Birds eye view

Interesting fish-eye view of my home town, taken by a local photographer..

Friday Smirk

Not wrong there George..

Miss it?

It's been a period of reflection this last week, spent most of it with a bunch of other 60 somethings, some approaching retirement and others already retired. The guys who have yet to take the plunge were very keen to understand the process and the considerations involved and so many of our conversations centred around this. 

Talking about a topic allows you to practice your arguments and to reflect on the quality and depth of them as other people probe the nooks and crannies of your logic. My own view is that if you feel confident about retiring you should, at any age (within reason), I don't regret it for a nano-second, in fact after two years now I simply don't think about work at all! My cycles these days are consumed by family, friends, leisure activities, hobbies and holidays, sounds superficial and perhaps it is, but it feels damn good and after 40 odd years of slog working hard (never having more than 2 weeks off at a time) and missing a lot of important family moments I feel I earned it!

Experimental

I tried one of these while in Cornwall last weekend, supped at the Verdant brewery in Penryn it's a new DIPA (Double IPA) made with an experimental hop variety called NZH-101. Weighing in at 8% I only had a half but it was a unique flavour profile, very weedy (i.e. cannabis-like) with back-notes of mango and tropical fruits and a slight bitterness, a really interesting addition. I'm not sure I could drink loads of it, certainly not at that ABV, but as the newest member of Verdant's SBP#10 or Small Batch Project (number 10) beers I'd say it's a banger!

Bye bye USA...

Well done Belgium, good to see that cheats don't prosper..!

Tuesday Titter

Ah yes, I remember working in corporate environments...

Kernow rematch

Just got back last night from another weekend away in Falmouth, Cornwall (starting to imagine I live there!) Anyway, this wasn't exactly a holiday as one of my old school friends is getting married this year and asked me to be his best man, I agreed and, of course, it was my duty to organise the stag do! He loves the West Country and beer, and so do I! So we decided to spend a weekend in Falmouth, all very civilised of course (we're both in our 60s!) no strippers or being tied naked to lamp posts etc. more seafood lunches and evenings in interesting (and quiet!) pubs or bars drinking local artisanal beers!

To mix things up a bit we decided to take the train down to Falmouth from Reading (which was convenient for everyone) and I booked us all into a hotel right next to Falmouth Docks station to minimise walking with bags etc. I'd never visited Falmouth Docks station (we usually use Falmouth Town) but it's literally at the end of the line (see picture above)! Total travel time door to door was around 5 hours which was not too bad I reckon, hard to beat that using a car (with stops) and the departure time was a civilised 10:30 am arriving in our hotel around 3:30 pm ready to hit the town!

Having arrived in Falmouth in the late afternoon we headed out to our first port of call, a pub called Beerwolf Books, part pub part bookshop, it's usually quiet early on and there's usually a great line up of beers available to try, it was a big hit and the chaps (6 of us) thoroughly approved! We supped a couple of cold ones in there and by around 6pm people we getting peckish! At that point we retired up the hill to the Seaview Inn which is a pub and also an Indian restaurant, we ordered a range of street food like dishes and tucked into a couple of Verdant beers and delicious grub, at closing time we headed back to our hotel and were all tucked up in bed by 11:30pm (as all good OAP's should be!)

The next day we were all up by 9am and headed down to breakfast, after that we had a wander up the road to Gyllyngvase beach (see above) where I'd promised the old codgers a paddle in the sea! Paddle ticked off we stopped for an hour in the beach cafe there for some cold drinks and then headed around the coastal path to Swanpool beach and the Beach House restaurant for some lunch and refreshments. I've talked more about the seaview Inn and the Beach House in a previous Falmouth post so won't dwell on it here suffice to say that both places were a big hit with the boys..

After lunch we headed back to town and played a couple of games of pool in the Games Room (a pub games venue off the high street) things got quite competitive and we overran our time by a good margin, however, they didn't seem to mind and we had a great laugh taking the mickey out of each other over our atrocious lack of skill and coordination! When they finally kicked us out we wandered up to the Moor (a square in Falmouth) and picked up a cab to take us down the road to the neighbouring town of Penryn where the Verdant brewery (and their excellent Pizzas) awaited! The beer selection there was as impressive as ever (see above) and we settled in for an evening of conversation, laughs, drinking games and good ale!

