| Sat, 23 Apr 2011
Giving up sobriety for Lent 2011: final week, week 7The Church of Greg's School of Experimental Theology has noted that followers of lesser faiths claim to get spiritual benefits from giving up things that their deity disapproves of, such as fun and tasty food. Greg disapproves of being a po-faced teetotal git, so as an experiment this year observant Greggists are giving up sobriety.
Oranjeboom: the beer with the name that sounds like it tastes. Being Dutch, its name sounds like someone spitting. | ||||||||
| Sat, 16 Apr 2011
Giving up sobriety for Lent 2011: week 6The Church of Greg's School of Experimental Theology has noted that followers of lesser faiths claim to get spiritual benefits from giving up things that their deity disapproves of, such as fun and tasty food. Greg disapproves of being a po-faced teetotal git, so as an experiment this year observant Greggists are giving up sobriety.
Does Tusker taste of elephant piss? Dunno, I've never knowingly drunk elephant piss. | ||||||||
| Sat, 9 Apr 2011
Giving up sobriety for Lent 2011: week 5The Church of Greg's School of Experimental Theology has noted that followers of lesser faiths claim to get spiritual benefits from giving up things that their deity disapproves of, such as fun and tasty food. Greg disapproves of being a po-faced teetotal git, so as an experiment this year observant Greggists are giving up sobriety.
As you can see, I have now drunk all the decent beer in my Monday pub. I would have had something delicious from Sharps's brewery, but some bastard had drunk it all before I got there. | ||||||||
| Sat, 2 Apr 2011
Giving up sobriety for Lent 2011: week 4The Church of Greg's School of Experimental Theology has noted that followers of lesser faiths claim to get spiritual benefits from giving up things that their deity disapproves of, such as fun and tasty food. Greg disapproves of being a po-faced teetotal git, so as an experiment this year observant Greggists are giving up sobriety.
"Bäska Droppar" is Scandiwegian for "moose piss and paraffin cocktail". | ||||||||
| Sat, 26 Mar 2011
Giving up sobriety for Lent 2011: week 3The Church of Greg's School of Experimental Theology has noted that followers of lesser faiths claim to get spiritual benefits from giving up things that their deity disapproves of, such as fun and tasty food. Greg disapproves of being a po-faced teetotal git, so as an experiment this year observant Greggists are giving up sobriety.
I like to think that Dr. Samuel Johnson would approve of the DVD sitting on top of his fine dictionary (in which "sausage" is mis-sorted). | ||||||||
| Sat, 19 Mar 2011
Giving up sobriety for Lent 2011: week 2The Church of Greg's School of Experimental Theology has noted that followers of lesser faiths claim to get spiritual benefits from giving up things that their deity disapproves of, such as fun and tasty food. Greg disapproves of being a po-faced teetotal git, so as an experiment this year observant Greggists are giving up sobriety.
Those with sharp eyes will note that in the background of the picture of the whisky toddy, nestled in between Shakespeare and Whitman, are copies of Winnie The Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner, or, as they're called in the original Latin, Winnie Ille Pu and Domus Anguli Puensis. I recommend them. | ||||||||
| Sat, 12 Mar 2011
Giving up sobriety for Lent 2011: week 1The Church of Greg's School of Experimental Theology has noted that followers of lesser faiths claim to get spiritual benefits from giving up things that their deity disapproves of, such as fun and tasty food. Greg disapproves of being a po-faced teetotal git, so as an experiment this year observant Greggists are giving up sobriety.
