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!

Madeira - Rematch

Just got back from a relaxing week in Madeira (see above) we went here last year in May and enjoyed it so much that we decided that we must return! This time I took my Mother with us as a late treat for her 80th birthday last year, she's into gardens and gardening and so this was like a paradise for her, warm but not hot with flowers and interesting plants springing from every nook and cranny. The picture above was taken from a lookout spot at the top of a very tall sea cliff on the South side of the island, the cliffs are among the tallest in Europe and there's a glass floor to an overhanging viewing platform which is perched 580 meters (1900 ft) above the Atlantic ocean, not somewhere you'd want to be if you are in anyway afraid of heights! Below is the view looking down at my feet..

Heat Wave White

We cracked open one of my new bottles of Verget Saint-Veran Lieu (Inter)dit last weekend, it was delicious, great balance, white fruits, creamy and long, the perfect garden wine for the heat wave we've been having in the UK this last week or two.

Friday Smirk

I bet not many people can remember the "Danish Cartoon" incident back in 2005 but it was a massive red flag warning to the "West" about what was to come from Islamist extremists (and many other kinds of extremists) 

It's relatively easy to whip up a frenzy of "offence" and then to target that toward violence when people are largely ignorant (i.e. uneducated) and feeling oppressed, we see this kind of thing all over the place nowadays! Isn't it ironic that since 2005 the "violent mob" strategy, from frothing (Islamic) flag burners to gun toting (Christian) abortion clinic botherers, seems to be just the default way politics gets done these days.

Virtual Queuing

Hanging out in London Bridge/Borough the other weekend and for lunch we popped into one of my favourite little restaurants there, Padella. It's a pasta joint really and makes all of their own onsite (you can watch them doing it) so you know it's fresh! You can't reserve a table here and the queue is usually long, the best way to secure a place is to go into their "virtual queue" online and grab a time slot, it's a little rough and ready but usually works out ok. The turnover here is fast and the whole experience is designed to be in and out, which when you're having a quick lunch or going to the theatre is perfect! The menu doesn't change much, which in some ways is good since you find your favourite and stick with it, I usually go for the beef shin ragu but can sometimes be tempted by the Dorset crab Tagliarini, a glass of Chianti or a beer from Bristol maestros Wiper and True goes down a treat with a solid plate of pasta, recommended! 

Flat White Aliens

We were having a coffee in Gails in Windsor the other week and I noticed a little plaque on the wall (see picture above) Apparently HG Wells the famous Science Fiction author used to work in the same building, obvious not serving up Flat Whites, but as a draper's apprentice in 1880! It's quite a leap from drapers apprentice to science fiction writing, I wonder what inspired him to do that? It's amazing the amount of history that surrounds us every day on our little island!

Midweek Mirth

Feels like England

While in London the other weekend we popped into Southwark Cathedral, I've walked past this building a hundred times but had never been in! It was an impressive building, and while we were walking around the choir were practising, delightful! You can understand why religious types among us get all warm and fuzzy in these buildings, after all, they were designed (by people) to invoke exactly that feeling. There were quite a few famous tombs and memorials inside the building (and a couple outside) here are a few,

• John Gower has a tomb inside the building, he was a poet and mates with Chaucer!
• William Shakespeare - not buried here but spent time in the building, there's a memorial
• John Harvard - founder of Harvard University, again, spent time here but no tomb
• Charles Dickens - some of his stories are based around Southwark, he used to live there.
• Mahomet Weyonomon - an American Indian chief (Mohegans) who came to London in 1735 to petition the king, unfortunately he died of smallpox before he could do that but his tomb is in the grounds.

Here's the bell tower with flag flying and a blue sky (for a change!) the bells are particularly impressive and echo around the whole area on Sunday morning, feels like England!

Instant Hit

A true Verdant classic, sampled three or four weeks ago. Bloom (along with Pulp) is one of the first Verdant beers I ever tried, probably around 2016 (brewery was founded in 2014). Back then they were operating out of a shipping container at the back of an industrial estate in Penryn nr. Falmouth, Cornwall, it was a revelation at the time as very few people in the UK were making this style of hazy hop-forward beer (aka New England IPA) They were an instant hit with me and I've been a big fan ever since. I'm going down to Falmouth later this Summer and hope to sample many more examples both old and new, long live Verdant!

Progress

Looks like HS2 is going the way of many of our large capital projects, i.e. down the toilet. I won't be be holding my breath at the prospect of getting to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker than I can right now...

Tech Trap

Competence can be a curse sometimes, especially in the technology field! The problem is that it's so pervasive and yet hopelessly under supported in schools, workplaces and generally among most people, i.e. most people don't have a clue how most stuff works anymore. I alway used to find it surprising how many people took great delight in professing their ignorance of technology, as if it were some kind of badge of honour, is it any wonder that there's an AI bubble in the stock markets and social media is slowly re-programming our youth?

Friday Smirk

The boys contemplating the fact that sometimes our criticisms of others fall a little too close to home..

