Pointy Beer!

Random commenter “im borat” brought this old post of Pete’s to my attention, and reminded me that our badgery friends at Hall and Woodhouse have a new seasonal ale to take over from Hopping Hare. It’s called STINGER, it’s an organic beer brewed “in conjunction” with Huge Furry-Wishing-Stall and the River Cottage and IT HAS NETTLES IN IT!!!

I’d imagine a dandilion and burdock chaser is recommended to go with it…

AROOGAH! Asparagus!!

Hurrah! For, lo, it is asparagus season again, which coincided nicely with our weekend visit to Arbutus in Soho (srsly, go there, you can have two amazing courses and good wine for like £30 a head which is barely more than a curry in town these days, and certainly in no way excessive for Quality Food and, yeah, it’s popular but you can get a table at 6 no problems at all on less than a week’s notice).

Mrs Carsmile had a starter of steamed asparagus and fried DUCK EGG (it came in a frying pan) and I had asparagus soup with a big dollop of ricotta in the middle and we agreed that asparagus is almost the best vegetable ever.

Then tonight we had roast asparagus a la dast00r that we dipped (with a bit of faffing) into a WHOLE BAKED CAMEMBERT, what could possibly be nummier?

Also i got to revive one of my favourite ilx threads.

Oi! Eavis!!

xrrf tell us that 395,000 people have now registered for Glastonbury, ie, more people registered IN THE LAST WEEK, than in the four weeks it was open in the first place. Clearly the only PROPER FAIR WAY to sort this out is not let anyone who registered after 28 February buy a ticket until, say, 11am on 1 April, then those of us who followed the rules because we are committed to the festival and its spirit don’t get penalised by all these lazy buggers who were so very keen to go that they couldn’t spend two minutes filling in a form in a whole month. It should be relatively easy, as far as i can tell the numbers were sequential, so just have first question “what is yr number?” and if it’s too high “come back later, lazy” appears…

Wiz you were here*

Last night I went to the Islington Academy and I saw:

Acoustical Big Fat Andy Cairns from Therapy?
Neds Atomical Dustbins
Some Bloke From The Doughboys
Reuben
The Senseless Things
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine
And
Mega City Four (the remaining members of)

And it was GREAT. The gig was a tribute to Wiz from Mega City Four, who died at the end of last year.
… read on …

Guinness Red: The Tasting

Guinness Red has finally arrived!! Despite claims on the website it wasn’t available in Great Queen Street O’Neills*, but we managed to trek the 400 yards round the corner to the Shaftesbury Avenue one where we saw the exciting new pump nestled between the Normal and Cold pumps. Here is my verdict:

Get your hands on as much Guinness Red ephemera (beer mats, glasses, bar towels, whatever) as you can over the next month or so, because this brand will NOT make it to mass market. It is inspid, flavourless, pointless and it’s not even red. I intend to hoover up as many beer mats as I can and make a killing on e-bay…

Imagine a pint a guinness, mmm guinness, everyone likes a restorative pint every now and again, it is the ale drinker’s friend when in a wasteland of lager and john smiths smoothflow. Steady, reliable, guinness.

Now take that pint of guinness, remove the taste and body and make it slightly more see-through and you have guinness red, except it’s not even that good. It’s just a creamy head (my least favourite part of said pint anyway) on top of some darkish, very vaguely beery liquid. I can’t see why a guinness drinker would want it, or why anyone who wasn’t a guinness drinker would want it, it seems to be without a market.

Sorry Simon (why doesn’t Simon have a biog on the about us page anyway? Poor Simon)

*conversation in GQS O’N
Me: have you got Guinness Red on?
Barstaff: Sorry no, you know, you’re the third person to ask about that today … read on …

Lots of Rock and Roll Fun (with added lemurs!!)

Simon over at xrrf (that’s “no rock and roll fun” to the uninitiated, the only music news feed you rly need) has a problem, and now so do I.

It started quite innocently last Friday, Noel Gallagher was bibbling on about something and then…
… read on …

Thoughts from a 76

Is there another major thoroughfare in London that has such a great array of divers buildings as Fleet Street?

Three Wren churches (OK, so St Clements Danes is *just* Aldwych), The deco majesty of the Express Building, the Protestant Truth Society, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (and 7 other pubs), Coutts with its round windows with pointy bits on the bottom to stop the riffraff sitting in them and three or four 80s office blocks. I feel for the poor old Temple Bar now tucked away unloved round the back of St Pauls, behind the monstrosity of a bland curve of buildings.

One of my bus routes to work takes me down Fleet Street and almost every day I see something new, ooh look there’s Mary, Queen of Scots above the Pret a Manger, St Brides peeking out behind the Punch Tavern. Searching for the history of the street itself is a little difficult as “Fleet Street” tends to bring up newspaper histories (I think Reuters and DC Thompson are the only two left), but I did find this corking 19th century history full of riots, witches and Chaucer slapping saucy friars, marvellous there. Clearly, I need to do some Proper Research and Report Back.

Freaky Trigger and the Lollards of Pop - Week 1

Here’s the first of the regular shows as broadcast this morning 12-1 on Resonance FM. This week’s show includes Um Bongo, cold cures, endings and The Fastest Milkman in the West…

apologies for slight variance in sound levels, i blame pete ;)

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The Annual Freaky Trigger Between Xmas and New Year Pub Crawl 2006

Christmas: yes. New Year’s Eve. Of course. Even Boxing Day if you will. But where is the love for the lowly 29th December, a day which in the highs of the festive period lolls between two big drinkfests unloved, lonely and unwanted.

At least that was the case before the FreakyTrigger Annual 29th Pub Crawl started. Now in its seventh year (COUNT ‘EM) areas such as Holborn, Euston, Mornington Crescent have all been traversed with bonhomie, idiot talk and interesting beers in mind. But never has this event dipped its toes south of the river. Never, that is, until 2006.

The Borough Dumbbell (not a real shape but it will do) will start at 3pm on the 29th December in the Wheatsheaf just by Borough Market. From there we will move on in the following fashion (timings subject to change and pubs being shut): … read on …

It’s back! Back!! BACK!!! (Pub-A-Go-Round Special)

Well sort of.

Although the pub on Wardour Street remains boarded up, on the other side of soho, THE INTREPID FOX IS BACK!! (warning: link may contain Rob Zombie) in what was formerly The Conservatory across from the bottom of Centrepoint, opposite the Angel in St Giles. My jaw literally dropped when I saw the banner outside it yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately as I was on my way to a meeting I couldn’t pop in…