidly antisemitic)

I'm so glad I'm not vested in active politics!

Revisiting the pale

 

It was my birthday last week and my Son purchased a few nice beers for me, "Bermondsey Pale" from Anspach and Hobday is one that I haven't had since early 2023 when I had a pint in their taproom under the arches in Bermondsey. It's a super beer, brewed to celebrate the families of hop pickers from London who travelled to Kent for the harvest back in the day. It's such an easy beer to drink, only 3.4% ABV but full of the flavours of lemon, herbs and flowers, classic English hops territory, fun to revisit!

Midweek Mirth

Saw this Matt cartoon today, it made me smile..

Deutsches Abenteuer - Part 5

So the big day arrived and we made our way over to the Theresienwiese compound where Oktoberfest happens! At first glance the place is enormous, some of the beer tents alone can hold 7000 people and the crowds are somewhat intimidating until you settle in and realise that the whole place has more of a "family fun-fair" atmosphere than "football hooligans in a pub" vibe (certainly during the day at least). The first tent I wanted to visit was the Paulaner one (see picture above), I've tried their "Festbier" a couple of times from cans and really enjoyed it so was keen to sample the "real thing" fresh from the tap. When you enter one of these tents the first thing that hits you is the noise, there's lots of it, and then the music, a whole variety of catchy (anthemic) tunes are being blasted out by a large band positioned on a stage in the middle of the space. The next thing that goes through your mind is where on earth are we going to sit, it appears (on first glance) that the place is completely rammed!

As we wandered through the tent we realised that what people do is spot a table that's "lightly full" and ask the people there to "budge up!", that's exactly what we did and people seemed perfectly happy to do this (I can't imagine this happening in the UK!) First we landed on a table with a delightful Munich family, of course they spoke perfect English and they were really keen to give us all the festival tips, the first of which was "cash only!!" luckily I had a 50 Euro note but other than that no cash at all, fortunately there was a cash machine in the tent (of course there was!) and we cashed ourselves up and got stuck into our steins!

When we first arrived there was some anxiety in the group about how large the beers looked and indeed, the traditional "stein" is a litre of beer (i.e. nearly 2 pints" so by UK standards it's on the big side! Anyway once we got into the swing of things and realised how good and balanced the beer was we started to let our hair down a bit and go with the "flow". It was so nice to see everyone having such a nice time, everyone seemed "happy", of course the beer helps, but it was also aided by a general relaxed atmosphere. After a while the Munich guys left and were instantly replaced by a group of four young blokes from New York, they were only in their early 20s and seemed somewhat baffled about proceedings, we were able to enlighten them with our newly acquired insider information and we all settled in for another round of beers and a good old chat about life the universe and everything!

After a couple in the Paulaner tent we decided that we should move on and sample some of the other breweries. Next door was the "Augustiner" tent, slightly smaller but no less crowded (and noisy) we managed to get a table and settled in for a round of beers and some rather nice roast chicken, we felt a snack was in order after a couple of litres of beer! We had another great experience in this tent and I reckon the beers were slightly better! After an hour or so swigging Augustiner Helles and singing along to "Sweet Caroline" at full tilt we noticed that the sun was beginning to set and we ought to be heading back. Emboldened by the excellent brews we lingered around the fair ground for a while and sampled a couple of the rides (see picture below, yes we did do this!) before heading back to the subway station and four short stops back to our hotel. 

We all slept well that night, and at breakfast the next day we totaled up the beers, the boys sampled 5 litres each and the girls 3, it seems unlikely on reflection but the receipts don't lie! One of the Oktoberfest legends that we were told was that the beer is so "pure" and "clean" that you don't get a hangover the next day, I can confirm that we all felt great although judging by some of the people we saw on the fringes of the event when leaving, I think it's quite easy to take things a little far, some of the youngsters there were a little worse for wear even though they seemed in good spirits for it.

We were all quite apprehensive about Oktoberfest, being in our twilight years we were concerned that it would be too boisterous and full of "lager louts" but how wrong we were, it's a thoroughly great event and although I can't speak to what happens after dark if you go during the day a good, if not great, time can be had by all! 

Favourites

Had one of these at the weekend, it's quite possibly my favourite Verdant beer and that's not a claim I would make lightly! Fruit Car Sight Exhibition is bursting with aroma and flavour, a triumph of the use of Citra hops and utterly delicious.

Summary

Classic Dilbert, seems to sum up most organized religion pretty nicely..

Deutsches Abenteuer - Part 4

 

Perhaps the second most famous thing in Munich (apart from beer) is BMW, the car manufacturer has it's HQ in the city and also a huge manufacturing facility, museum and visitor's centre. The boys in the group were all mildly interested in cars and motorbikes so we decided to hop on the train out to the Olympic park and visit the BMW museum. There are two parts to the museum, a free part and a paid bit, the free part is more like a showroom, showcasing new models and new technology, it was very cool, the architecture was amazing (see picture above) and the shiny new BMW, Mini and Bentley cars looked the part as they glistened under the spotlights, just like in the brochures!

