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Update: decided to delete the ClustrMap...here it is at 60 days usage, though

Awaiting the bus, I find I’ve got WIFI access (University offices nearby, I reckon).  I got a nice nod from a Brit in New York yesterday (PR guy and he’s on painkillers right now, so take it with a grain; still, he is responsible for projecting a half-naked Gail Porter onto Parliament awhile back so he’s doing something right) and it prompted me to have a look at the visitor logs.  Most are incomprehensible lists of IP addresses, but the little map that used to live down at the bottom of the left side column (see above) scored a visit every time someone checked out the site with an IP that hadn’t been seen by it since the map’s previous update (or, daily, that is).  Here, then, is the United Nations of the Endless British Pub Crawl since 30 December 2011 (last 60 days):

So, the things I find interesting are:

I started this blog with the intention of putting up photos and occasionally humourous stories for friends in the US, an intended readership of 20-30 folks in Arizona, 40-50 in Georgia, and some random jackasses in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, DC, and Tennessee…maybe a hundred wretched souls all told, and even then I only reckoned on a visit from each of them, on average, every three or four months.  For the most part, that’s what I seem to get from the Arizona and Georgia contingent, if that; but the rest of the US, especially Cali, Iowa and Texas have been a real surprise:

Brits, on the other hand, have really seemed to embraced this foolishness visiting at a rate of 4.6-to-1 versus the US (or 4.8-to-1 for the entire Commonwealth).  God Save the Queen.

And, if you take California out of the equation then the EU out-visits the US 1147-to-936 (like most UK residents, I try not to include this holy soil in any equation involving Brussels).

But, speaking of Brussels…the Dutch speaking countries have showed up 407 times thanks in large part to visitors from Groningen (my favourite Dutch town, and as soon as I replace my turntable I’m making a trip to the record vendor at the market–simply the most amazing collection of vinyl you have ever seen).

As far as the once-known-as ‘Axis Of Evil,’ I have only a single visit from Iraq, and none from North Korea or Iran.  This hurts, but I’m not sure how to reach out to them.

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Si bene quid memini, causae sunt quinque bibendi;
Hospitis adventus, praesens sitis atque futura,
Aut vini bonitas, aut quaelibet altera causa.
———Henry Aldrich, 1647-1710 †

February restock

This is Part 2 (February 2012) of my monthly review of wines…Part 1 is here:  The Horse of Parnassus (January 2012).

There was a cold snap at the start of February and we both were fighting losing battles against a really bad upper respiratory infection.  A hearty soup and a box of Tesco Simply Shiraz greeted me when I trudged home from a productive but fairly zombie-like day at work (well, if the zombie has phlegm running down his face and can’t stop coughing.  The Simply varieties are actually pretty good day-to-day table wines for an unsophisticated palette such as mine, but this shiraz is less acidic than a lot of the other inexpensive ones out there and I really wouldn’t put it up against something with significant levels of spice (it would just taste like watered-down cranberry juice in that case).  It also served dining duty against a roast chicken and a salad of apples, walnuts, raisins, chicken and spinach later in the week, still a bit disappointingly (and yes, I know the malic acid in the apples was really taking the piss but our tipple has to stand up to all sorts of culinary insults).  With dark chocolate, though, the cherry flavours come out of hiding pretty well:

For some pork chops braised with mushrooms, red onions, and a bell pepper in the last of the Tesco Simply Shiraz, I pulled out a Chateau La Rose Videau 2006 Bordeaux which is made of a mix of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot.  The Chateau is owned by a family of wine producers who seem to have their hands in a bunch of vineyards. This one seems a fine choice for this sort of meal but I’d really like to give it a go on some rare lamb leg or underdone duck sometime.  If I had a decent place to lay wine down for a couple years I’d get a couple of cases of this one.

We actually managed to get a bit of winter weather early this month so I decided to finally finish up the duck confit originally prepared for the cassoulet.  The batch of wine we ordered came with one bottle of Marselan, a strange and delightful wine we had in December and January and that, this meal, went perfectly with our little soul food feast (backed up the duck with some bitter boiled greens and black-eyed peas).

I returned from a hash to find the house quiet.  Jackie’s case of the flu took the second dip right on time, about 4 days after mine so she should feel better.  She left me a glass of the Jacktone Ranch CabSav she had with her supper and it was very good–very tannic and astringent but with a bit of body and rich dark fruit flavours, definitely grape juice for a bit of rare meat although I suspect it accompanied a bowl of chicken sagwalla.