I think we got back to our hotel around midnight (honestly can't remember) and all slept like logs! Now, our hotel wasn't that posh, it had to accommodate a range of budgets, but it's the only hotel in the world I've stayed in that delivers 6am morning wake up calls via Herring Gull!! (see above) At around 10am we all took a much needed head-clearing stroll into town for some breakfast, a couple of sausage baps later we felt able to have a little walk around some of the sights of Falmouth and the harbour stopping for cold lemonades (it was warm!) along the way. After lunch we headed back to the hotel bar for a quick pint (of Verdant Lightbulb) before jumping on the train home, it bookended the weekend nicely and we all sat on the train for the next four hours satisfied that a cracking weekend had been had by everyone!

Sunday Smile

 Know what I mean? Eh, eh, nudge nudge, say no more..

Top 50

So the results are in, the top 50 beers in the country as voted for by consumers and overseen by a panel of industry experts. I was surprised how many "old faithfuls" were on the list this year, I suspect this is a reflection of availability rather than anything else (like quality or taste etc.) anyway here's the list..

1. Steady Rolling Man, Deya
2. Best, Five Points
3. Jaipur, Thornbridge
4. I Could Get Better At T*sco For A Quid, Pretty Decent Beer Co
5. London Black, Anspach & Hobday
6. Plum Porter, Titanic
7. Pilsner, Pillars
8. Lightbulb, Verdant
9. Landlord, Timothy Taylor
10. American Pale Ale, Saint Monday
11. Parade, Beak
12. Even Sharks Need Water, Verdant
13. Kitchen Disco, Double-Barrelled
14. Turtles All The Way Down, Duration Brewing
15. Proper Job, St Austell
16. Iron Brew Sour, Vault City
17. Sumo, Mad Squirrel Brewery
18. Lumina, Siren Craft Brew
19. Clwb Tropicana, Tiny Rebel
20. Atlantic APA, Brixton
21. Sicilian Lemonade Radler, Left Handed Giant
22. Intuition, Attic
23. Old Peculier, Theakston
24. Sonoma, Track
25. Peach, Jubel
26. Floret, Polly's Brewing
27. Faith, Northern Monk
28. Boost, Deya
29. Camden Hells, Camden Town Brewery
30. Kaleidoscope, Wiper and True
31. Three Swords, Kirkstall
32. Aurora, Burning Sky
33. Oregon Trail, Elusive
34. Citra, Oakham
35. Lager, Lucky Saint
36. Table Beer, Kernel
37. Helles Lager, Harbour Brewing
38. Time Better Spent, Tap Social Movement
39. Foghorn, Brewpoint
40. Bristol Lager, New Bristol Brewery
41. Wherry, Woodforde's
42. Juice Forsyth, Brew York
43. Sussex Best, Harvey's
44. Keller Pils, Lost & Grounded
45. Roadie, Signature Brew
46. Helles, Braybrooke
47. Premium British Lager, Utopian
48. Halo, Hackney Church Brew Co
49. Mosaic GF Pale Ale, Arbor
50. Heathen, Abbeydale Brewery

I've added links to my reviews of the beers that I've tried. Great to see representation from most of my favourite brewers, for example, Verdant, Siren, DEYA, Elusive and Kernel to name but a few. Shame that beers like Old Peculier and Wherry are on the list, this is the kind of thing we used to go for in the 70s and not a patch on modern brews in my humble opinion. 

Friday Smirk

The boys illustrating the illogical core of the main religions, the belief in things that cannot be shown to be true or untrue (unfalsifiable) and the insistence that their holy books were authored by the creator of the universe when even a child can see that they were written by scientifically illiterate Men (not Women!)

Ice cold in Kernow

Had one of these last week, an unusual choice for me as I usually go for hazy pale ales or IPAs if I have any choice however, what with the heat and everything, I decided an ice cold lager was more appropriate. It was a banger too, from my favourite brewers, Verdant it was a Helles style lager (as opposed to a Pilsner) a little softer but just as good. 

London Stories

I was wondering around Hampstead Village a few weeks back filling time while waiting for my Son to finish work (he lives nearby) it was late in the afternoon and the rain was starting to set in so I looked for somewhere to take cover and maybe have a coffee or something. I turned down a side street off of Heath St. and low and behold stumbled across a little craft beer bar (The Tipsy Dog). Never one to pass up an opportunity for an interesting half of something I wondered in, it was empty and so I ordered a half of a pale ale I'd never tried before and got chatting to the barman. 

The venue itself was really small, only 4 taps (keg only) and perhaps a dozen or so seats plus a couple of large beer fridges that were filled with cans and bottles (some good stuff), more of a "bottle shop" than a bar I suppose although it was a nice little space and the perfect refuge from a Summer downpour! I only had time for one and after that I headed on down the hill to where I was meeting my boy, however next time I'm up in Hampstead and have half an hour to kill I know exactly where I need to go!

