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{The following is a reply to a business cold-call email…enjoy}

Dear Kenji,

Thanks for your email; it has given me much to ponder. Are these special seals for ordinary plates or seals for special plates?

Indeed, the problems I need to solve are legion. For example, can I use these seals to redesign my email filters?

M.V.G.,

DOBorodin

________________________________________
From: Kenji Kimura, Bio Chromato, Inc.
Sent: 11 March 2013 11:16
To: Denis Borodin
Subject: Message from Japan

Dear DENIS O. BORODIN,

This is Kenji Kimura from BioChromato, Inc.  I sent you our products information last week. Have you had a chance to check my e-mail?

We have special plate seals that might help you solve problems.  If you are interested in testing our products, please reply to this e-mail.

Best regards, Kenji Kimura

Pinpoint Solution
Bio Chromato, Inc.
1-12-19 Honcho, Fujisawa,
Kanagawa-ken 251-0053
Japan
http://www.bicr.co.jp/e/

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So, four years now (or, rather, next week it will be…here’s the annual reports for years Three, Two, and One for historical perspective).

We just received our new visas valid until 2016 but plan to take the next step toward citizenship in a year, Indefinite Leave to Remain…sort of the British Green Card.  There is an exam, first, but in general it is all downhill from here.

The view from Western Street near the new house…also all downhill

Additionally, we are in the process of moving house (which is why I rushed the annual report a week forward) from just north of the Oasis over to Old Town to a house situated close walks to either the Beehive or the Castle or the Globe (recently reopened!)—three locals instead of one and all three of high quality—and dozens of others a short walk. The new house has three bedrooms each larger than its counterpart in the old house, the two receptions are larger and made into more of an open-plan configuration, the bath is larger and has a tub (not just a shower), and there is a finished basement; on the down side, the kitchen is a little narrower and more primitive as is the small garden but everything we do and everywhere we normally go in Swindon (save for the butcher) is so close.

The only races I did this past year were the London Marathon (5 pubs plus a can of Carling on the last mile) and the Beerathon (5 miles with a pint and a hefty food item between each) and the mileage run for the year suffered from this lack of focus—1950 give or take about 25 (most estimates pretty good using gmap-pedometer), while the last several years (except for the year of the wreck) were in the 2200-2500 range.

On the runs, I visited  255 new pubs with a stunning 67 new ones (steep part of the graph) in September when I took two weeks off work and ran at least 10 miles per day in new territory each day. The 1000th wasn’t as big a thrill as I thought it would be, but I saw some really nice places and met some really fine folk. The September holiday found me visiting Gloucester, South Wales, Slough (exotic, I know) and Exeter along with some nearer-to-Swindon trips. The 100 Yellow Beer Challenge was responsible for a lot of second visits to pubs I might not otherwise have gone to after an initial stop and many of these seemed better the second time around. Oh, and my Workingman’s Club appears to have failed or at least hasn’t been open the last several times I’ve popped by (I have a grand one scoped out for the new neighbourhood, though).

Best pubs in Year Four (reverse order by First Visit write-up):
The Southgate Inn, Devizes
Byron’s, Swindon
The Hop Inn, Swindon
Dicey Reilly’s, Teignmouth
The Brass Monkey, Teignmouth
One Eyed Jack’s, Gloucester
Ye Olde Red Lion, Tredegar
The Rose of Denmark, Woolwich
The Volunteer Rifleman’s Arms
The Green Dragon, Marlborough
The British Lion, Devizes
The Blue Boar, Alsbourne (for the Dr. Who connections)

Favourite write-ups:
Postboxes
British Citizenship Exam Prep
Risk Assessment-Bins
Oxford Tourists
Assize Court, Bristol

Cock Flavour
Paul Simon in Hyde Park
Edie’s Lawn
The hunt
The Bremen Musicians (German children’s story)
Sex Tourism in Wiltshire
Modern Algebra for Omid
Burns’ Day Lunch

There are others search for ‘made me laugh.’  The blog may or may not have made some of the over 100,000 visitors laugh, but the damn fools keep checking in (that’s you, that is).

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My initial work visa for the UK.

I just turned in my Visa application and documents for our last year before I become eligible for what is known as Permanent Residency in the States and Indefinite Leave to Remain here   This is my first big step toward citizenship, and involves a test of my knowledge of British Culture (some of which is reproduced here).

Note: I haven’t actually started revising for the test.

Also, answer “b” is always chosen by an American, or a foreigner more suited to America.  It’s “B” for Bugger Off.