Layers of tomatoes, red bell pepper, oregano, spinach, chicken, ricotta and mozzarella with lasagna noodles beg for a wine with a bit of body but also a lot of fruit flavour to it.  The Long Country Merlot (and I’m not normally a fan of merlots) was really fine with this dinner but didn’t at all stand up to the chocolate afterwards…strange:

Nothing to cook and no motivation to scrounge something up usually results in getting curries delivered.  I had a lamb vindaloo, she a chicken biryani, and we mated it pretty aptly with Marques de Amba…this was a wild guess but it seemed the best in our arsenal to stand up to the spices (more–and clearer–thought would have suggested one of the shiraz, but this worked out).

I roasted a beef joint on one Saturday, rubbed with crushed black pepper, a little rosemary, some squashed garlic and an Oxo cube for salt then left at room temperature most of the afternoon while we dashed out to restock the larders.  We had a slice, a sweet potato, and some broccoli washed down with Faustino Rivero, a disappointingly simple wine that seemed more suited to pub grub.

A weekend of mis-paired wines continued with Le Preare Valpolicella.  We went to a screening of The Artist (the silent film tribute) and on returning home just wanted to relax so made an easy meal by cutting the leftover beef roast into cubes and mixing with bell pepper, carrots, celery, a bunch of dry split peas, and some broth and madras paste then simmered for an hour or so.  Again, I didn’t make the sensible shiraz choice opting for this valpolicella which really wasn’t suited to the rich sauce.

“We need to get some of this fucking wine out of the fridge…cook something for this pinot grigio,”  she said, thrusting the bottle toward me. Kids, these are the romantic words you are likely to hear on your 27th Valentine’s Day together, and I was up to the task.  With meat devoid of added water and of firm texture–not tough, mind you–and silky, succulent and hot we approached our marital table and, drizzling the bed of greens and vegetables with oils and aromatics we settled into some oral delights.  I’m old.

The wine was crisp and refreshing but had a range of flavours that complemented our odd little meal.  I bought it for some grilled fish and it probably would have been spectacular with some barbecues prawns but the pork was a pretty good alternative:

The weather changed back to spring-like and the opportunity to enjoy hearty winter fare waned.  I wanted a batch of garbure before the winter gets away so picked up the fixin’s: some duck legs, a pound of pork roast, some root veg (carrots, turnips, taters) and some cabbage, leeks, and celery.  This is all cooked with a healthy handful of garlic in about 3 pints of broth until thick enough for the ladel to stand up in it then served in two courses: the solid bits are kept warm in the oven while you start with a bowl of the broth poured over some stale bread.  Yum.  We paired this with the minerally astringent and surprisingly complex Chilean Shiraz (La Casita) that was hiding at the back of the Victrola.

Our butcher is great and for costs about 1 or 2% more than in the shops we are able to purchase meats without water injected to puff up the weight or any other additives or wasteful packaging.  You ask for a particular cut and they bring out a big piece of the carcass and take it right from the bone (and send you off with a chunk of bone for stock, to boot).  But, Jackie asked for some beef mince (that’s British for ‘ground beef’) and got lamb instead.  It comes rolled in some clear plastic and looks the same, an honest mistake, but she has never liked lamb and during her three-month sabbatical in Austria developed a gag response to it…although on my visit I thought it seemed a bit closer to mutton than lamb.

Anyway, Brits have a real appreciation of the marvels of lamb and it is almost always slaughtered young and sweet and without the shift to pungent tastes and fragrances so common even in the States.  Lamb samosas were the first test, barring the amount I always added to cassoulet without telling her; they passed and she has had small amounts of braised lamb shanks with success so we decided to fire up the barbecue and make some large lamb patties and serve them with steamed winter greens and black-eyed peas, and a little mint sauce for me.  We paired this experiment with a Nero d’Avola made with a percentage of dried grapes.  Not the best meal, but the wine was a good choice playing nicely off the lamb fats and the starches and bitter greens in interesting and admirable ways.