Kernow Adventures - Part 2

While in Falmouth last week we popped into the Seafood bar in town (on one of the days) and had a spot of lunch (see above) This venue is owned by my favourite brewer Verdant and sells their beers and a range of interesting seafood dishes (tapas style) We had a fish-finger bun, crab loaded fries, fish tacos and scallops, my goodness it was delicious, strong flavours and great combinations of ingredients plus (of course) a lovely half of a delicious Verdant beer to go with it all, totally lush.

On a different day we hopped onto the St Mawes ferry and sailed across to that picture perfect little village for some lunch. The venue was a hotel called the "Idle Rocks" which has a very scenic veranda and restaurant. I opted for the fixed lunch menu which included chowder to start followed by sole (see above) with sides of fries and broccoli, then a dark chocolate cremeux to finish, all for £28 which I thought was great value considering the setting and the quality of food, great spot for lunch, thoroughly recommended!

The picture above shows the veranda of the restaurant and the view beyond to the harbour wall and on to Falmouth, a great place to have lunch (when the weather is good!)

One of the disadvantages of staying/living in a seaside town is the noise and waste products from the ample seagulls that also live there. The various families of gulls that inhabit the town centre seem to be screeching at each other for most of the day only stopping when it gets dark and then starting up again at first light. I suppose you get used to it after a while but I can imagine that it gets a bit much sometimes. One day we even saw a Greater Black-backed Gull eating a dead rat, swallowed in one go! It's easy to understand that you're looking at an evolved dinosaur when you see something like that!

Kernow Adventures - Part 1

As previously mentioned we were down in Cornwall last week and on the way down to Falmouth we always stop at the Waitrose in Truro to stock up on essentials for our stay. It's a great store, large and well stocked including a section that's dedicated to craft beer where they feature Verdant cans (Verdant is a brewery in Penryn, near Falmouth) the variety available is impressive and probably not replicated in any other supermarket in the world! This is probably my favourite supermarket ever!

On the subject of Cornish brewers I discovered a new one in Falmouth called "Dynamite Valley", they have a small taproom in the centre of town which we happened to walk past one day and (of course) had to pop in for a pint. It was a pale ale made with American hops and very nice it was too on a warm day (see above) We all agreed it was a good addition to the beer scene in the town and while there are several Falmouth venues that sell Verdant beer (my fav) it is always good to have choices!

While in Kernow we also visited the Eden Project just outside of St. Austell, I'd never been before and thought it might be a bit naff (I'm not massively into plants) but how wrong was I! It was a spectacular place, huge and with lot's to see and do, a really impressive collection of plant species, from all kinds of environments around the world. They even had a section for Madeira which we visited earlier this year, I even recognised some of the plants! The only downside was visiting the "Tropical Dome" on a rather warm day, much sweating followed, fortunately they have "cool spaces" with A/C units in them where you can recuperate for a few minutes before moving on.

The picture above shows what it's like inside one of the domes, this was the tropical zone..

Long day and missing views..

We just got back from a week in Falmouth (Cornwall) having been driving (A30/M5/M4) for around 6 hours (traffic!) It was a long tiring day but a great week of R&R and a welcome escape from the heatwave that has been gripping the rest of the UK this week. I'd booked a little airBnB house in the middle of town one that we'd used before so we knew it well, there were just the two of us from Sunday to Thursday (ah the peace and tranquility!) and then my Son and one of his mates from Uni came down on the train and joined us for the weekend, this obviously changed the vibe somewhat, beer and curry rather than civilised lunches and white wine! The picture above shows the view from our balcony, hard to get tired of it and we will certainly miss it now that we're back in "boiling" Berkshire..

January Memories

We were fortunate enough to have a long holiday in South Africa earlier this year, we spent most of January down there in the Southern Hemisphere soaking up the sun, escaping the Northern Hemisphere Winter and touring around the Eastern Cape. It was a fabulous holiday, one that we'll never forget! I was reminded of that trip this week as it's very warm in the UK at the moment, the heat down there is different though, less humid and altogether more aggregable, can't wait to return one day there's so much to see and do! 

Double Bubble

I found myself in Reading a couple of weeks ago waiting for a train home so I decided to have a quick beer in the Siren bar in town. I asked for 2/3rds of a pint of a particular beer and as the barman was pouring it the keg ran out. He was apologetic and I made another choice, he promptly poured me a pint of another beer. Once I'd paid for the drink he looked at the 3/4's full original beer and asked me if I wanted that as well, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I said yes and walked back from the bar with two drinks for the price of one! Must have been my lucky day, I should have bought a lottery ticket!