Answer “a” is always correct but “c” or “d,” when they appear, are always acceptable.

VOCABULARY

1. Pint:

a) 20 Imperial ounces (18.2 US ounces)
b) 16 US ounces
c) not enough, matey, not enough

2. Glass:
a) verb, defend oneself OR to attack someone (generally at drinking up time)
b) noun, vitrified sand
c) smallest acceptable unit of whiskey for a man

3. Pants:
a) knickers
b) trousers
c) nonsense

4. Pissed
a) adjective, drunk…badly drunk, y’know, like every weekend
b) verb, past tense, urinated

5. Sorry
a) equivalent to shrieking, “YOU FUCKING PILE OF STEAMING SHITE HOW DARE YOU FORCE ME TO ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR EXISTENCE.” But quietly and reflexively and it really doesn’t mean ANYTHING most of the time.
b) a notification to the recipient that you are culpable and remorseful for an action you are responsible for

GENERAL QUESTIONS

6. Your town is ___________.
a) “a bit shit, really.”
b) “the best town in the WORLD!”
c) “Are you looking for a slap, mate?”
d) a & c

7. As someone approaches they say, “alright?” You respond:
a) “Alright?”
b) “Yes, I’m fine thanks, how are you?”

8. It’s bleak ________.
a) up North
b) down South
c) on Albert Square

[This one actually happened in front of me and, yes, the correct answers are a & c.]
9. An old man is knocked off his bike by a lorrie in Olney. You offer _______.
a) a cup of tea
b) assistance
c) a large brandy

[This one involves actual top two answers from a poll of Brits.]
10. Aliens land from outer space. You ________.
a) offer to put the kettle on
b) alert the authorities, or fight the things, or run for cover abandoning family, friends and colleagues
c) ask, “alright?”

11. Walking on the pavement [sidewalk], you find yourself on a trajectory that will crash into an oncoming pedestrian. He clocks this and moves to the other side of the pavement to avoid confrontation. You respond by _____________.
a) readjusting your trajectory to crash into this sad bastard…fuck ‘im. Nance.
b) smiling and acknowledging their courtesy
c) a AND only using peripheral vision to navigate, thus gaining plausible deniability that this was intentional (see VOCABULARY question on “Sorry”)

12. Do you know who Vicky Pollard is?
a) yeahr but no but, yeahr but no but, yeahr but no but, yeahr but no but….
b) who?

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The newest pub in Swindon is the Hop Inn, occupying a former sex shop in Old Town.  The comments section to an article about the pub in the Swindon Advertiser included a number of alternate names for the bar including “The Dog and *uck,” “The Black Knobbler,” “The Brown Paper Bag,” “The Privates’ Hop,” and my favourite “The Onanist’s Arm.”

Always trust a bar with bar animals

The Hop Inn [Onanist's] was really jumping in at the deep end since there are so many fine pubs in Old Town, and the building is truly an old storefront and not precisely what you might think of as a traditional pub; don’t be deterred from going in, though–it is quite a wonder with five good and quite interesting ales on, ‘fizzy’ beers of rare varieties and Pheasant Plucker cider which I am very fond of.  I had an Inntrigue from Plain Ales which was dark and mild in the mouth and left a very pleasant bitter/cigar-like aftertaste.

Clicking photo takes you to the location on the pub map, but this entry is on the 6th page of pub push pins (feel free to browse, though)

Rambling thoughts on the adult industry: I don’t know if you’d exactly call it nostalgia I felt there in the Hop Inn, but the location takes me back to late 1985.  At the time, I owed a scary amount of money to some very scary people but possessed a white, middle-class face and demeanour (should a visit to court become necessary) and a Union Card as a Projectionist.  These details prompted them to “let” me work off my debt in seven 16 hour shifts per week for six months, editing and exhibiting 35mm porno in what I can only imagine was a money laundering operation.  The vagaries of DeKalb County vice legislation prohibited any depiction of penetration and Georgia law (and I think one of these hoodlum’s traditional Viet Namese mothers) would not allow undeniable depictions of “sodomy,”  so I had to cut out multitudinous strips anywhere from ten frames to 20 feet  from each film before exhibition then return these bits to the reels before returning to the distributors.  I lived in an adjacent projection booth where the other cinema had suffered a fire (purely accidental, I was assured).

None of this has anything to do with this pub, except it was once a wank shop.