I stopped for some artichokes, white beans, Italian sausages, provolone and pasta at the Italian deli and along with some spinach tomatoes, eggs, garlic and olives made up an edible casserole.  The wine cabinet was diminished, again (JFC! how does THAT happen?), so I settled for some Lagunilla Rioja I had earmarked for some barbecue on the weekend.  It was rich flavour and smooth in the mouth and more complex than our unsophisticated palettes deserve and after a couple of glasses apiece we were satisfied that it should go on the “re-order soon” list.  HOWEVER, we both suffered a bit of a toxic reaction to it (we are fairly certain, as sulphites vary in wines and are mild allergens to us both); how disappointing.

Over the Christmas break I went into the labs to catch up on a couple of things but it was my own time and I used some of it to repair a couple of items, one of which was a Super 8 movie projector belonging to a colleague’s grandmother.  It was a simple job and I was overwhelmed that he insisted on dropping me a bottle of wine by way of a thank you.  Quite a thank you, indeed, as the Chateau Poujeaux was much nicer than we usually would buy for ourselves (if this column goes on all year you might see 2 or 3 similar bottles out of roughly 200).  I have been sitting on this for a special meal and decided the President’s Day weekend was a fine enough occasion and I dropped in on Bryan, our butcher, for some venison.

Bryan is an especially great find for us.  This year we pledged to eat supermarket meats only in an emergency and so far we have spent less  by going to professionals, in large part because the portions may be smaller and more dear but they aren’t pumped full of water; this has an added advantage of making it possible to cook the product without it shedding water thereby making everything a stew whether or not you planned to cook things in brine.  The flavours are richer and deeper and the entire experience more satisfying.

I put the venison steaks out with a little cracked pepper to come to room temperature before searing them quickly and then cooking them in a little leftover Lagunilla (and a blob of rendered butter) to create a sauce, but still served quite rare.  To accompany this and the Moulis en Medoc we had some potatoes roasted with garlic in duck fat leftover from some confit, and for a green veg we steamed some broccoli then melted a little blue stilton over it.  The wine was a little sedimental but most of that stayed in the shoulder of the bottle to the right corner of the label and we were able to pour this marvelous juice consistently cleanly off the left corner.  Thanks so much, Justin, for the wine; and, Bryan, for the consistently high quality cuts and friendly cooking advice.

The Sunday roast chicken after one of the long runs was pretty garden variety: salted, with a lemon inside, backed with some wilted spinach and sweet potatoes … but it was delicious, nonetheless, especially paired up with this syrah (shiraz) from the Alicante:

Marked down 50%, the label caught my eye but it was actually pretty good for a generic.  Had it with wraps of chicken mixed with cilantro, crushed cumin seeds, cayenne, lemon, yoghurt and tomatoes…perfect use of leftovers and the wine was light but the yoghurt brought out all its good aspects:

Hamburgers with horseradish, spinach and some disappointing tomatoes and chips helped us get through the last bottle in our little storage cabinet, a Stork’s Landing pinot noir/shiraz blend.  Like raspberry juice with the meat, you get some of the more pungent flavours (I think the ones real reviews call “cigar” and “leather”) and cherries when it is coupled with some post-meal chocolate.

Yike's! There's no wine left in the house at this moment.

Can’t get enough of the Wines From France line when it is on sale for half price.  The chard went pretty well with a pork roast cooked in a 200°C oven wrapped tightly in foil with sliced onions and garlic.

The incredibly mild winter returned with some days in the low double digits (Centigrade…mid-50′s F), and I decided we needed to just go ahead and eat the leftover garbure before it was too warm for something this hearty.  This chianti from right around Siena and aged a bit longer than typical prior to bottling was just the sort of thing that this batch cried out for:

The last Saturday of the month was warm and sunny for a late winter’s day even in Georgia, so getting one like this in England was a real treat and we decided to have a barbecue.  Before a run (Jackie took a trip to the gym while I was out), I made a sauce from some chillis, a bit of leftover vinegar from some pickled jalapeños, a couple of peeled lemons, half a head of garlic, an onion, some paprika, thyme, sage, and turmeric, and a bit of tomato reduction all whizzed together in a food processor.  With a couple of shots of vodka it might have made an especially spicy and tart gazpacho, but spread on some slow smoked chicken the last thirty minutes on the grill it was sublime.  Tempted by some beer in the fridge (had some during the cooking portion), I had the good sense to hit the Graham Beck Railroad Red.  Not at all like the Night Train, this was an especially good pairing with the bird and fresh local kale.

