Pizza school night

Went up to London on business this Thursday and stayed over in a hotel near Waterloo as I had another meeting near there early on Friday morning. The trains were a bit all over the shop after the strike on Wednesday and I also had the misfortune to be on a train that had to be held at Ascot station because a tree had fallen up the line. Luckily there was another train sitting at Ascot that went down an alternate line to Ash Vale where it's possible to pick up a reasonably fast service back into Waterloo, which is what I ended up doing. I got there in the end by hook and by crook albeit late! Coincidentaly, my daughter was also in London doing a week long history of art course at the Courtauld Institute so once I'd dropped my bags off at my lodgings, I met up with her and took her out for a drink and a meal! Sourdough pizzas and a bottle of Nero d'Avola (Italian red wine), slightly exuberant for a school night but what the heck, you only live once and we had fun!

 

Convenient Pit Stop

I managed to organise things such that I was able to attend the annual investors party that my local brewery Siren held on Friday afternoon; it was a lavish do, done on a large scale at Reading University Student Union (nice venue!). Lot's of people were there and copious amounts of free beer was available, which, I find, is always a bonus for any investor party as it helps distract people from missed targets and boring slideware about EBITDA..

Learnt a few new things about the company, one of the exciting announcements was that they are going to open a flagship taproom and restaurant in the centre of Reading! The new site will be in the forthcoming development right opposite the railway station, looks great, and should provide the town with a another much needed (decent) watering hole as well as a convenient pit stop for me on the way back from business meetings in London etc.

Siren launched 4 new beers at the event (Time Hops) but decided to do it at 7pm and unfortunately I had to scoot earlier than that in order to meet my Wife in town. Anyway, I'll just have to wait to try these new beers, although, I picked up a leaflet at the party that explains them and the motivation behind their production, intriguing stuff, I'll certainly be blogging about them at some point in the next few weeks.
 

Friday Smirk

My Son and I often engage in banter along the lines of me playing the stereotypical Father worried that his Son is spending time doing things that won't end in a profitable career (I'm not worried about that) It's fun to wind him up and him to practice his arguments back at me. At the moment he's studying Philosophy at St. Andrews University and so I sent him this little flow chart, if you're up with what's going on around that particular subject at the moment this makes sense, if not then it's probably totally meaningless, anyway, there we are!

 

Legacy language

I happened to be looking at some old (90's) word documents the other day and spotted an interesting spelling check/correction being offered by the latest version of that product with which I was reading the files. The phrase in the document had the words "I phone" in it, as in "when I phone my wife" and Word suggested that this be changed to "iPhone"... progress?

Midweek Mirth

Yep, that little contradiction hadn't passed us by either.. (#generalelectionnow)

 

Revolutions

Here's an interesting graph (for beer geeks!) it show the volume or usage of bittering hops (blue) vs. flavouring hops (red) used in beer manufacture over the last few decades. What it illustrates is a huge shift in global attitudes towards this iconic product, a shift from older styles and traditions to newer more flavour forward styles and experimentation, moves not seen since the nineteenth century. We've moved from a world that primarily saw hops as a way of adding bitternes to beer (along with preservative qualities) to one that now sees the vast variety of examples around the world of this plant as a flavour reservoir that enables them to impart a myriad of aromas and tastes to a base product.

It's an exciting time to be interested in this industry, there has been (and continues to be) a revolution going on that's only just starting to hit the mainstream. New companies are being formed at unpreceedented rates and serious money is being made (and lost) and attitudes are slowly shifting. Fortunately most of the (good) newcommers are resisting the urge to aggregate into larger corporations and lose their disruptive edges, this is a pressure that will become ever more intense as time goes on an the original innovators reach a level of fatigue and an age when the proverbial "sell out" becomes overwhelmingly attractive, but I think we're a way off that point just now, which is good news for consumers. 

Most large scale industries go through cycles of innovation, disruption, expansion and consolidation especially those that are ancient, like food and drink manufacture! It's great that we're currently in a period of expansion and disruption in this particular industry, for me, those are the most exiting and profitable times to be consumers and investors.

 

Parlez vous French?