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The British are obsessed with Health and Safety and while I am assured this arose entirely from EU edicts (fucking Brussels), they have embraced it with a religious fervour.  Hoping to stay ahead of the tedious paperwork, I will keep my eyes open for likely new hazards I need to keep the lab alerted to.  Here is a Risk Assessment I am currently preparing:

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Every year in September, a bunch of carnival rides are parked in Oxford’s St. Giles Street for two days and every year we get the same security warning from our University Crime Reduction Manager (whom I imagine looks like the picture…he certainly sounds like it).  The best bits for my money are the warning to be wary of any “tailgater checking out your premises” (which I hashtag #not_a_euphemism, and as I’m no longer any spring chicken, would feel a bit flattered by, I should imagine), and the Dickensian phraseology like “ne’er-do-wells” and “ill-gotten gains.”  These rapscallions and blaggards know no bounds of civility!  An excerpt:

“During the fair days, please brief staff to be on the look out for the casual walk in thief, or tailgater checking out your premises. Those further away should also not be complacent; the ne’er-do-wells are known to roam far and wide in their search for ill-gotten gains…..

For those of you visiting the fair, do enjoy yourselves….”

If you dare.

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Years ago, I went to a mass spectrometry conference in Palm Springs and it seemed logical that we should book the flights into Las Vegas and drive the rest of the way after a suitable period of time.  The in-flight conversation turned to gardening and I mentioned the herbs–the LEGAL herbs–I was growing.  Mike asked, “is it pronounced BAY-zill or BAA-sill?”  I said I don’t know for sure but the package seemed to indicate the first; “it says ‘Sweet Basil Ocillum,’ you know…like a pimp’s name.”  We returned to discussing our craps statistics and I forgot about the whole ridiculous gardening chat.

Minor luck at the tables meant we didn’t sleep at all and were quite drunk for the ride to PS, then the conference is always a big party so by the NEXT morning we were really hung over and exhausted.  I was going to sleep through the first couple of hours of talks and just show up for lunch but Mike was gamely getting ready for the day, doing whatever he does in the shower; the maid walks in and I look up from under the covers and see her step backwards from the bathroom door, stunned.  ”Uh, do I do you now?” she asked in a heavy Central American accent.

“Shouldn’t I talk to Sweet Basil first?” asked Mike.  I couldn’t sleep after that; and every time I see Sweet Basil has opened a new business I document it.

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What follows is the original edit of a recruitment letter I posted to my lab members in an effort to bring out some new flesh to the Hash [final version tacked on after the last of the photos--I didn't want to frighten anyone off].  It might interest some of you, as well (or, if elsewhere, find yourself a local hash and give it a go…Google ‘Hash House Harriers’ and your town or city and odds are something will come up):

=================================================

I’ve taken some stick from fellow members of the Oxford Hash House Harriers for

1) not showing up for trails in awhile, and
2) never bringing any new recruits.

The next Hash (as the weekly events are known) that I will attend is a special one, at 7 pm on 25th July 2012 celebrating the birthday of the founder of hashing, one A. E. I. Gispert. Since the trail (this time) starts from the James Street Tavern in Oxford, it is less likely to involve river crossings, brambles or thick mud (all part of what is collectively known as ‘shiggy’) than trails starting in rural settings, but you can never really be certain. Although rides to-and-from OH3 Starts are easy to beg I usually can’t be asked; this one, however, is only a short jog from the University (map from PTCL, here) so I have no excuse.

Hashers love celebrating special occasions: here are some folks at a Halloween Hash dressed as “Princess Die” and “WTC 9:05 am”

Nor do many of you, and I hope this note will find someone interested in trying out this entertaining, erm, form of exercise…no, that’s not it…uh, social activity…nope…maybe ‘cult’ is the closest thing but a lot less organised than most. Hashing really is an entity unto itself, and no explanation ever really comes to grips with its essence (nor shall the one that follows). It has a humble history, a global reach and more varieties than active chapters (or ‘kennels’).

Hashing involves too much to explain in a short note like this and, as I am recruiting, I will leave out much. Essentially, you meet at the Start and talk bollocks for awhile, circle up for last-minute, pre-run instructions from the person who set the trail for the day (the ‘Hare’), new people will be instructed on how the trail markings work and how the rest of the ‘Pack’ instruct or inquire (on the run) as to whether or not the trail has been found, then you run or walk the trail which can go literally anywhere. After about an hour, you will find the end of the trail (the ‘On-Inn’) where, at OH3 events, there will be food and drink awaiting (at many other hashes, only drink awaits). When all have turned up, the Pack forms the ‘Circle’ and good deeds are rewarded with beverage and song, ill actions are punished with beverage and song, and sometimes beverage and song occur for no really good reason.