Work was busy: there are some engineers upgrading one of the mass spectrometers, the Orbitrap is being obstinate about taking calibration, the primary HD in my office pc failed and I have spent a few days trying to recover as much off it as possible before getting the replacement from Dell, the clock is ticking on a laser loan and we are months behind (but finally making some progress) on the project, and we have a piece of a huge EU initiative announced in Nature yesterday and that I need to update our website with whatever I can see that is missing from it.  Returning home I didn’t want to think to hard about our tea, but wanted something good; fortunately Jackie anticipated this and had thawed a couple of bison steaks which I cooked in butter, garlic and carmelized onions until just between rare and medium rare.  No wine in the house, but the newstand next to the boxing gym has pretty good picnic-grade plonk…considering how the month started, Stowell’s Shiraz Mataro seemed an appropriate way for it to end: acceptably spicy but unimpressive sat out upon the table.

For February, the full list is:

Tesco Simply Shiraz (box)
Chateau La Rose Videau 2006
Camplazens Marselan
Jacktone Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon
Long Country Merlot
Marques de Amba
Faustino Rivero
Le Preare Valpolicella
Torretta di Mondelli Pinot Grigio
La Casita Shiraz
Colpasso Nero d’Avola
Lagunilla Rioja
Chateau Poujeaux  Moulis en Medoc (1999)
Gran Artizan Syrah
Wines from France Cab Sav
Stork’s Landing Pinot Noir Shiraz
Wines from France Chard
Mondelli Chianti
Graham Beck Railroad Red
Stowell’s Shiraz Mataro

This list is current this morning, 28 Feb, but it is unlikely we will uncork a new one before end-of-month.  I like this feature, but I think it makes for unwieldy posts so I will start posting the wine reports when I reach 5 new wines rather than try to go the entire month…let’s see how that goes.

…………………………………………………………..

† Aldrich was the head of Christ Church, Oxford and a special case as both an academic and cleric: gregarious, quick-witted, and reasonable.  The quote, which I’ve always heard in this translation, is most often used as a toast these days:

” If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink:—
Good wine; a friend; because I’m dry;
Or lest I should be by and by;
Or — any other reason why.”

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One of the guys at the Crown told me about the former Bell Inn recently renamed the Barbury Inn to take advantage of the name recognition of the nearby Barbury Castle.  I was still thirsty so I ran the half mile to it despite already changing into my dry clothes; this was a good move as they had three St. Austell ales on (I had a Trelawny), a gorgeous coaching inn housing the bar, and 6 Nations rugby on tele.  I couldn’t linger as the Sunday bus schedule is unforgiving, but I got an immediately welcoming feeling here.

That said, it was a bit odd…endearing, but odd.  The bar girls, of course, quizzed me on my activities (“Been walking, then? Oh, running from where? Devizes? Oi, this man has just run from Devizes.” “Oh, Devizes? That’s quite far.” “Oh, I used to go to school just south of Devizes, and now I know the area out to Marlborough and,” pointing generally westerly, “Wootton Bassett but I’m not sure what else is around.” And, on and on…).

The manager came out and after some banter with the bar staff one of them said, “This man has just run from Devizes,” and that obliged him to talk about running but without the authority of the punter at the Crown.  I would have stayed on because this was all very entertaining but, as I said, the bus is a stern mistress.

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Another hour of running in some beautiful weather through gorgeous landscapes brought me to Broad Hinton.  My map showed a pub down a byway and I found its garden jutting out onto the horse trails making up the path.  Friendly punters at the bar swarmed the first stranger to pass through with the appearance of a story…I was dripping with sweat, out of breath and clutching a bizarrely folded Ordnance Survey map.  I ordered a Wiltshire Gold and got caught up in a long discussion of the many trail running possibilities with a guy familiar with most of them and the art of running to a pub.

“What is this one called,” I asked.  Entering from the garden, I still had not seen the front and only suspected from the stock that it was an Arkells house.  “This is the Crown at Broad Hinton,” he told me then launched into its praises.

A good publican is fine when the house is empty; a great publican attracts regulars that do his job for him when he’s too busy pushing booze and food.  I believe the Crown must have a great landlord, indeed.

