It's a Festival! Of Beer!

Less than a week to go to beer festival at work, and the nerves are starting to set in. Vicky and I have decided on wearing some kind of May Queen getup, since it will be MayDay on the first day of the festival. This might mean a trawl through the charity shops on Monday to find some not-black clothes...

Anyway, if anyone is free next weekend, and in the area, do feel free to pop in. We will have lots of beer and you can come and point and laugh at me behind the bar.

The Barge and Barrel Spring Beer Festival - May 1st - 4th inclusive. Bring your own Maypole. Wicker Men not supplied.

((X-posted Dreamwidth Real Ale Comm, here; miss_sb_dw here, theyorkshergob here. Comments disabled on all but the Real Ale post))

Hullo world! I am still trying to catch up with my mammoth backlog, and this is complicated by the fact that I have taken the plunge with Dreamwidth. So you all still know I am alive etc., have some linkies:

• Firstly, my beloved explains why Dreamwidth is so awesome and why we are both so stoked about it. Another clue is in their diversity statement, which reads like the preamble to the constitution to me...


• We are having a Beltane Beer Festival at work, and you're all invited, if you can get to it!


• Perse posts a nice discursive post about the writing of New Who in dw_academy. Also, Daddies Richard and Alex might want to nosey at this post ;)


• Mr Quist strikes again in his puncturing of government.


• And finally, Lidl's most tempting offer yet - via huskyteer. Suspect hairygit will be especially interested in that one.

And now I must go watch more Batman with my Small Person. Oh the trials of motherhood...

Worked lots. Was busy. Changed lots of barrels. Hugged Alfie. Dashed home. Had bath. Got to pub for ten and had beer and then brandy with mum in celebration of her natal felicitations.

Evening marred only by someone reading out the racist "jokes" he had received by text message and mum killing herself laughing at them and everyone else being really confused as to why I didn't find them amusing.

Still, obviously I'm just weird.

Mind, when I got home, wife had made ginger biscuits, which are very yummy and cheered me up immensely. Time for more brandy, I think.

Mark Thomas was fab. A bit too close to the bone a couple of times - I'm never going to react well to a rape joke, after all, even if it's a raping the Pope joke - but had me cackling loudly many times. Shame the warm-up act was nearly half the show. He could have been OK if he hadn't delivered in a drab terrified monotone...

One of the best things, though, was that we budgeted £4 for parking, and it turned out that parking was only £1. So we stopped off for a half on the way home and my mum was in the pub and so we got more than a half.

:D

Sadly, this means I have filled in this month's Lib Dem member's survey a little the worse for alcohol. Oh dear. It has comment boxes. Oh dear.

Tee hee hee.

Only four of us turned up to Liberal Drinks last night, but I don't think the pub were too upset, because we stayed till closing and mostly behaved ourselves. And Mat and Hywel had very indepth and geeky conversations about stuff which I mostly followed, I think - it got a bit hazy when I started on the brandy because after christmas pud and beer I was too full for more beer...

ANYWAY! I am being bad blogger and not blogging enough recently. It's been over 24 hours since I last posted, which is just WRONG for me. Still, I do have SOME substantive content to pass on, courtesy of dearest Chicky Yog:

A well-meaning yet deluded soul writes to the Guardian:

Could I suggest that all those many journalists who failed to see through the lies and evasions of Karen Matthews just pause and think that social workers responsible for child protection do have to make similar evaluations regularly in their work. We should support them more and condemn them less.

Richard Moore of Bletchley in Buckinghamshire (the letter-writer) is, of course, entirely correct. I share Chicky's doom-laden pessimism that it will actually sink into the skulls of those baying for the blood of social workers on a regular basis, though.

ETA: Penny Red on breast-feeding. I'd quote, but I'd end up including the whole post (and it's longer than chicky's). Go, read, it's important.

This month's Liberal Drinks event has been set up with plenty of warning - a whole three days! - so you have no excuse!

Beer! Liberalism! Pies! What's not to love?

Come and join us. I think Mark has Christmas menu going at the moment, so there might even be Christmassy pies...

I shall be in our great capital for a function on Wednesday the 19th inst; I have been offered a place to stay the night and will be travelling back to Yorkshire on the afternoon of Thursday the 20th. Anyone fancy doing a good old-fashioned pub lunch on the Thursday?

I was considering the Marlborough Head, but apparently they've done it up and turned it into a gastropub and got rid of all the stuff that made it interesting, so all suggestions for a pub with good food and proper beer gratefully received. The Viaduct Tavern is very cool, but might be a bit small... If all else fails, can default to the Museum Tavern, I guess, unless they've taken all the charm out of that too.

Requirements for an acceptable venue are

• Decent food
• Proper Beer
• within not-too-far of Victoria Coach station
• Not stupidly expensive

Thoughts?

Marvel/DC does Batman Vs Iron Man.



Watch out for Lee Griffin's cameo just before Jesus appears, about half way through... O:-)

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Hilarious quote in the CAMRA magazine at work from Sebastian Faulks:

When I hear people ordering lager in a pub, I am mystified. It's like going to a tailor for a new shirt and being told that you can have cotton or linen or silk, and insisting on nylon.

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Read the first two chapters of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to Shrubby for her bedtime story today. Wanted to keep reading, too. Bloody Christians and their entrancing allegorical books... ;)

They've found the deleted scenes from Metropolis! Sci-fi geeks rejoice! And pray Cthulhu we get a showing of it at the FFW next year...

matgb has a highly amusing post about the hypocrisy of the guy who sued the BBC for showing Jerry Springer: The Opera and upsetting his delicate religious sensibilities (related Facebook group).

Don't watch anything on YouTube which isn't allowed to be there, else you'll get got.

Creationism hits science classrooms in the UK. and we are funding it via the state school mechanism. *I* am paying for some poor kids to be taught complete bollocks as though it is fact. Amused Cynicism makes comment more eloquently than I ever could.

The Torygraph have picked their top ten ever Doctor Who episodes. No surprises that it's Ten-heavy, but perhaps surprising that it contains no Trout. And, obvs, Caves of Androzani should be #1.

James May is amazed that the BBC are upset with him for drinking a G&T, when really, they should be upset with him for putting slices of lemon in it. LIME, James, LIME!

Jeremy Thorpe says Robert Mugabe must die. I guess there's a limit to everyone's Liberalism, eh?

David Davies shows just how pro-liberty he really is. Hey ho. Is anyone actually surprised by this?

Chicky Yog imagines Gordon as a barman and finds him wanting.

The turkeys HAVE voted for Christmas: Mike at PB is right. Any PPC opposing any of the lot who voted for this is going to have a field day.

Firstly, I would like to wish you all a very happy St Boniface's Day. I'm not religious in any way, but I'd like to raise a small glass of Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby to the patron saint of brewers. I'm in full agreement with el_staplador; St Boniface was British, and is patron saint of a very British profession, and would be far more appropriate than that Palestinian/Turk who almost certainly never set foot in this country as our Patron saint.

Secondly, I am, as is my wont on a Thursday Evening, watching Question Time. My major reactions so far?

1, I am so disappointed that Douglas Hurd doesn't have his Mr Whippy hair any more, and I was pleased to see Dimbledore skewer him on Mugabe's knighthood - it's a rather pleasing and unusual sensation to see Dimbledore skewering a Tory, and rather makes up for him being a human shield for Hoon last week

2, Vince: YAY!

3, Shami Chakrabarti: phwooor! I would!