New beer

New beer to try yesterday while making dinner for everyone. Called "Dystopian Dawn" it's a black IPA made by my friends over at Siren; toasty chocolatey malts complemented by resinous American hops, very good indeed!

 

Friday Smirk

I'm always amazed when talking to grown up (otherwise intelligent) people who actually believe that the Adam and Eve story is literally true and there was, as a matter of fact, a magic garden where snakes talked. I mean where do you start with such a belief? So hard not to simply ridicule it.

 

Hackney Celebrations

We were celebrating my Wife's birthday yesterday with a trip up to London and a day of nice food, wine and shopping. For lunch we headed East to Hackney Wick and the excellent Cornerstone (which had gained a Michelin star since we last visited back in 2018) As can be seen above, the pickled oysters looked stunning and (predictably) tasted pretty good too! We had the tasting menu which was eight different dishes with a loosely fishy theme, delicious, and not a bad one among them. All washed down with a decent Chablis from Julien Brocard. Afterwards we zipped over to the Westfield shopping centre nearby (Stratford) and picked up a new leather jacket which was my main birthday gift, it all seemed to go down well which is always a relief and we made it home by about 7:30pm for bites and a movie, a thoroughly nice day!

 

Traffic thoughts..

Walking through town today and stumbled across the scene of a rather serious looking road traffic accident (no fatalities thankfully!). A car had apparently lost control and crashed into some shop fronts and also hit a couple of other cars and some pedestrians along the way. Fortunately there were plenty of medics and policemen on hand to attend to everyone (the fire station is only 100yds from this spot) and things looked fully under control, still, always makes you think doesn't it.

 

Official Policy

Sound about right to me..

 

Thresholds

Utterly baffling how someone could be shot dead on a film set until you realise that it happened in the USA i.e. within a culture steeped in guns and gung-ho. I don't have any optimism whatsoever that anything will change over there but since the current pandemic started I have lowered (quite considerably) my threshold of incredulity surrounding levels of irrationality and stupidity in our various populations. This kind of thing doesn't even raise an eyebrow anymore..

 

Filth

I must be getting forgetful in my old age, I can't remember if it was "Sunlight Uplands" or "Shit-filled Headlands". I guess I'll knock the wild swimming hobby on the head for a bit..

 

Sunday Smirk

Lovin the optimism of the bar staff at this pub..

 

Time flies

I took my Mum over to Arlington (near Guildford) yesterday for her booster jab, it took over an hour (even though she had a timed appointment) anyway, rather than sit around in the car I went for a walk along the Wey Navigation which is just at the back of where the vaccination centre was. As I was walking I spotted this chap flying around (above), it's a motorized paraglider, i.e. he's wearing a small engine on his back that powers a propeller that pushes him along. He was quite high up and I only had my phone so the quality of the picture is poor but it did take me back to my own flying days. I used to fly paragliders back in the day and I also had a go at the motorized version, great fun it was too! Although perfecting the art of launching a canopy and running with a 30kg engine on your back while operating a throttle all at the same time takes some doing. The picture below is me coming into land at a lakeside spot near the town of Embrun in the French Alps, those were the days!

 

Echo's of Spring

 

A seasonal favourite of mine, cracked this evening (Friday) whilst concocting dinner for the family. A beer called "White Tips" which is an IPA recipe with Belgian yeast and orange/grapefruit zest; light, fruity and delicious. Mentioned on this blog for various reasons on past occasions but usually only available around the March/April timeframe, the distinctive taste takes me right back to Springtime. 

Facts and Opinions

The data (from the highly respected Zoe project) shows that countries that only reach a vaccination rate of around 65% and then remove all preventative measures are failing to control infection rates now. Countries that manage to push into the 80-85%+ range and retain simple measures like mask wearing on public transport are doing much better and managing to run their economies at near normal pace. Looking at weekly hospital admission rates for our peer group of countries it's clear that the UK is the worst performing nation in the entire Western European economic zone, by quite some distance (see chart below)

It should be clear (to anyone with half a brain) that the UK needs to do something about these trends right now (actually about a month ago) in order to preserve any level of normality in it's economic and social life, or alternatively, watch many of it's citizens die unnecessarily and be shunned (in terms of foreign travel) by most other countries in the world. As a smart man once said, "you can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts"..