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It was a gorgeous day for June, and since it was actually a Sunday in February I made the most of it.  Sunny, relatively calm, and temperatures hovering around 12-13°C mad for perfect running weather.  I hopped off the bus at 11:55 in Devizes and, rather than wait around 5 minutes for the pubs to open I sprinted off to the north planning to pick up a pub around an hour later.

As the second Wiltshire white horse came into view almost exactly an hour later, I approached the Black Horse pub in Cherhill.  The house was heaving with Sunday dining trade and the bar was packed, too.  Looking around, the place is probably a very nice hangout when less busy (dark like you might expect a 250-year-old building to be, not so spacious as it looks from outside) but it was steaming hot this day and I took my Gem Ale (Bath Brewery) out to the garden.

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The Botley Road Kebab Stand is known for its fine chicken kebabs and decent falafel, but I fancied a bit of shoarma so got a doner meat and chips at the end of my run.  This chilli sauce was grand, the salad ( I just had tomatoes, cabbage and chillis) was fresh, the doner light and free of gristle and the chips divine.  £3.80 and too much to eat…if it were just a little closer in it would be perfect for me (it opens after 6pm just the Botley Road side of the railroad bridge at the Oxford Station).

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I don’t have a hashing problem, I can quit anytime.  Last night I went to the start and didn’t hash, so get off my back.

The Oxford Hash was running trail from Oxford Brookes University and I had never been in a campus bar there so jumped on the opportunity.  Two ales available and the place is packed with fit children, which can make an old letch feel a bit self-conscious…well it should do, anyway.

After a pint of Brakspear Oxford Gold, I bid my friends adieu and completed my run down to the Botley Road Kebab stand….

 

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This is a pretty standard Greene King franchise pub, and by franchise I mean it looks indistinguishable from any other pub of it’s sort.  Pity, as the structure is really nice and the staff attentive.  But, they also appear to have firmly corporate training and the decor screams that it was picked from a very limited stock menu.  Very much more the “family restaurant” model.

I was there for lunch, though, 2/3 of the way through a 5.4 mile run, and rather enjoyed my overcooked burger and chips with an IPA for £5.49…in spite of myself.

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At the end of the run that took me to the Royal George (may she R.I.P.) and to Riff’s Bar (my new favourite despite the beer selection) I was entering Wootton just as the bus was leaving but it was a good thing as I headed to the Cooperative to do my dinner shopping the Crown Hotel turned out to be, for the first time in my experience, open.  Hooray! I have now punched the last spot on my Royal Wootton Bassett pub ticket.

I had a Bob from Wickwar Brewery which was an interesting but not challenging ale.  As I sat down, a conversation I later found to be about probate was continuing with the tantalising statement, “If I am declared incompetent to conduct my own affairs….”

The cook was a very young man and the cook’s togs he wore were more circus clown than clown that can gut a partridge in 30 seconds, but he, like the entire cast of characters, seemed friendly enough.  At one point he started singing dreadfully and everyone stopped and looked at each other than back towards him, which brought their gazes in line with me.  “Talk about incompetence,” I said and everyone laughed and went back to their own little dramas.  As I left, everyone said goodbye, an unusual occurrence in this shy country.

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Listen up Athens, GA and Austin, TX peeps: you have a challenger for the Surreal Rock Bar in a Backwater of the Year Award.  I was 9.5 miles into a Sunday run and spotted Riff’s down the road toward Wootton Bassett and, although I was fairly certain it only opened at night, I decided to give it a go, just in case.

Wandering around I heard what sounded like a band rehearsing inside and tried the door.  Voila! It opened and inside the sounds of a heavy metal band were screaming to escape, only to be held back by the singer/babes howlin’ those blues standard lines: “Waterloo, Couldn’t escape if I wanted to.  Waterloo, Knowing my fate is to be with you, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa….”

Whoa, indeed.  Mid-song, the guitarist left the rest playing and came over; “what’ll it be, mate?” I bought a Carling and settled in to watch along with a middle-aged couple and some farmers that seemed as bemused at my sweaty state as they were at the floor show.  This hamlet (Greatfield is far too small to be called a village) is quite literally in the middle of fucking nowhere, and to find an LSD-flashback-inducing scene like this without scraping some fungus from the bottom of one of the MANY cow patties around here was quite a treat.

 

I see a regular Sunday trip out Greatfield way if this house is open and halfway rockin’.  Very funny set today, at least, as I saw the group do Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” as if Lemmy and the gang were involved.  I am in love.