Someone might get naked and you might see someone famous

Why would anyone come out? Well, your first time is free (at Oxford, and some others…in fact, rumour has it that at Oxford the small fee isn’t charged the first 3 times), the Circle is a laugh, and no one is really monstrous (except for those that are).

If you find you like Hashing, you will also find that anywhere you go (anywhere: some astronauts are hashers) you won’t be too far from a trail. It is a truly worldwide phenomenon, although the rites and traditions vary greatly from kennel-to-kennel. If you are unfortunate enough to travel somewhere at a time that a trail isn’t happening nearby you can still probably find local hashers that will suggest a good bar and then meet you there (be forewarned, this is not always a good thing, but it will usually make for a good story, nonetheless).

All beliefs are tolerated

I mentioned tradition because of the widely repeated cliché that there are no rules in hashing (except that one, and maybe some others), but Tradition is strictly enforced and wildly celebrated. At no hash are new shoes tolerated (but, they won’t be new after Circle). Some hashes punish athletic clothing or, indeed, any show of athletic prowess. An Oxford H3 Tradition is that odd socks are worn (word to the wise). A new Tradition may be introduced at any moment and be in force for any amount of time deemed necessary by the GM, the Religious Advisor (RA), the Beer Meister, or any of a multitude of other official entities you might encounter.

Alas, these explanations are hopeless. Accurate details sound like wild exaggeration, yet the deeds described are never so wild as an accurate explanation sounds…in fact, most of it is fairly low-key and quietly social although I’ve seen arrests, international incidents [sic, and mea maxima culpa], unexpectedly bad behaviour from otherwise staid individuals and unexpectedly good behaviour from obvious fiends more times than I can count. I have hashed for over eleven years (three of which with Oxford) all over the planet and have made many friends, of sorts, in doing so.

There’s no need to contact me about this, but feel free if you want to. It makes no difference, now. From here on, any details I serve up will be meant to deliberately mislead you (and another word to the wise, don’t follow me on trail because I rarely follow trail anyway and usually miss the On-Inn, although rarely the Circle…a personal Tradition).

There…I have done my part. See you Wednesday.  On-on.

My house in Tucson was on the final flight path about a mile from Davis-Monthan AFB. I paint this for the pilots who approached the runway at an altitude about 500ft above this roof.

===========

Not hashing but hash related…the 30 Pack Marathon (the 2012 edition recruiting participants here) and the Great British Beerathon in August.

==========The copy that went out to the research colleagues is below=========

Dear all,

.

This has nothing to do with work, so is unusual for one of my notes.

.

Keywords–Free Beer, Exercise, Nothing At All Like Exercise, Beer.

And, more beer.  And, rude songs and beer.

.

Read on, or not…I promised to try and get new folks to try this but don’t really expect anyone to do so:

.

================================

I have been a member of the Oxford Hash House Harriers ( http://www.oxfordh3.org/ ) for a few years and I’ve taken some stick lately from fellow members for

.

1) not showing up for trails in awhile, and

2) NEVER bringing any new recruits.

.

I would try to explain what Hash House Harriers is, as an organisation, but for the fact that it is so disorganised.  It must be experienced, which sometimes takes a couple of visits to realise just what it is about.

.

The first Hash was started by some Brits in Malaysia in the 1930′s to ‘get some exercise’ and to ‘sate the subsequent thirst.’ There are literally thousands of chapters worldwide and you can almost always find a trail being run anywhere you go or, failing that, other hashers who want to meet up and show you a bit of the town.  There’s no governing body (god forbid) and each Hash has very few things in common with others except for these:

.

A.  Hashing is a very social activity.  The local branch meets at a pub immediately before each trail and retires back there immediately after.  Variations on this theme are rampant.

.

B.  There is an opportunity to get some exercise (although this is quite easy to avoid by joining the walking group which will do a much shorter but usually no less entertaining trail).  Some special events (like the 30-Pack Marathon) are more rigourous than others, but bunking off in the middle is a time honoured Tradition.

.

