Monday Mirth

A spectacular piece of street art (in Aberdeen), what does it mean though? I reckon it represents all those people who voted for Brexit, i.e. they'll fall for anything.

Sunday Smile

Always love a good Larson..

Made it..

Spent the night in London on Thursday, managed to visit one of my checklist of  "must visit" pubs, The Lyric in Soho (see picture above). It's a proper London "stand-up" pub meaning there's not many seats and most people stand up (or stand outside) The selection of beers is very good, I opted for a couple of Siren brews (ironic since Siren is the local brewery to where I live in Berkshire) but they were perfectly on point, a decent boozer but loud and "standupy", don't say you weren't warned..

Friday Smirk

 Jesus and Mo discussing relativity in religiously inspired crimes, nice work if you can get it..

Load of Bull

Isn't it wierd what happens to Bull Rushes at this time of year, they seem to sprout "wool" that blows all over the place making it look like some sheep massacre has taken place!

Miami Vice - Part 3

 

One of the nice things about Florida and the USA generally (obviously apart from the Nazi politics these days) is the very large population of craft beer breweries, most reasonably sized towns and cities have at least one (Miami has around 15) and most of the bars and restaurants have a decent selection of interesting brews to choose from. The only exception to this is at the bottom end of the spectrum and the very top, cheaper, street food kind of places usually only had mainstream stuff and Michelin Starred places don't really "do beer" catering more for the wine and spirits crowd. Anyway, Kaledidoscope Brewery in Naples have a little tap room and is well worth a visit, I only had a couple of brews, one in an East coast style and the other a West coast example, but both were very good.

Naples is a funny old place, I felt is was like some kind of weird urban oasis where American millionares go to die. The streets are perfectly manicured, beautiful flower beds everywhere, huge houses, posh restaurants and supercars everywhere. It was pleasant enough but a little souless for us, we moved on after a couple of nights and headed North again towards Tampa bay and our next destination St. Pete's.

With so many rich, old white guys kicking around Naples there was a distinct "pro-trump" vibe to the place, I snapped this picture of one of the posh houses by the beach, says it all really..

More in part 4 as we head up to St. Pete's and Tampa..

Sandhi Chardonnay

Had one of these in a restaurant in Miami whilst on holiday there recently, it's from the Santa Rita Hills wine region of California which is essentially a part of the vast Santa Ynez valley, this valley is uniquely positioned along an East-West axis so that cooling air and fog comes in from the Pacific making it ideal for growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. I visited the area back in 2014 while on a family trip to Santa Barbara and Yosemite and we stopped off at a couple of wineries to sample the fine wines available there. 

This one was from producer Sandhi (not even their best) and was terrific, stunning attack on the palate, upfront fruit flavours with a glorious smooth finish and balance, a world-class wine and compared to equivalent quality offerings from Burgundy, France pretty cheap in comparison. It's probably tricky to get hold of in the UK but I must seek some out, really memorable and the best white wine of the trip by a long chalk..

Miami Vice - Part 2

Following a few days in Miami we headed South along Highway 1 down to the Florida Keys (the picture above was taken at the mile marker at the very start of that road!). The keys are a chain of islands or archipelago that extend from the bottom of the Florida peninsula over a hundred miles into the sea towards Cuba. We decided that we should stay in the iconic Key West which is the furthest inhabited island in the chain from mainland USA, hence mile marker 0. After a rather warm and multi-hour drive we arrived into Key West and checked into our hotel, we quickly unpacked and headed out into the warm evening to explore.

Key West felt to me a bit like a rather scruffy English seaside town, albeit with rather more colourful buildings and obviously tropical weather. The photo above shows an old cinema, now converted into a store but the rather gaudy feel of the building could have easily placed it in Blackpool or Southend. Many of the larger buildings had ground and first floor verandas and reminded me of some of the historic buildings in New Orleans. One such building we visited (see below) was the home of famous author Ernest Hemmingway who lived in Key West between 1931 and 1939 seemingly dividing his time between authoring the novel "A Farewell to Arms", big game fishing and drinking to excess, it was clear he was a bit of a lad!

There are many quirky curiosities on Key West, the place is overrun with wild chickens and the Hemmingway house is overrun with cats, many of whom are polyactyl, meaning they have six toes. Apparently after a heavy drinking/gambling session in "Sloppy Joes" bar Hemmingway was given a white six toed cat by a sea captain, he kept it, and many of the 50 or so cats that now live in the grounds of his old house are descendents of that original feline. I didn't get a picture of a six toed cat, they were quite flighty, but I did manage to snap a cockrel running around on one of the streets and rather splendid he was too!

After a few days on Key West we headed back up North. On the journey we stopped at a Turtle Hospital in Marathon Key and were treated to a really interesting tour around the facility, I never knew turtles could suffer from so many complex "boat injuries" and diseases that need treatment, it was a great little place staffed by very dedicated carers, quite inspirational. Eventually we arrived back onto the mainland and headed up the highway across the Everglades, affectionately known as "Gator Alley" towards Naples, our next destination. 

We were sad to leave the Keys and having been a little unsure about Key West to begin with it certainly grew on us, a truely unique place that even though very touristy has great charm. The picture below shows the old pier at the most Southerly tip of the USA, a great spot to watch the Sun go down and only 90 miles to Cuba!

More in part 3 as we head North..

Appropriate

Seems appropriate at this time of the year in the UK..