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At the corner of Pavenhil and Dogridge I finally found the Royal George in the midst of my Sunday run but was really disappointed to find that the place appears to, once again, have gone out of business (like the woman at the Angel suggested on my Thanksgiving Day run last year).  A pity.

I ran back into the village and bought a Carling to rack up another 100/100 tick and to properly salute this old Lazurus, hoping it will, once more, return to us.

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Hopped off the bus in Southmoor for a relatively short run into Longworth along some public trails in order to see what the Blue Boar was like.  Ten minutes from alighting, I was sitting in front of a delicious pint of Doom Bar near an unnecessary fire.

 

There are two rooms, left or right off the entrance and the one to the right was full of jolly locals so I chose the left bar with the quiet man reading a newspaper so I could take a few snaps in peace (I needed to make it quick so I could get back to Southmoor for a later bus before dark).

 

The ancient house should be able to get by on its architecture alone but the youngish proprietors have deigned it necessary to stick clippings and photos all over the ceiling between the timbers.  I like the distraction from the expensive items on the menu board but a real reviewer would mock it all.

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More like the Bunch of Freaks Arms, this house, the staff, and the customers I joined seemed like a surreal Radio 4 production of the sort of oddball countryfolk the characters on the Archers (or, the Vicar of Dibley) would find quaint and a bit implausible.

“Do you have the Arkell’s Pilsner on?” I asked the crone behind the bar. She looked at me as though I had asked her to show me her cooter (I’m pretty sure I didn’t).
“No.”
Pointing to the Wiltshire Gold pump in the middle of the three Arkells ales they had on, I said, “Okay, then I’ll have a Wiltshire Gold.”
“Those are ales,” she spat back.
“Yes,” I smiled, “thanks, I’ll have a Wiltshire Gold, please.”
She snatched a glass and repeated my order: “3B’s, then?”
“No. Wiltshire Gold,” I said with viscous slowness and careful enunciation while pointing, again, at the tag.
“Oh, Wiltshire Gold, eh?”

This visit is something of a testament to the run/drink ethos of this little blog.  After a year in Swindon and two working in Oxford almost all the watering holes within a short run have been tried.  This forces me to plan my runs better as they will get ever longer in order to hit new pubs and thereby continue adding reviews to these pages.  I’m actually likely to drink lessand run further this year, and the pubs (like the Freke) are more-and-more likely to be, um, colloquial.

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Out

I had to let some old friends go this weekend.  The Saucony running shoes that carried me more than 1500 miles including the Florence Marathon and a bunch of half marathons, all over Cornwall, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, and Tennessee and to more pubs than is advisable were replaced with some new Brooks Adrenalines.  Their final run was in the snow on a crisp, beautiful morning to the Purton Road Post Office where they were ignominiously dumped into a bin after I signed for the newly delivered (and quite overdue) tools.  Farewell.

 

[Note: second pair arrived on 15 February...hooray, new boots for the Spring runs!]

In

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The Longwall is a bog standard Beefeater pub, attached to a Premier Inn (sort of the Travelodge of Britain).  That said, it is cheap and if not cozy it is comfy.  I got a Carling because I was thirsty 3 miles into a 6 mile run in the ice and snow, because they had no ale, and because it serves to up my count on the 100 Yellow Beer Challenge.  There was a limited choice of newspapers and I settled into the Sun for my wee break.

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There was still snow on the ground and the steep pavements of Garsington village were iced over.  “Is the Plough re-opened?” I asked the teenage bartender of the Red Lion.  “No, it’s someone’s house now.”  A pity, but it saved me the treacherous 1/4 mile there and back.

The lion reminded me of a fishing lodge with its odd layout separating the two bars and the strange hallway along the car park side toward the loos.  The garden has a splendid view out over the hills and they have one or two ales on despite the limited stock in general.  I think youngsters enjoy the place more than mature adults but they had Doom Bar, well-kept and reasonably priced to go along with the Jeremy Kyle show.

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Santorum, answering the question, "As President, how would you deal with Christian extremists?"