I think it's reasonable to believe that from time to time it's good to take a look at what other countries think about your own, in the immortal words of some ancient Chinese bloke, keep your friends close but your enemies closer etc. Anyway, here's a picture of a French newspaper headline, now, if only the fans of Brexit (including our Premiers in waiting) could find someone who can understand French...

 

How far?

I remember watching this scene back in the Summer of 2012 with my Wife and kids, we were away for a week in Devon sitting around a tiny little screen in the lounge/kitchen of a holiday cottage near Colyton. The kids were young and full of excitement and the whole evening was brilliant, a real high point and pure joy. The overwhelming feeling I had was of optimism, progress and contentment. I thought we (I mean the UK) were in a really good place, successful, outward looking, progressive and optimistic and I felt good about our lot. Of course, that may just have been a reflection of my personal circumstances but, since then, I have spoken with many other people/families who also express similar things about that time. 

When I reflect on where we are now I can't help but feel we have fallen from this high point, our country is struggling, we're no longer successful, we're inward looking and divided and our Government doesn't seem to have a clue about how to fix it, in fact worse than that, the optimism seems to have been slowly and painfully sucked from most of us over these ten years. We look at our leaders now and simply shrug our shoulders when they lie and cheat, our continent is once again embroiled in a pointless and bloody war and our economic situation is looking more and more like a train wreck. My overriding feeling, and that of many media commentators, is that we're on a generally downward trajectory at the moment and that it's going to get worse before it gets better, the key question is how far will we fall?

 

Vanishing visionaries

I didn't watch the (so called) debate on TV last night, I really couldn't be bothered. I suppose I should be more interested in who's going to be our next Prime Minister but to be honest I can't stand the sight of any of them and haven't really seriously listened to any politician since about 2016. Personally, I'm not in favour of a Conservative leadership competition, I would much prefer a general election, it seems clear to me that this current political party has run it's course, it's time for some disruption, some new blood! You could say that the Tories have been in power for far too long having had far too ineffective an opposition over that period, and I think there's much evidence to support this view! For me I simply don't see anyone in that place with any inkling of a scintilla of innovation, it's not so much about party politics it's more about where have all the visionaries gone?

 

#Cryo

Tried a new beer over the weekend a collaboration between my local brewer Siren and the Wild Beer Co (Somerset) I've encountered the WBC before, it was last year while having a week off in Wells with my family, one of my favourite beers of the trip was their "Wild IPA" which was superb. Anyway, this one is good too, a West Coast style (slightly bitter, sweet, grapefruit etc.) called "Cryo The Coast", I assume that Cryo refers to the way in which the hops were processed that were added to this beer, it's a way of concentrating the hop aromatics and oils (using liquid Nitrogen) into a pellet (rather than whole flowers) so you can essentially use less of them to get the same amount of flavour thereby increasing yields and reducing hop matter in the final beer, which has to be removed before packaging etc. It was a nice beer, not quite as good as the Wild IPA IMO but still solid.

 

Monday dilemma's

Saw this little challenge on the interwebs the other day and it's a nasty one. The game is that you can only keep three (British) bands (warning, it's impossible and causes unnecessary angst!) OK, Floyd, Led Zep and the Genesis, but I'm not happy about it..

 

Abstract Teenagers

 

My 18 year old Daughter was in Portugal last week on a "girls holiday" with some of her mates. Much anxiety here at family HQ as it was the first time she's been away under her own steam! Anyway, all seemed to go OK, no distress calls from Faro or lost passports etc. There were only two minor issues that needed further discussion on her return, firstly the tattoo that appeared (not a fan of tattoos) I guess it's de rigeur for teens these days (until it isn't etc.) and it wasn't a significantly noticeable one, so no biggie. Second was the holiday "gift" (pictured above), I have no idea what it's supposed to be other than a money box (it has a slot in the top) It must be some Portuguese cartoon character or something and what on earth is it holding? Anyway, I guess we can put it down to some kind of abstract figure, much like the tattoo, it's more about perception than reality.