Choice of B's

I treated my Daughter and her new boyfriend to a slap up meal in Borough Market last Friday and for wine we narrowed our choice down to a red Bandol or a white Burgundy, both interesting wines and both good matches for what we were having to eat. In the end we couldn't decide and since there were three of us present I got both, well, you have to live a bit now and again! 

Marxist Brunch

We had brunch in Primrose Hill yesterday, lovely little cafe and coffee shop called ARVO where my Son's girlfriend works part-time (mates rates!). Across the road from where we were sitting is an interesting blue plaque to Friedrich Engels (see picture above) Engels was probably most famous for his lifelong collaboration with Karl Marx and helped to develop the political system known as Marxism, I did wonder what he'd think about the house he once lived in now being worth several millions thanks to Capitalism!

Smelly Reminders

Saw this cartoon and it reminded me of when I used to work in an (open plan) office, the guy that sat opposite me used to eat leftover stew at his desk from a tupperware container (heated in the microwave) it used to stink the whole place out. It wasn't an unreasonable thing to do per se but on many occasions I had to take a break elsewhere for a while, in fact I should thank him as my lunchtime walking habit started there (which I still stick to today!)

Friday Smirk

The boys discussing the amusing way in which how people who have believed in God over the centuries often change the way in which certain claims of their holy books are "interpreted" depending upon whether or not the modern world has shown them to be nonsense (i.e. Astronomy, Biology, Physics, Philosophy, Medicine etc.).

Cloud Computing

Amazing hi-res pictures from the last NASA probe (Juno) to skirt the clouds of Jupiter revealing that the planet's core isn't solid but "fuzzy" and huge bands of Ammonia extend far below the cloud tops, all using 2010's technology, imagine if it had the resolution of today's devices! Juno completed its mission in 2025 by being crashed into the planet and burnt up in its atmosphere, this was to prevent contamination of any of Jupiter's moons, shame, anyway, good job Juno!

Midweek Mirth

Not a massive follower of football and slightly put off by the fact that the World Cup is being played (partly at least) in the USA (not a fan) but I saw this today on the wonderful xkcd website and it made me smile. I love it when non-scientific types think that linear extrapolation is a valid way to make some crazy claim.

Round Trips

It was a sunny day last Saturday and we decided to do the Windsor "Long Walk", so we parked the car in the Great Park and walked into town. At around 10 km (round trip) it's a decent walk, especially in the hot sun so while in town we popped into the Two Flints taproom under the railway arches and had a couple of cold beers to give us a rest and the fuel to walk back to the car. This is an up and coming brewer that I've mentioned several times before but they're really knocking out some good brews this year, the pale ale above was a crisp and fruity delight, only 3.4% ABV but full of flavour and nice and cold, perfect for the setting and the weather!

Liquid time warp

Spent a pleasant evening with an old mate last night, chewing the fat and drinking excellent brews at one of my favourite pubs, the Fox & Hounds in Caversham, it was nice weather for a change and so we sat in the beer garden (see above). We got so engrossed in conversation that we completely lost track of the time, I just managed to catch the last train home and didn't get in until gone midnight!

Friday Smirk

The lads discussing how our religious brothers and sisters often bend and twist the stories in their holy books to suit the zeitgeist of the day, turning absurdities into "allegory" and contradictions into "interpretations", while others just stick their fingers in their ears and shout la la la!

Trains, a good idea?

This was the rail network in the UK around 1920 (probably it's peak), pretty much every major town and quite a few villages had stations, over a third of it was shut down and mothballed in the 1960s (and more since) as cars became the preeminent way of getting from A to B. I think it's pretty much accepted by people now that that was short sighted, what with climate change and congestion on the roads, trains offer a mode of transport for both freight and people that (with sufficient investment and maintenance) is superior for medium to long distance journeys as well as travel into large urban centres where parking is limited. 

I've used the train twice already this week and will again at the weekend, it's convenient but suffers from a couple of important limitations, it's too expensive and is relatively unreliable. I saw a couple of posters at the station today for "Great British Railways", a renationalisation of our train network, I wonder if that will improve things? I fear that trains will be too low down in the pecking order for cash from the government, the system is already creaking and desperately needs investment, I wonder if it will get it ahead of healthcare, social services and defence, I somehow doubt it.

So, wha'd we gonna do?

 

While on my lunchtime walk I spotted these three crows sitting at the top of a tree, it reminded me of that scene at the end of the Jungle Book movie (the original one) where the three vultures are debating what they're going to do and going around in circles, much like Trump and his cronies, at least the vultures were useful in the end but somehow I doubt Trump will ever be..