 

Vax Apathy

We really should get a move on with our vaccination program (see suggestion above) Booster rates should be running at quarter of a million per day and kids should be double that! Currently we're achieving a tenth of those numbers. What people should realise is that this month is our last chance saloon before Winter really kicks in and life moves 100% back indoors, unfortunately the prevailing attitude among our leaders seems to be apathy, denial and/or delusion - it's time for a change.

 

Andreas Law

I must say that I fully agree with Andreas! A case of his bat, his ball, his game; shame so many people are driven by selfishness on this obvious and easy way to save other's lives.

Friday Smirk

As ever the excellent J&M hitting the nail on the head. Religion is a misfiring of an evolutionary impulse  or emotion to prefer everyone in the tribe to believe the same things and act in the same way. It used to be an advantage that in small populations it promoted cohesion, made everyone feel warm and fuzzy and (more insidiously) facilitated control, now, in our post industrial, Global age, it just stifles innovation and leads to division. Time to move on.

 

Midweek Mirth

Pretty accurate summation of our cultural evolution. Step 3 was added during the Enlightenment, it improved all our exitances immeasurably and doubled our life-spans, yay! Unfortunately though, some of us still question the value of step 3 and (if honest) prefer the old three step solution; usually those people stand to lose out emotionally or financially if step 3 is done properly. I've always been skeptical and wary of such people and their "ideas"..

Ignorati..

It's fast approaching, you know, that traditional time of the year when our leaders refuse to make the right decisions (i.e. the hard ones) at the right time and sacrifice the health and livelihoods of thousands of decent, hard-working and considerate people in this country at the alter of a quick buck and a few extra votes from the ignorati... 

Never mind, who doesn't want to work from home during January and February anyway?

 

What a different a day makes..

Spent a day in London yesterday at a boring management meeting but rather than slog up on the train in the early dawn I decided to go Sunday evening and stay in a cheap hotel overnight around London Bridge. It was a lovely evening (see left hand photo), I had a stroll along the river and a bite to eat (Pizza Pilgrims - yum!) before retiring around 10pm Monday morning however was a different story, a typical London Autumn day, foggy, damp and chilly (see right hand picture) I did the same walk along the Thames to get some exercise in prior to sitting on my bum all day in a sweaty office. London is such a cool place, so much history packed into a small space, it's almost impossible not to see something interesting with every glance.

 

Change is in the air..

 You can't help but feel that it's changed this week..

Simcoe Saturday

Decided to pop over to the Siren Tapyard and pick up a few tins as my cupboard was bare! As usual there were a few new brews that I'd never tried before and this is one of them. Called "Enter Simcoe" it's a pale ale flavoured with Simcoe hops, it's delicious. Dank (bit like weed) and piney with a soft fruity core and a delightful balance of flavours, good job Siren!

 

Friday afternoon philosophy corner

Couldn't resist this one for a slow Friday afternoon... smart buttons those Greeks..

 

Friday Smirk

The excellent Jesus and Mo strip, a little lesson on the "Kafka Trap"..

 

Hindsight IV

A nightmare in the making for every parent who has a teenager with a phone..

 

Hindsight III

Like Governments promises, our supermarket shelves and petrol pumps are empty..

 

Hindsight II

A little fishy ..

 

Hindsight I

 How it started and how it's going ..

Saturday Smile

Saw this on the interwebs, couldn't help but smile, means nothing in the USA of course..

 

Oh James..

As previously mentioned we went to see the new James Bond movie last weekend it was certainly an experience as most Bond films are, so I thought I'd recap our collective thoughts afterwards in a post as it's a film that requires some contemplation. Firstly this one is different, but don't worry there's still a ton of action sequences and a completely ridiculous villain with an equally ridiculous plot to destroy the world as there usually is (rightly so, it's James Bond after all!). It's different because I felt in this one a much higher proportion of the movie dedicated to Bond himself, i.e. his personal life and love-life (as opposed to sex-life) in particular. Lot's of jumping around the time-line, flash-backs, characters from the past and long moments of reflection and, dare I say it, regret. We perhaps glimpse the more vulnerable side of our hero, emotion and redemption feature large in the narrative, it even has a big dollop of sacrifice at the end which I won't spoil. Anyway, well worth the nearly 3 hours and twenty quid invested and for those that follow the series I can say without doubt the next Bond is going to be very, very different indeed!