Weekend Wines

While in London last weekend I treated my Daughter to a slap up meal at Noble Rot in Bloomsbury (Lambs Conduit St) we were kind of celebrating her completion of a Law conversion course that she's been doing over the last 9 months, her last exam was last Thursday so she was ready to let her hair down a bit! 

We had a really nice long chat and catch up (she has a new boyfriend she was keen to tell me about!) We also had some great food and wine too, classic French bistro style dishes and a bottle from the Maconnais region of Burgundy from one of my favourite producers Verget (more on them here) It was a great wine, crisp green fruits, buttery, nutty, smooth and a nice clean finish, it went down a treat with the splendid pork chop that I ordered. This wine was the old vine (vieilles vignes) version of the appellation, and at only a 2X markup was pretty good VFM for a London restaurant, well done Noble Rot!

Interestingly I noticed that Verget seems to be using screw tops on many of their wines these days, makes complete sense, these aren't wines that need to be aged hugely, a few years at the most and are intended to be drunk fresh and young (compared to other Burgundies) and so the screw cap is probably a superior closure. If this example was typical of the final product then I thoroughly approve!

Very Sensible

Had one of these a couple of weekends ago, it's a new beer from Elusive with some crazy new fangled hops from NZ, very tasty I must say and I like the way Elusive targets a lot of their ales these days between 4 and 5% ABV, all very sensible!

King Kernel

As I was in London last weekend I took the opportunity to pop into the Kernel Taproom in Bermondsey. I always enjoy going over there, it's a bit of a walk but well worth it for the choice on offer. I snapped a picture of the menu for that day (Friday), it's unlikely that you'd find more variety at such high quality levels anywhere else in the country, let alone London, even before you start poking around in their awesome bottle stash! I opted for 2/3rd's of the Simcoe Pale Ale and delicious it was, like so many of the Kernel beers totally balanced and with flavour oozing out of every sip, I could have stayed for several more but had a dinner date with my Daughter in town, maybe next time!

London Stories

I was in London this weekend and finding myself at a loose end I went for a little walk around Southwark. I came across this wall mural in Coin Street, it's a nice image of Anthony Bourdain, food writer and broadcaster (now dead) an interesting tribute to the man, not sure why it's where it is though (clearly some Googling required!), not exactly a prominent street..

Weekend Wink

Nice one from Matt in the Telegraph

Dream dinner parties..

Who are your dream dinner party guests? It's a question often asked at, you guessed it, dinner parties! The choices aren't normally restricted so you can choose anyone alive or dead, it's a bit of a cliche but interesting (in good company), it tells you quite a lot about the person answering and what interests them. For example if the people chosen are all sports heros or perhaps if they are authority figures (like HRH) , famous authors or even famous scientists, some people go broad and some go niche, its something that's hard to predict, hence the amusement I suppose. 

Personally I wouldn't choose anyone in the picture above, for me it would be more about the quality of the conversation and/or debate (and a decent plonk of course!) Maybe people like Bertrand Russell and Christopher Hitchens on philosophy, Newton and Maxwell on science, and for historical colour, Marcus Aurelius and Alexander TG, but of course this list changes on a regular basis, usually every time the question is raised! 

One of the best (modern) jokes on this subject that I've seen recently is someone being asked this question in an interview, and his reply was a gem, he said, "Nigel Farage" followed by a pause and then the word "dead", a sign of the time perhaps.

Friday Smirk

The lad's discussing how religions (particularly Islam) are divisive, that they certainly are, they wouldn't have any power over people if they weren't.

Can't argue with new life

I had a nice surprise today, on my daily walk I noticed a couple of fluffy little additions to the life of the pond that I stroll by most days. Two young Moorhens were running around in the grass at the edge of the water being closely monitored by a parent! A sign of new life, hopefully these little critters will do well. I did think that "my pond" was looking rather poorly this year, overgrown and slightly stinky, but I guess I was wrong, at least the Moorhens think so and I can't argue with them!

Chilly welcome

While out walking today I saw my first Swift of the year. These little birds migrate all the way from down in Africa, covering some 6,000 miles each way, an amazing feat of navigation and endurance. I bet the little bird I saw today was wishing he'd stayed in Africa, it feels very chilly here in the UK at the moment as we're in a pocket of arctic air that's sweeping down from the frozen north with gusty winds, rain and thunder, hopefully it'll warm up a bit for the little fella soon!

Forbidden excitement

A box of wine (bottles!) arrived yesterday morning, it's a case of 12 bottles of white wine from France (via a London merchant) and one of my favourite producers in the Maconnais called "Verget". This particular wine, one of many different types and regions that Verget work in, is called "Saint Veran Lieu (Inter)dit", in French the word "Interdit" means forbidden and this wine has that label because it comes from a place (or "Lieu" in French) called Cote Rotie (or "Roasted Slope" in English) in Saint Veran. 