Into the light

Out for my daily walk on Friday and noticed a distinct dividing line in the sky, so much so that I had to take a snap of it! I'm looking West here and it's definitely brighter over there and positively drizzly over here! A case of go West young man, as they say!

 

Stowe

A typical Vermont scene (in Summer), green as far as the eye can see dotted with little towns, white church spires and winding rivers, delightful. While away this year we stopped for a couple of days in Stowe, a Northern Vermont town famous for being a rather posh ski resort in the Winter. It's all still open in the Summer of course when the skiers are replaced by hikers and mountain bikers, and, a few foreign beer geeks looking for authentic New England brews! Stowe and the surrounding area is home to a couple of well known breweries but probably most renown is The Alchemist, based in Stowe itself this producer has grown almost entirely on the back of one beer, Heady Topper. One of the first massively hopped New England style IPA's Heady Topper is a true icon of the modern craft scene and while there I simply had  to pay a visit.

The makers of this splendid ale recommend that punters drink it straight from the can, no messing around with fancy glassware, just inhale those wonderful dank piney aromas and sample those exquisitely balanced malts and yeast flavours unadulterated by oxygen in the air. It's a truly great brew and a real treat to sample it straight from source only a few days in the can!

Here's a view across lake Chaplain to the mountains beyond, a beautiful place, although I can't help thinking those original settlers should have called it "New Lake District" rather than "New England", the similarities would seem far more appropriate!

 

Progress

This is a photo of the cockpit of the first plane to cross the Atlantic ocean (solo & city to city). The Spirit of St. Louis flew from Long Island, New York to Paris in 1927 an amazing feat at the time and something that lead the way for a revolution in our perception of our planet and a whole roadmap of technology that would eventually become commonplace. There are lots of things to note about this photo for example the lack of instrumentation, a periscope instead of a front window, the wicker chair! But, the important thing is that despite the lack of sophistication this machine still achieved something that had but only a few years previously been thought impossible. 

I can't but compare this simple device with the current crop of aircraft that so frequently cross that same stretch of ocean today. I myself crossed the Atlantic recently, from London to Boston (and back) and did so in a machine ten times longer, eight times higher, many thousands of time heavier than this original device. All while carrying over 400 people and their luggage! We crossed over in only five and a half hours (thanks to a charitable jet stream) roughly five times quicker (it originally took Lindbergh 34 hours). All this improvement has taken place in an amazingly short period of time, the first crossing happened only 95 years ago (one generous lifetime), nothing on a geological scale and yet so impactful on a Human one.

The geek's lot..

Pretty much sums up every conversation I ever had with my parents about the technology industry that I've dedicated my forty year career to or the multi-million pound business that I've created over the last dozen years, still, I'm not bitter, the scarfs have been exceptional ;) ..

 

You had one job..

If this doesn't make you laugh nothing will, a classic example of "you only had one job!"

Brexit dividend

I see that Dover is in chaos today (and likely over the weekend) Queue times to cross into France are around 6-7 hours! Apparently French customs officials didn't turn up for work (a likely story!) But, even if that's true then if this is all it takes to bring one of the busiest borders in Europe to its knees then more fool us! If only there was an overarching community of nations with shared interests, that all contribute and collaborate to remove internal customs barriers to which we could subscribe then, perhaps, we could all enjoy freedom of movement in Europe.. 

again...

Friday Smirk

The older I get the more I realise that all religions exploit the same loophole in communication protocols i.e. that Human language (as it evolves over time) is the most imprecise, ambiguous and plastic way of communication that exists (by design!). Now, if a single creator of the universe actually exists (unlikely!) and had used a formalized syntax with a concrete grammar to identify and communicate with us, then, I might take their particular so called "holy books" a little more seriously, but even then it wouldn't, a priori, mean that they were true! The fact is that thousands of years after their conception, in terms of veracity, most religions still have all their work still ahead of them.

Drop of a hat

Good to see his Dementor's robe ironed and ready to go at the drop of a hat!

 

Midweek Mirth

Have you noticed that in most companies (or Governments) it's often the biggest dickheads that seem to get the most attention (and usually get paid the most too!)..

 

They're gonna kill us all..