C.  You see a bit of the area you might not normally see.  For outside-of-Oxford trails, swaths of countryside are involved (including the possibility of fording streams or pushing through brambles or worse).  In Tucson and Las Vegas and Atlanta and Paris you might explore a bit of the storm sewer systems; I have personally set trails that climbed to the top of mountains where I had earlier stashed beer for a mid run break during a full moon that was emerging over a nearby city in the distance.  Recent Worldwide InterHashes (meetings of hashers globally) have been held in Thailand, Borneo, and Australia; there is one next year in Kenya and National ones (Nash Hashes) draw just as wide a variety of hashers to sites of natural beauty and high densities of drinking establishments.

.

D.  It is a laugh.  At the end of the trail there is always the “Circle,” which for Oxford hashes is preceded by some freshly prepared food and some beverages.  At the Circle, crimes against the hash Traditions (there are no Rules, except that one, and maybe a few others) are punished with mockery, a song, and a beverage; praiseworthy acts are rewarded with mockery, a song, and a beverage.  You probably don’t know the songs, but may know the tunes; many are (or are based on) old regimental or rugby songs (the Circle is a post Rugby match tradition) and that may give you some idea what to expect.

.

The Traditions (not Rules) are strictly enforced but many of them are contradictory and capricious so don’t worry too much about it (sort of the Mornington Crescent school of activities).  Some are made up on the spot.  Traditions common to all hashes include a prohibition against new shoes (really, follow this one…they shouldn’t even look new).  Athletic behaviour is usually noted and punished severely (many Hash kennels–as the individual clubs are known–punish obvious athletic clothing as well).  Oxford has a Tradition of wearing odd socks…I don’t think anyone remembers how this started.  Every year there is a Red Dress Run sponsored by each kennel.  I haven’t seen much nudity at English hashes and none at Oxford (which due to the poorly toned condition of most of us is quite a blessing); if you take up the mantle of ‘hasher’ and go to the States, I can direct you to the ones where the threat of nudity is more (or less, if you prefer) likely to occur.

.

Oxford also has a Tradition that the first Three visits to the Hash are free (thereafter £3, usually, which is still a bargain for the food and beverage alone).  So, poverty is no excuse for new folks (drinks at the pub is on your own tab, though).

.

The next Oxford Hash is a special one (but many are), at 7 pm on 25th July 2012 celebrating the birthday of the founder of hashing, one A. E. I. Gispert. It starts from the James Street Tavern just off Cowley Road so only a short jog from the lab.

.

If you arrive at or before 7, there will be time for an explanation of the trail markings and what the various shouts mean (mostly ways to determine if someone ahead of you or heading in an odd direction is ‘On Trail’ or ‘Looking’ for signs of trail).  Do not follow me, as I am rarely On Trail; something of a personal Tradition is turning most Trails into a mini pub crawl then showing up late at the Circle…I’m not the only one, but I dare not speak for the others.

.

You needn’t contact me about this, just show up in something that can get muddy and sweaty (or, try it somewhere else if you feel adventurous).  The Hashers will be bunched together somewhere in the Tavern and easy to spot (several always show up a little early here, but other kennels are notoriously late). Buy yourself a beer or something and go introduce yourself, or I’ll introduce you when I arrive if I’m not already there.  As mentioned, it is a weekly event and you can almost always weasel a ride to and from the Trails when they are in more remote locations.

.

As they say, On-On,

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The rest of the week in Bremen was wrapped up in 9 and 10 hour work days running experiments in the lab followed by some experimental dining (with mornings and one afternoon either running or taking long strolls to cover a bit of the city and its outlying neighbourhoods, mapped above).  Our colleagues at the instrument manufacturer took us to a Turkish restaurant (Tendüre) that I would highly recommend (you could make a meal off the mezze, alone).

Left to my own devices for Wednesday night, I found a lovely Italian bistro called Pizzeria Cassetta in the Neustadt about a mile from the hotel (and a few doors down from the pool hall where I later watched the Spain v Portugal football match).  Cassetta looks like a neighbourhood bar but was packed largely on the merits of the cheap but incredibly authentic Italian food cooked by incredibly authentic Italian dudes.  I ordered a cuarto litro of the house Montepulciano and watched the service like it was a floor show.

I marveled as plate after scrumptious platter of fine Italian cuisine emerged from the kitchen where one busy chef plated like a machine.  When mine (a ziti with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, garlic and a cream-based tomato sauce) came out, it never saw what hit it as I devoured it and a second quarter liter of the house wine in mere minutes.  Wonderful and a perfect foil to the heavy German fare during the day.