A quick look at Ladbrokes Betting Odds today shows the effect of Santorum’s recent good showing since the last update (sorry Boog, no tna shots this time, just a bunch of boobs).  Hillary still has the best odds of the people not running at all for President.  Also interesting, Ron Paul has better odds of becoming the nominee AND of winning the Presidency than he does of becoming the Vice-Presidential nominee.  Steven Colbert and Glenn Beck still have a presence on the boards, as well:

Selection	Pres?	Nominee?	VP?
Barack Obama	4/7	xxx	xxx
Mitt Romney	7/4	1/6	25/1
Rick Santorum	16/1	6/1	7/1
Newt Gingrich	33/1	16/1	25/1
Ron Paul	40/1	25/1	50/1
Hillary Clinton	50/1	xxx	xxx
Donald Trump	100/1	xxx	100/1
Jeb Bush	200/1	100/1	xxx
Paul Ryan	200/1	100/1	12/1
Chris Christie	200/1	100/1	5/1
Mitch Daniels	200/1	100/1	25/1
Marco Rubio	xxx	xxx	5/2
Susana Martinez	xxx	xxx	10/1
Bob McDonnell	xxx	xxx	10/1
Jim DeMint	xxx	xxx	20/1
Tim Pawlenty	xxx	xxx	20/1
Nikki Haley	xxx	xxx	20/1
Kelly Ayote	xxx	xxx	20/1
Hayley Barbour	xxx	xxx	20/1
Jon Thune	xxx	xxx	20/1
Condoleeza Rice	xxx	xxx	25/1
Rob Portman	xxx	xxx	25/1
Brian Sandoval	xxx	xxx	25/1
Bobby Jindal	xxx	xxx	25/1
Jon Huntsman	xxx	xxx	25/1
Rick Snyder	xxx	xxx	33/1
Colin Powell	xxx	xxx	33/1
Meg Whitman	xxx	xxx	33/1
Lindsey Graham	xxx	xxx	33/1
Rick Perry	xxx	xxx	50/1
Sarah Palin	xxx	xxx	50/1
Michele Bachmann	xxx	xxx	50/1
Herman Cain	xxx	xxx	50/1
Mike Huckabee	xxx	xxx	50/1
Scott Walker	xxx	xxx	50/1
David Petraeus	xxx	xxx	50/1
Allen West	xxx	xxx	50/1
Scott Brown	xxx	xxx	50/1
Kay Bailey Hutchison	xxx	xxx	50/1
Rand Paul	xxx	xxx	50/1
John McCain	xxx	xxx	66/1
Steven Colbert	xxx	xxx	150/1
Glenn Beck	xxx	xxx	200/1

 

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The Library is usually closed when I find myself on Cowley Road but the Oxford Hash was celebrating Gispert’s Day (70 years since he was killed in the Battle of Singapore) by starting the evening’s trail there and the confluence of so many good events was too much to resist; also, I had a late day at work and wanted to unwind a bit and there is always food and drink, and more drink, at the end of an OH3 trail.

The pub opens late and not at all during the day so they haven’t got a built-in clientele.  Consequently it was just twenty or so hashers milling about each doing their part to deplete the one ale on the pumps (I had a cider to try to wash some of my snack grease away).  The kids that run it seem friendly enough, but Gadget really put his finger on it when he said it seemed more someone’s flat than a pub.

It was a decent trail and despite my own path going a bit awry I stuck with folks that know their way around (and that, like me, don’t mind a bit of a detour to stop for a glass or two along the way) and we rejoined the group after one pub stop at the Angel & Greyhound but did so having lost Dippy to the Cricketers and our reuinon was in front of The Fir Tree which forced us into another stop; eventually, we left and triangulated on the pack again.  FBJ, the GM of the TOSS Hash in the summer may have found a new way to raise cash:

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I was a little early for the hash so I decided to end my first run of the evening with a little food.  The Bodrum had kebabs on the menu but I really wish I had got the fish…the doner was gristly and chewy but the chips were a delight–crisp with a fluffy center.  The chilli sauce is homemade and very good, but I really don’t know how you fuck up a kebab (maybe it’s better with the salad but I only wanted doner and chips before the upcoming run).  Yuk.

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No, I didn’t record it to watch later.  It’s just I couldn’t give less of a fuck.  If I want to drink too much and eat a bunch of unhealthy snacks on a Sunday, I tend to get out of bed; and if I want to do all that and hang out with obnoxious morons, there’s a hash somewhere in the county.  Fuck American football and it’s fans.  I like sport in general, but nothing is a bigger waste of time or energy (or drugs or HGH).

Okay, it's not all bad...