To follow the excitement, add this to your RSS reader. | ||||||||
| Wed, 11 Feb 2009
Whisky vs Whiskey: a style guide:The booze columnist for the New York Times recently made a frightful error. But to give credit where credit is due, he then Did The Right Thing and got his editors to correct their style guide. However, while the new style guide is better than the previous one, it's still wrong. The rules for when to spell it whisky or whiskey are as follows:
"Citation needed!" I hear you cry! Very well! A citation you shall have! Stroll leisurely over to your drinks cabinet, and from it extract bottles of Amrut (a single malt from India) and Yamazaki (a single malt from Japan). Notice how they spell 'whisky' - without an e. Then visit one of your friends who lacks taste, and examine his bottle of Famous Grouse. That too has no e. Now, look at your bottles of Jameson's, Knob Creek and Blanton's. They all spell it 'whiskey'. Finally, look at the website for that rare bird, the American single malt, and also at one for a Canadian single malt. Notice that the American distillery uses an e, where the Canadian one doesn't. Thankyou for your attention. | ||||||||
| Tue, 13 Jan 2009
Pub closuresCAMRA will tell you that 30-odd pubs close every week, and that this is a terrible thing. What they don't tell you is how many of those pubs are like this one, which the owners want to demolish. The Parchmore Tavern is at the top of my road, and has been a crappy pub for all the time I've lived here. The beer was bad, it was dirty, and it didn't attract a particularly pleasant crowd. I suppose it's a bit similar in that respect to the Fountain Head nearby which has also closed - indifferent beer (although better than at the Parchmore), could do with a clean, and not very welcoming. I'm glad to see the back of pubs like that. They obviously closed because they couldn't compete with the other local boozers - of which one is excellent, two are good, and one is merely OK but does good business because of is location. Your typical CAMRA member would at this point pipe up and say "the pubs were profitable and have only been closed so they can be turned into flats by an eeeeeevil developer!". He would be wrong, of course. Developers aren't building a damned thing these days :-) Oh, and another thing CAMRA people don't say so much about is how many pubs are opening. Probably not as many as 30, and no doubt lots of them are the sort of pub that CAMRA disapprove of, but the situation is nowhere near as bad as they like to make out. | ||||||||
| Mon, 25 Aug 2008
New Cocktail: the CaipiranhaI have invented a new cocktail. It is based on my favourite cocktail, the caipirinha, which consists of cachaça, limes, and sugar, with ice. The Caipiranha is exactly the same, but with the addition of live fish. Truly adventurous drinkers will use piranhas. However, for beginners I recommend starting with a couple of neon tetras per glass and working your way up. | ||||||||
| Wed, 26 Dec 2007
Mulled ciderTo half a gallon of strong sweet cider, add half a lemon, half an orange (both chopped into tiny bits, as unto those who are naughty in the lord's sight), some sugar, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. Bring to a boil, and simmer for a couple of minutes. | ||||||||
| Sun, 23 Dec 2007
Queen's Christmas Speech Drinking GameDrink whenever she:
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| Wed, 31 Oct 2007
HalloweenTotal number of small children who came round trick or treating this evening: zero. This is most unfortunate, as it means I didn't manage to get rid of any of the cans of vile lager left over from when I had a visitor a few weeks ago. | ||||||||
| Sat, 14 Jul 2007
Cider duty exemptionSmall cider producers are exempt from paying duty on their booze, something which is vital to the survival of many of our hundreds of small cider producers. Moves are afoot to re-examine this exemption, and possibly scrap it. If this happens, it will mean the end for many small-scale producers and the consequent loss of many unique brews. There is a petition on the PM's webshite, asking him to ensure that they can continue brewing. I strongly urge all of my UK readers to sign up. | ||||||||
| Mon, 16 Apr 2007
A brilliant ideaI have had a brilliant idea. Take a bottle of gin. Drink half of it. Then fill the bottle with biltong. Let it sit for a coupla weeks, pour through a coffee filter into another bottle, and you have meat-flavoured booze! And alcoholic meat! Huzzah! | ||||||||
| Sun, 11 Mar 2007
Ministry of TruthThe Minister of Truth, he say "never mind the previous drunken babbling, it was never here". Look! Kittens! | ||||||||
| Sun, 10 Sep 2006
PrecisionToday I was at precisely 0°0'0". Greenwich is cool. I yelled very loudly "THE WORLD IS MEASURED FROM HERE". Aside from the museums, it is teeming with fine pubs, at which I got very precisely tipsy. | ||||||||
| Wed, 6 Sep 2006
An etiquette questionWhen one goes to a restaurant and finds that one's neighbour is one of the waiters, what should one do? I got drunk (well, more drunk) on sake and broke crockery. Sorry Geoff. | ||||||||
| Fri, 1 Sep 2006
YAPC::Europe 2006 report: day 2It appeared to be another day of mostly social track, although I went to a few talks in the morning. Back to the same place for curry again in the evening. Very good. I remember what it was called now. Bombay Mix, Broad St, Birmingham. | ||||||||
| Thu, 31 Aug 2006
YAPC::Europe 2006 report: day 1Most of the talks on the programme didn't particularly appeal, so after Larry's keynote and Ovid's TPF talk I disappeared for the, errm ... social track, yes, that's it, the social track of the conference, which was at the Wellington pub with its fifteen real ales. Mmmm. That went really well :-) In the early evening we came back to the hotel where we picked up some fellow-travellers for curry. Mmmm again. | ||||||||
| Wed, 30 Aug 2006
YAPC::Europe 2006 report: day 0As the train arrived in Birmingham I realised why I hate this town so much. It's because it's just a larger clone of Croydon, only with a nastier accent.Several of us attempted to drown the hideousness with BOOZE. I dreamt that a drunken dha came back to the hotel with me and loudly claimed to be a political prisoner. | ||||||||
| Wed, 24 May 2006
Damnit the sun is risingDamnit the sun is rising and I only just got back from the pub (via Bob and Kake's place). Ah well, this presents me with a good - nay, unique! - opportunity to see what the overnight mailing list traffic is like! Never let anyone say that I'm not dedicated! | ||||||||