A recent poll of Conservative members shows (ranked) the things that they care about most in the context of the upcoming vote to elect a new party leader and de facto Prime Minister, no doubt all of these things are important issues but none of them matter a jot if our species doesn't have a habitable planet to live on! Why the feck isn't our most pressing existential issue, i.e. climate change and biodiversity in this list somewhere? 

I refer honorable readers to my previous post.

 

Life imitating art..

We all remember this film right? A quirky little movie that was an enjoyable little sci-fi romp called "Don't Look Up", with an interesting (and unusual) twist. Anyway, take a look at the exchange below from last week and tell me this isn't an example of life imitating art..

Records

So we finally made it! A record 40+ degrees Centigrade recorded at Heathrow today! It would have been so disappointing to miss this important milestone after all the hype in the media about it over the last couple of days, perhaps the climate change deniers will think twice now (doubt it!). I did go for a walk at lunchtime today and it was pretty hot, probably not quite 40 but close enough to curtail my distance from the usual 8 km down to only 5, luckily my office has air conditioning and chilled water dispensers so recovery was swift but I can imagine people having to work outside at the moment must be having a rough time!

 

Foaming brews

When in the USA last week we visited Lake Champlain which straddles the boarders between the states of Vermont and New York to the East and West and Canada to the North. The largest place in those parts is a small city called Burlington and that's where we landed. Now, Burlington is home to one of the best craft breweries in the US and somewhere I'd been keen to visit for a while now. Called "Foam Brewers" (as per the sign on the door above!), it's a funky little place, set in a nice colonial style building it's very arts and crafts (Wife friendly) and the beer was splendid too. 

The tap room was full of pieces of art, paintings and sculptures (see picture above) and the view from the deck over the lake provided a superb sunset framed backdrop to the New York State mountains across the water, a fine place to sit of an evening and mull over the meaning of life with good company and a fine looking foamy brew in front of you (especially after a 15k cycle ride along the lake shore cycle path!).

Most of their beers were in the hazy, modern IPA/Pale Ale style (which was fine by me) as seen on the left of this shot, but my Wife isn't too keen on the massively hoppy taste of these kinds of beers. However, they also had a couple of fruited sour beers on tap too (right hand side), they were perfect, light, crisp and fruity very quaffable in the warm evening sunshine, bit like a Margarita but at only 4% ABV obviously without the high alcohol hit!

E's are good..

One of my mates popped round on Saturday evening and, as promised a while ago, he took me for a spin in his new car, looks great dunnit! It drove really well too albeit a little bit like sitting at the back of a canal boat (man that bonnet looks huge!) A 60's design icon rebuilt and updated with all mod-cons, even air conditioning, not that we needed it with the top down!

 

Scale

The magnitude of difference between a million and a billion is not that intuitive, but it can be illustrated with this simple example of the time scale:

• A million seconds is 12 days.
• A billion seconds is 31 years.
• A trillion seconds is 31,688 years

It's a useful example to use when debating with fundamentalists on the topic of evolution especially when they make the claim that there hasn't been enough time since the big bang for evolution to occur. This objection often comes from a lack of awareness on their part of just how big these numbers are i.e. the universe has been around for 13.7 billion years, that's even longer than the time it takes to get to make an appointment with an NHS GP!

C-Food

Found this little joint for food one night, a scruffy and "temporary" looking place overlooking Boston harbour (of tea-party fame) it had a wonderful array of seafood on offer, lobster, crab, squid etc. and quite possibly the best fish and chips I've ever had! Which has to be some kind of blasphemy coming from someone who hails from the country most famous for that particular culinary delight.

The beers were pretty good too (see above) an ice cold pint of Fiddlehead IPA, brewed in Vermont, it provides everything one needs from a beverage loaded up with dank "C-hops" (Citra, Cascade, Chinook, Centennial etc.) on a warm evening while munching on a pile of chips (or should that be "fries") as salty as the Atlantic ocean. You could say C-hops going down well with C-food!