Now Cote Rotie is also the name of a very famous area in the Northern Rhone (not Burgundy) famous for making brooding reds from the Syrah grape rather than floral and mineral whites from Chardonnay, and the producers in Saint Veran aren't allowed to use that name in case there's a mix up between the two regions, hence "forbidden". Anyway, it's a nice little story and the wine is probably one of the best examples from this appellation, mid-priced (around £20 a bottle) but boy is it good, it also disappears from the merchants pretty quickly whenever a batch is released, can't wait to try it! (I will report back)

Bearwood

We found ourselves driving around our locale on Saturday afternoon (after visiting a garden centre) and decided to pop into a brand new craft brewery/taproom on the outskirts of our home town. Called "Bearwood Brewing" it's named after an area to the West of the town called "Bear Wood" where there used to be a big old public school belonging to the Royal Merchant Navy that had lush grounds and even a large lake, but which closed down in 2014, there's a golf course on the site now. 

Anyway, the brewery and taproom is situated (as most of them are) in a light industrial estate on the outskirts of town, surrounded by tattoo establishments, pole dancing schools and car repair shops it felt a little out of place to be having a drink there but hey ho, in for a penny etc.. The venue itself was clean and nicely decked out and the range of taps on offer numerous, most of the beers available were their own but they also had a couple of guest beers and some zero alcohol options. I opted for a hazy pale ale (Accomplices) made with Citra and Nelson, it was well made, balanced and flavoursome but a little light on the body, I think it weighed in at around 5% but perhaps needed a little more umph! Not a bad effort though, I'm sure it takes a while for a brewery to bed-in and for the core range to emerge!

Unfortunately we only had time for a quick half, it would have been nice to stay a bit longer and try one of their tasting flights, another time..

Sunday Sermon

 

Luckily, these days, no one in their right mind would base their entire moral and ethical foundation on a primitive bronze age story book... oh, wait..

V. Citra

Had one of these last night, it's a NEIPA beer from Verdant made with 100% Citra hops called "All of this may be untrue". It's an absolute haze bomb, delightful tropical fruit flavours, dank and a solid bitter (ish) finish, a really nice beer and at 4.9% ABV not too head harming! Unfortunately I only had the one can, sourced from the "fridge of dreams" at Elusive, however I'm aiming to visit Verdant's Penryn taproom at some point this year so who knows, maybe I'll be able to try it on keg fresh from source (that would be awesome!) ...

Friday Smirk

The boys talking about the absurdity of the concept of "facing Mecca" on a planet that's a sphere! I wonder how many human beings in history have stressed about this, I bet it's quite a few, we're such silly sausages sometimes..

Vote

Voted today in our council elections, but TBH it was more a vote against who I didn't want rather than who I did...

Midweek Mirth

I've attended a few interviews like this over the years..

Thirst Quencher

Had a new beer from Elusive over the weekend, it's a pale ale made with NZ hops (Motueka) with added lime juice called "Zesty" (it's well named!). The overall effect is a bit like a lager and lime, pale and crisp with a very prominent citrus backbone. This one would be perfect for warmer weather and BBQs, really easy to drink and only 4.5% ABV a real thirst quencher!

Local Stories

An old photograph (50s?) taken in my home town showing the Tudor house at the end of Broad Street (the old market street), a really interesting building complete with wooden beams, warped floorboards and ceilings that struggle to reach 5ft tall! Amazingly in recent years this was the town's doctors surgery, there were at least a dozen GP's in there practicing medicine from tiny little dark paneled rooms. The upper floor window on the left was one of the waiting rooms, my infant son projectile vomited in there on one visit and I had to scoop it all up with paper towels from the toilet, ah the joys of parenting! These days the old place has been converted into apartments (like a lot of places in town) although we all remember the days when it had the faint whiff of disinfectant and the sounds of red-faced people sitting around in 16th century rooms, sniffing and sneezing..

Monday Walk

We're lucky to live in a town with decent shops, pubs and restaurants and also great rail connections into London and beyond but also we're not too far away from open countryside. We walked a 10k loop today that took us out into woods and fields (see above) where the scene was completely rural, quiet (apart from birdsong) cows in the fields and daisies everywhere, it was lush!

Low ABV crown

Had one of these over the weekend, it's a low alcohol table beer from Beak (Lewes, Sussex) called "Fjords". Now, I haven't had a Beak beer for a couple of years now, it's quite hard to get hold of and you don't see it much in beer fridges around the place. I managed to snag this one from the Elusive taproom in Finchampstead, they had a couple of Beak beers in their beer fridge this weekend, also known as, the "fridge of dreams"! The ale itself was good, smooth, creamy and full of hop flavour, in this case a mix of Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy a classic combo which puts this beer in direct competition with "People Money Space Time" from Verdant. It's a close run thing but for a low ABV table beer I think Verdant still takes the crown, keep trying though Beak!

Runny Hooters

Out on my daily walk yesterday and noticed these Horse Chestnut blossoms, such pretty things, never really noticed them before, apart from their pollen making my hooter run at this time of year!