 

Friday Smirk

"Seriously, just give me your money" - could be the marketing slogan for most religious hucksters and related parasitic cults. The list of them is, unfortunately, long but the list of people, families and generations that have been ripped-off by them year after year all over the world is much, much longer. Sadly, protected by the veil of "religion", it's only these fake shamen who are smirking..

 

WFH

We seem to be in a weird transitionary phase at the moment, offices are open and yet people are still reluctant to work in them. At our firm we're about to instigate a policy of one fixed day per week when everyone is expected to be in plus one variable day (of choice) when people should be in and then the rest of the week people can either be in or work from home (WFH) so far (increasingly frustratingly) people are coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why they can't be in the office. It seems like it will take a while for confidence and habit to get back to some kind of normal. Makes planning anything f2f involving several people almost impossible, but worse than that, I read somewhere that one in four people are looking to move jobs before Christmas this year, that's an incredible number of people! I do wonder whether the "live where you like and tele-work" ideal has been somewhat oversold, it'll end in tears I reckon.

 

Taking back control

Oh dear, looks like UK PLC is finding it difficult to attract people from the EU (with much needed skills) to work here and help us out of our current logistics crisis. Just a thought, I wonder if this reluctance could be something to do with the fact that pay shit money and we've spent the last 5 years telling foreigners that the EU sucks and they're not welcome here? 

Probably got something to do with it, you'd think. 

What a bunch of plonkers we are..

Sunday Lunch

It was my birthday on Sunday so the whole family went out for a proper blow-out lunch at a pub on the outskirts of Farnham. We visited the same pub (pictured above) last bank-holiday for a swift pint after visiting my Mother nearby, and have been looking for an opportunity to re-visit ever since. The food was delicious, well cooked and of ample portions but the pub is renowned for it's varied selection of rare craft beer, hence my keenness to return. I had a particularly spectacular pint of "Phaedra" (pictured below) made by the Pomona Island Brewery up in Salford, it was showing really well, hazy, soft and so, so peachy a real treat at £8 for a pint (these craft beers are expensive!) Still, it was my birthday and I wasn't paying, so there!

Midweek Mirth

J&M this week pointing out the parochial nature of the Abrahamic faiths. Something victims of the various lethal flavours of religious persecution over the years and to this day have been all too familiar with..

 

To boldly go..

I see that Jeff Bezos is going to send Captain Kirk (William Shatner) into space on his New Shepard rocket; it's a nice gesture given the contribution to spacey things that Shatner has made however I can't help thinking that, what with the phallic form factor of the craft, there must be an opening for a suitably smutty "Captains Log" joke in there somewhere..

 

Bond Beers

So we went to the Cinema (for the first time in 18 months) to see the new Bond movie on Saturday afternoon, it was pretty good I must say. Loads of action and a suitably a dark villain with a ridiculous plot to exterminate millions, usual kind of thing! This time however (without spoiling it) the movie had a heavy payload of emotional dilemma and regret interwoven into it's main plot-line and a climactic ending leaving the franchise with a number of intriguing possible places to evolve into; the next one should be "different". And the beer? Well we saw the movie at the plush "Everyman" cinema chain where they bring proper craft beer (at extortionate prices) to your seat and serve it in proper glass stemware (not cheap plastic crap), I reckon if you're doing Bond then you should do it in style!

 

Londres

The view up the Thames from London Bridge yesterday; you can't beat this view when the early evening Sun is shining!

 

Nostalgia

Out walking yesterday and saw these little brown jewels lying in the grass by the side of the road (obviously beneath a Horse Chestnut tree), they look so damn collectable; must be because they're so shiny? If I were 8 years old my pockets would be stuffed full! 

Ah nostalgia, it ain't what it used to be.

 

Friday Smirk

J&M pointing out a common phenomenon among believers in that they think Atheists must be obsessed with their particular religion simply because many of us know enough to be able to argue coherently against it. Often these debates rest on points that the religious person either hasn't really thought about or are unable to deal with although are usually generic arguments of logic and reason that apply to almost all religions and other beliefs that rely on "faith" for their authority. As Hitch used to say, "all religions are wrong in the same way, in that they promote faith over reason and evidence".