Old and New

Love the juxta position of old vs. new in Boston, much like London the old churches are overshadowed by towers of steel and glass. This particular church hosts the "Granary Burying Ground" one of the old graveyards of the city where you can find many of the final resting places of revolutionary big hitters like Paul Revere and a few of the original signatories of the declaration of independence like Samuel Adams. It's a spooky place, quite plain (unlike Highgate in London) but you can sense the historical importance of the site by the hushed silence that everyone adopts upon entry via the ornate iron gates.

Here's the rather plain headstone belonging to Samuel Adams, as you can see they didn't go in for too much pomp or ornamentation in those times!

After visiting some of the historical sites of our host city we dropped into the aptly named "Democracy Brewing" tap room and sampled a tasting paddle of their current beers, not quite revolutionary but not bad at all..

From left to right we have "Suffragette" (a Belgian Wit), "Miranda" (a fruited sour), "Consummate Rioter" (a session IPA) and "Rebel Rouser" (a double IPA) a decent range of different styles, like the architecture, some old and some new, all good.

Independence

 

Boston, USA, the morning of the 4th of July in front of the old State House from where the British (note the lion and the unicorn) used to rule over their colonial cousins. Nowadays the good burgers of Boston read out the declaration of independence every year, on that venerable day, from the balcony that it was originally read from in 1776. I've never heard it in full before, I must admit it's a bit boring, mainly a long winded whine about being oppressed and having to bide by rules that they didn't agree with (nothing new there!) but there are little sentences here and there that you can see must have been inspiring, even revolutionary!

Leaving on a jet-plane

Been away with the family for a couple of weeks; we went to Boston for five days and then toured around New England, Vermont mainly, it was lush! Flew out on Sunday 3rd July from LHR (quieter) from T5 and I was expecting the usual wide bodied jet like a 777 or similar, but we got an Airbus A380! An amazing plane, absolutely vast with spiral staircases at either end! It was an uneventful 7 hour flight over the pond and we arrived into Logan airport in the early afternoon, just enough time to check into our hotel and have a little wander around in the sunshine to stave off the jet lag. It was early enough that I managed to nab a cheeky pint of Trillium beer from their tap room, which was only a few hundred yards from our hotel, after a long day of travelling it didn't touch the sides!

As you can see these guys specialize in ultra hoppy "murk bombs", the one pictured above was called "Little Rooster" and featured Galaxy and Nelson hops, a master class in balance and flavour! It was delicious and lasted about 90 seconds in the 28 Celsius heat of the late afternoon sun.

Tap Takeover

My local craft beer bar in town had a tap takeover this weekend by Full Circle Brew Co. Newcastle brewery Full Circle is fairly new on the scene having only been established in 2019 but is already ranked as one of the top newcomers in the country, I tried a couple of their brews on Friday night (the one pictured above was called "Looper") and both were pretty decent I must say! On show were most of their hoppy, hazy pale ales, a sour and a stout so I opted for the usual American hop infused haze bombs (which are my favourite ATM) it was good stuff, clean, crisp and tasty. I really must find some time to have a little excursion up North sometime, there are definitely some great new (modern) ales being made up there at the moment!

 

When you Row out into unknown waters you never know if you can Wade back to shore..

 

People say that Women will die because of the overturning of Row vs. Wade by the Supreme Court in the USA, this is true but probably not because of what you think. On the whole, self managed medication abortions are safe (not always) and effective however Women will die because,

• They will bleed out after an ectopic pregnancy ruptures.
• They will die from sepsis because of an incomplete miscarriage.
• They will die by suicide because they don’t see another way out
• They will be killed by their partners.
• They will die from cancer because the treatment that would save their life would harm the fetus.

Which ever way you look at this it's not rationality and reason driving this decision, it's an argument from authority and (blind) faith, the Christian right is imposing it's (unfalsifiable) beliefs on everyone, we need to be clear about that and stand up for the idea of freedom of conscience. We need to be guided by 21st century ethics informed by evidence and experience, not hypocritical adherence to parochial and arbitrary rules made up by Bronze age goat herders!

Friday Smirk

 “..and because the office was so hot, I undid the zip on my trousers. It was at this point that Carrie tripped and fell on my lap, her mouth open wide in astonishment…”