Friday Smirk

Jesus and Mo pointing out the nature of a lot of religions, they're a kind of "do as I say but not as I do" kind of deal, it's almost like they were invented solely as a mechanism to control other people...

Miami Vice - Part 1

 

We spent the last couple of weeks in Florida in a desparate bid to escape the gloomy weather in the UK, flying into Miami the photo above shows the view from our hotel room when we arrived, pretty decent! The mission was to soak up some tropical heat and to see some bits of Florida that we hadn't seen before. Like a lot of people we did the whole Disney, theme park thing ten years ago when our kids were young but we never really got to see the other interesting parts of the state, now that we're "empty nesters" (and my Wife officially retired at the end of February - yay!) we decided that the time was ripe to rectify that.

Miami is a very big city, I hadn't quite appreciated how large it actually was, lot's of different districts each with a fairly distinct character, and like most big cities some areas were a lot more seedy than others! Our lodgings were in the Brickall district which is probably best described as the posh business area next to downtown proper, much like the City of London sits adjacent to the West End etc. It was a good spot to stay as it's pretty central and there are tons of shops, restaurants and entertainments right there. Downtown Miami seemed a little lack-lustre in comparison, fairly run-down and scruffy but not lacking in charm, we had a good look around. Walking a lot we visited the main museums, some local craft breweries and the more touristy bay-front markets, fortunately the weather was glorious, warm and dry without the crushing humidity that Florida gets later in the year. 

(picture above is from the downtown taproom of Biscayne Bay Brewery, I know it looks like OJ but I promise you, it's beer!)

We even spotted one of these monstrous Tesla truck thingys in the wild (above), a hideous "lego-like" thing, no class or design finesse whatsoever, a completely blunt instrument. Even though we had a hire car, one of the days we decided to take the "Brightline" train up to Fort Lauderdale and from there take a boat trip around the "canals" to see the posh waterfront houses. We were quite pleased with ourselves as we booked tickets and hiked over to the main station and hopped on the train up to FL, it was very well run, clean and on time, and we thought trains in the USA were rubbish? Anyway after an enjoyable day up the coast we recamped back to Miami and had a couple of delicious craft beers at the Biscayne Bay taproom, which is close to the station.

Having done all of the recommended "Miami things" during our 5 day stay there we jumped into a hire car and headed South to the Keys aiming to get to the furthest Southerly point of the USA, Key West, more on that in a later post.

Friday Smirk

J&M on the money as usual, the circular reasoning is strong with these two...

Memory Lane

Siren seem to be taking a trip down memory lane at the moment and re-brewing several of their old favourites. Here's another one, "Origin Story" an inky black Imperial Stout made with a crazy number of different malts and as smooth as a proverbial baby's bottom! Fortunately doesn't taste or smell like one though, expect roasted malts, coffee, chocolate, brown sugar and a silky smooth mouthfeel. First tried back in 2022 in mid-Summer, delicious stuff!

Rivington

I had one of these the other weekend, it's a collaboration between local brewery Siran and Rivington who are based up in Lancashire. It's a hazy IPA/DIPA brewed with American & NZ hops, its lush, approaching Verdant levels of murk, a distinct taste profile from the Nelson, fruit forward and very easy to drink. I must seek out some more Rivington beers, if this one is representative then they're most definitely worth a look.

Ooo-er Missus

In the roof gutter of one of the old buildings in my town I noticed a rather unusual object, perhaps a plumber left his pink plunger up there, who knows, I was going to point this out to the people in the building but didn't want to be a dick about it..

Shiver me timbers

Some very clear nights and freezing cold mornings this week, I snapped the picture above on an earlier walk, you see a lot of this kind of thing at this time of year..

Friday Smirk

Jesus and Mo, the religious pot calling the woke kettle black..

 

EMM revisited

Had one of these at the weekend, it's an old favourite from around 5 years ago which has been re-brewed and was released last week. It's a West Coast IPA made as a collaboration between my local craft brewers Siren and Green Cheek a California based firm. It's delicious, made with Mosaic, Citra and Simcore (the holy trinity of US hops) it's crisp, fruity and dank with a morish bitterness, very nice indeed!

Midweek Mirth

 I do worry sometimes that "mental health" issues are becoming like modern day "fashion statements"..

SRM

I was in the Nags Head a couple of weekends ago and had a pint of DEYA "Steady Rolling Man" on cask (see above) It was glorious! Usually this beer is served from a Keg, i.e. artificially carbonated and under pressure but having it from cask where it's naturally carbonated and pumped manually opens up a whole new world of flavour. Don't get me wrong, the keg version is pretty damn fine but this one is like a different beer altogether, the flavours seem deeper, the beer is much smoother and I would argue much easier to drink (which is probably a dangerous thing as it's around 5% ABV) It's good to see some of the leading craft ales available on cask, a welcome change for us (usual) keg-heads.

Henley Sunday

Lovely Sunday afternoon for a walk in the Spring sunshine yesterday. We ended up taking a stroll around Henley On-Thames, the river was running high and fast but the blue skys and sun were very welcome after a prolonged period of rain and drab greyness here in the UK. I think everyone had the same idea as us as the town was really busy, still, nice to see people out and about for a change.

New York Stories

A colourised picture from the 1950's showing how important passenger liners were back in the day for long haul travel, before the days of airlines the only way to get across the pond was on one of these beauties, an amazing snapshot in time.