Shelter

I was walking through Belsize Park at the weekend on my way to meet my Son and I noticed this rather strange looking building. It looked very 30s/40s in style and although now a data-storage facility I did wonder what it was originally built for. A bit of googling revealed that it was originally a WW2 deep bomb shelter, connected to the Northern Line which runs parallel to Haverstock Hill it also goes much deeper than the underground. Amazingly it was designed in 1942 and could accommodate 9600 people and extends to 140ft below ground. There are a couple of these in London, built in residential areas and consisting of sleeping quarters, medical facilities, kitchens and self contained power units, hopefully consigned to history such shelters will only now ever be used to store things like computer data archives etc., but the way the world seems to be headed at the moment who knows!

Beak People

Tried one of these at the weekend, it's from  my favourite Sussex brewer Beak and is their table beer. Excellent flavour and mouthfeel for the low ABV, not quite as good as PMST from Verdant but not that far off! Good work Beak people!

Testing Times

Spent a great day at Lords with my Son yesterday, we were watching the test match between England and New Zealand and it was day 2 in the series. We were very lucky with the weather as the rain (only just) held off and a full day of play was possible (day one was shortened by rain). I snapped the picture above at around 3pm, as  you can see the clouds look ominous and the light was so bad that the floodlights had to be switched on (incredible for the middle of the day in June!) Anyway, we had a good day and England did ok, they looked like collapsing in the mid-order and had four batsmen out with ducks, all in a row (as the saying goes) but the tail end did a good job and in the end leaving NZ with 254 runs needed in their second innings, today was a washout, let's hope we get some clear weather tomorrow as I think England could just about win this one..

Friday Smirk

The boys talking about memorising holy books, kind of misses the point of books really, oh and it's usually beneficial if you read more than one..

Midweek Mirth

The excellent xkcd.com. How many times do apps and operating systems "update" themselves these days, I reckon it's a measurable percentage of available time to use them. Good job software developers figured out how to shift the onus of responsibility for bugs from themselves to you.

Where's the passion?

While in Madeira last week I tried the in-house IPA from our hotel. It was called "Passion Fruit IPA", now, usually, I worry that when beers include actual fruit as adjuncts they tend to be a bit on the gimmicky side, i.e. the beer's not up to much so the brewer adds fruit to "spice" it up a bit. I was wrong on that score with this one, it had no fruit adjuncts at all, the passion fruit flavour was coming entirely from the generous dose of Australian Galaxy hops, which do lean toward tropical fruit flavours when used on the cold side. A decent local beer, obviously made by craft enthusiasts!

Madeira - Part III

Madeira is a truly beautiful place, geologically part of Africa but culturally part of Europe, a volcanic island around 200 miles off the coast of Morocco it's a little green haven in a vast sea of azure blue. There are many microclimates here, the North side gets the rain and the South side plenty of sunshine, in the West there are big Atlantic rollers beloved by surfers and in the East the only piece of land flat enough to host an airport. It's only 286 square miles, which is about the size of Anglesey in Wales but it seems like every square inch of the place is producing some kind of crop or other, from bananas to grapes or sugar cane and as can be seen in the picture above the mountainous terrain is extensively terraced and subdivided into smallholdings many of which go back centuries and are passed down through the generations.

One of the days we were there we took a boat trip along the South West coast of the island and luckily spotted a whole pod of Bottlenose Dolphins and a rather huge Bryde's Whale ambling along, amazing views. On the way back to Funchal port we passed the little fishing village that Winston Churchill spent a lot of  time painting in the 50s, called Câmara de Lobos (see above) it's a quaint place where last year we had a splendid lunch, fish as fresh as it could be and a delicious local white wine. The picture below shows Winston's go at painting the place, it's totally recognisable although there are obviously a few more buildings these days.

We were all sad to leave the island and head back to a drizzly and grey Gatwick, although from chatter on the plane on the way home I suspect it will be more an "au revoir" rather than a goodbye, until next time! 

Madeira - Part II

While in Funchal, Madeira last week we paid a visit to our favourite little bar in town, the beers were up to scratch and the mexican inspired food on point, pictured above is a tasty West Coast IPA from Spanish brewers Garage (Barcelona) if only we had a venue with a similar offering in our home town.

The hotel we stayed in had some old photographs on the wall, apparently back in the 50s the geezer above visited the place, he knew the family that owned the establishment and came here to Madeira a couple of times to partake in his hobby of oil painting. There's quite a bit of Churchill memorabilia around the place, a nice little money spinner for the locals!

There are some exotic looking plants on the island, I snapped the ones above while walking around the hotel gardens, interestingly the same flower is depicted on some of the chinaware used in the hotel, tea pots and saucers etc.. No idea what it's called but it certainly looks the part!

Here's the link to part III