The paid part of the museum was more interesting IMO, it showcased cars, planes and motorbikes from down the ages and also had an interesting exhibit promoting the future direction of car technology. One of the most stunning vehicles was the BMW 507 from the late 50's apparently Elvis had a white one when he was doing his military service in Germany (1958-1960) although he painted his red to stop fans leaving lipstick marks on it, a problem we've all had at some point I'm sure...

Afterwards we headed back into the city to meet up with the girls and had some lunch where I tried my first Augustiner beer. Augustiner is a brewery in Munich that's probably the last surviving family run firm (i.e. not owned by a large corporation) and is by all accounts the best. I can vouch for that viewpoint, the Helles we had at lunchtime was superb, clean, crisp and full of flavour, a delicious beer. We all decided that when we visited the Oktoberfest (the next day) we would head for the Augustiner tent and try their festival beer, excitement was mounting...

More in part V

Friday Smirk

 The boys pointing out that "Blasphemy" is a victimless crime..

Deutsches Abenteuer - Part 3

 

Having spent the best part of three days in Berlin we headed over to the main station and hopped on a high speed ICE train to Munich. It's over 300 miles to Munich and the train covers it in around five hours, the stunning thing about it is not so much the speed but the cost, a second class ticket is around £30 (one way) which is far cheaper than say the equivalent London to Edinburgh (a similar distance) journey which weighs in at around £100! Anyway, the train was on time and we sped down the length of Germany at impressive speeds, there was a speedometer inside the carriage and I noticed a maximum of 300 km/h which is around 185 mph, we won't see trains in the UK that fast until we have HS2 (so when most of us are dead then!)

You can tell that you are getting closer to Munich as the train passes field after field of hops, I snapped the picture above at around 30 minutes out. Munich is of course the capital city of the province of Bavaria and is world famous for it's beer production, hence the annual Oktoberfest festival there, I guess these hops would be destined for the various types of lager brewed at vast scale in the region so will probably be of the Nobel varieties such as Saaz, Tettnanger and Hallertau, unfortunately you can't open the train windows to have a sniff!

We arrived at the main station in Munich at around 5pm and immediately noticed that a) it was extremely crowded and b) a large percentage of the crowds were wearing traditional Bavarian dress, i.e.  the men sported the famous lederhosen, white or cheque shirts, jackets and felt hats (with feathers in them) and the Women were in patterned skirts and waistcoats, it looked surprisingly cool! All these people were on their way to Oktoberfest but fortunately we headed in the opposite direction to our hotel for three nights located in a quiet residential area to the East of the city.

Since it was our first night in town we decided to not venture too far and headed a couple of hundred yards up the road from our hotel to the "Camba" brewery tap room where they had 40 beers on tap and a bowl of chilli on the menu! To my great surprise I noticed that #22 on the beer menu was a beer (Broken Dream) from the Siren brewery in Finchampstead, UK my local!!! (of course I had to have one to keep the British end up!) After a couple of beers and some hot food we wandered back to our residence and slept soundly until the next morning when new adventures awaited, more in part 4..

Deutsches Abenteuer - Part 2

 

Of course one of the things that Germany is famous for is beer! I did a bit of research prior to our trip and located a couple of small independent breweries that had tap rooms close to where we were staying and on our first night we ventured out to one of them. Called "Lemke" the brewery bar was situated, as such beer establishments often are, under a railway arch and we sat and sampled some of their offerings as trains rumbled overhead. 

The picture above shows one of their Helles lagers, a light, crisp, clean and flavorsome drink that was very welcome after negotiating Heathrow airport earlier in the day and the busy streets of the city that evening. We also discovered a food menu and feeling quite hungry ordered a couple of dishes (meat balls in gravy with dumplings and green beans, and a roast pork dish) which were both delicious and paired with the beer perfectly! Many of the food options were quite basic (i.e. meat and two veg) but like good pub food in the UK perfectly wholesome and delicious as well as great value for money!

While on the subject of good beer we also came across a Mikkeller bar, I've visited Mikkeller establishments in both London and Copenhagen and the Danish brewer has a small venue in one of the trendy suburbs of the city. The range of craft beers on offer was excellent, I opted for a hazy NEIPA (pictured above) and while there we also tried some fruited Berliner Weisse (for obvious reasons) which was also very good. The Danish bar was one of the only ones we found that had bags of crisps for sale (a classic English accompaniment to beer) most of the German bars offered large bready pretzels which, as we discovered later in the trip, were just as effective at providing that "salt & carb fix" while drinking beer if not better!

More in part III