Saturday, July 26, 2025

Small World


Another new Elusive beer (seem to be trying a lot of these in the last couple of months) called "Traverse" it's a (mainly) Citra oriented pale ale with a couple of different hop formats included. A tasty brew and in true Elusive style it's fairly malt forward which is nice to see. Anyway, just by chance as I was picking up this can in a local shop the owner of the brewery (Andy Parker) came in to do a delivery, we kind of know each other but only to nod at in the street but we had a great little chat about the price of fish and it turned out that he used to be in the IT industry (like me) we had more in common than I'd imagined, small world!

Friday, July 25, 2025

Friday Smirk


You hear this "objective morality" argument from Theists quite a bit, and it's true, there's no way that any Atheist could show that their morality is objective, most of us prefer to adopt a more materialist position and claim that our morality has evolved (as we've learned things about ourselves) based upon our evolutionary hard wiring as a social species. At least this explanation fits our lived experience and the historical evidence.

The astonishing thing though is that Theists often don't seem to realise that their own position is 100% based upon the claim that their particular God or Gods are in fact true, i.e. in order to be able to provide objectivity. They assert this with no evidence whatsoever! Their argument is based on nothing but wish-thinking and feelings and unfortunately for them, it's feelings all the way down!

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Madeira Memories


We took a trip to the Portuguese island of Madeira earlier this year (May), it was a week of great food, spectacular scenery, decent weather and excellent company. In the shot above is a view from our plane coming into land and the structure in the middle of the picture on stilts is the runway! The pilot advised us just before coming around for final approach that this particular airport has the 6th most difficult (and therefore dangerous) landing in the world due to a short runway, the proximity of steep mountains and frequent gusty ocean winds. Apparently pilots can only land here after additional training and certification, cue lot's of nervous laughs in the cabin! Our landing that day was as smooth as you like though, however, I can imagine it gets pretty hairy when the surf is up!

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Damn Van Man


Out for my daily constitutional walk the other day and was faced with this slice of inconsiderate BS, the van is completely blocking the pavement and the skip it just delivered is completely blocking any other route around it! The only options were to risk walking in the road (this is an extremely busy road!) or crossing over (tricky as there's a junction right there) and then crossing back further down. Such is life in the busy old South East of England these days, and he didn't even have his hazard's on, which as we all know absolves the driver of any responsibility whatsoever!

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Budgie brunch


So, dinner at the Parakeet in Kentish Town the other evening was outstanding, four courses of a wide variety of dishes from small individual tartlets (containing things like hoisin duck and clam and pea) through to braised leeks in a smoked pecorino sauce (a house specialty) lamb with haricot beans and main sharing courses of stuffed guinea fowl and pork collar chops. All cooked over an open fire in something that looked a bit like a pizza oven, deliciously smoky with morish burnt bits (wood fired Jersey Royals to die for!)

I can tell the food was good because I only took one picture (see above) some poached oysters with sea buckthorn granita, a feast for the eyes as well as the belly! Thoroughly recommended venue and fairly reasonable too, I've been to Michelin starred places that weren't half as good and twice the price.

Monday, July 21, 2025

An old friend


I remember back in the late 90s I used to live in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto) and high above the valley floor was a system of hills separating the valley from the ocean that we used to drive up to every now and again, the views were glorious. The climate was also a little cooler up there and ever since the 1880s Italian immigrants were growing grapes among the giant redwoods on the hills above the valley. One such vineyard is called "Ridge" and is famed for a wine called "Monte Bello" a Cabernet Sauvignon based red wine that won 6th place in the famous "Judgement of Paris" tasting in 1976 and first in the 30th anniversary tasting of the same wines, it's a classy drink and hugely expensive these days. 

Fortunately Ridge is big enough to produce several wines at different price points, these include several Zinfandel blends as well as more classic Cabernet based Bordeaux blends, I believe they also have a Chardonnay which I haven't tried yet. Luckily for us we were in London on Saturday and having dinner with the kids at a pub/restaurant called "Parakeet" in Kentish Town and they had a Ridge on their list (pretty unusual for a gastro-pub) I snagged a bottle and it was delicious, it was only their "Estate Cabernet" but even so it's made in the style of the great Monte Bello and was just the job with a massive pork chop cooked over an open fire/BBQ and shared with the table, a great evening.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Mystery Fruit


This tree at the end of our road fruits every year and this year seems to have a vast amount of plum like berries that look enticingly edible (never plucked up the courage to try them!), I only wish I knew what it was?