I had less interest in watching the Italy v Germany match than in watching the German fans so I sought out a venue that would allow me to observe while I enjoyed my Thursday supper.  I have, in the past, sworn off and sworn at Mexican food in Europe but decided to give Mexcal, a restaurant I had spotted on a run earlier in the week, a shot.

Wonder of wonders, I was the only one of about 30 customers that wasn’t watching the game despite, wonder of wonders, this being the most authentic and delicious Mexican meal I have had outside of places in Nogales, South Tucson or, at a push, the Buford Highway Guatemalan/Mexican corridor in Atlanta.  Granted, the chiles were not hot but otherwise the spices were perfect.

My ‘taco’ had marinated grilled chicken slices and succulent beef along with mouth-watering shrimps.  The burrito was a complex and challenging compilation of chicken, beans that retained texture but were flavoured like delicate broth throughout, and rice that failed to be bland or dry.  The guacamole was made with sour cream instead of mayo and was, therefore, something I could (and did) slather on everything.  Wonderful.

German fans, watching their team getting their ass handed to them

Even more wonderful, the Germans like their beer cold and will serve it in pitchers (at a price about the same for 1.5 liters as two pints cost in Britain).  I was a bit dismayed by the claim, on the little collar/napkin on my glass, that König Pils is the king of beers, but I’ll let you decide who to follow:

Perhaps not so much “King of Beers” as the Kaiser:

I left Mexcal at halftime and the streets’ large beer gardens were still full of singing football fans, their collective voices eerily echoing all over the town centre.  I veered off toward the hotel a few miles away but soon needed a toilet and found refuge in a bar called Charly Treff, occupied only by two old dudes (one sewing buttons on a corduroy vest like those that appeared in several hundred photographs and artist renderings all over the walls of this weird little establishment).  The game was on the tele when I returned but no one was watching with the home squad behind 2-0.  I had a beer and then completed my journey home for the night.

Charly Treff from Google street view (it was dark out when I tried, and failed, to get a good photo on my own)

Charly Treff bathroom: any place that has a puke sink fitted to the bathroom wall is alright by me!

The last day at the lab we had a breakthrough just before I left to do a couple of hours worth of daytime tourism before my flight.  I ventured up as far as the Hauptbahnhoff, a marvelous example of rail station architecture, then continued north to the Bürgerpark looking for a beer garden (yet finding none that really called my name).

The Germans of the modern world are much more accepting of alternative lifestyles, I believe, since on the search for a tram back to the centre I spotted a designated alley to cruise men:

In town, the area called the Schnoor is a network of medieval streets too small for most motor vehicles and, as I learned, overrun with tourists during the day.  This was a shame since I had spotted many good bars on evening runs (when the tourists give way to the local populace) and only had the will to venture as deep into their midst as Gasthof zum Kaiser Friederich, about 100 meters from my tram.  Still, a very tall, very cold, very refreshing glass of witbier suited my temperament and fortified me for the trip home.

Not really hungry when I arrived at Bremen Airport, I opted for lunch when I realised the place in there was preparing the pasta to order with a real chef tossing the noodles with one of about 15 sauces of your choice.  The line was big so I ordered two glasses of wine to get me through the wait and the dining…and this was almost too much except that the food was better than I would have expected in a restaurant OUTSIDE the airport.  What a treat!  I will miss this city until I get another chance to explore it in more detail….

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An arduous journey culminated in landing at the tiny Bremen Airport (larger than the one in Athens, Georgia but smaller than Lovell Field in Chattanooga).  My hotel was attached to the lobby by a covered walk across the tramway and after exchanging notes with my colleague who arrived earlier I retired to my room where I cracked open a Becks and found a rubbery packet placed on my pillow (but I’ve stayed in crappier places that I SHOULD have been able to say that about).

I awoke at 5 by habit but was still sleepy and lounged around till 6 before stretching and going for a bit of a run around the bleak neighbourhood (mostly industrial park).  There are as many bike lanes in Bremen as in a Dutch city, so finding a place to run is pretty straightforward.  Work was a chore because we left so many bits we actually needed back in Oxford (on the advice of my boss and the folks at the development labs).  Non-disclosure agreements limit that discussion to essential that.

Okay, it means radio-controlled clock; but, I like the idea of getting my daily newspaper at a place called, “Funk Hour.”

Work went on, regardless, and we eventually released our tired hosts and my Russian mate went home to the hotel.  I opted to change back into my running gear and went out to explore the beer/running dichotomy, Bremen style.

Bremen is never going to be a huge tourist spot, but it is quite a charming city.  It has a contrarian history (one of the furthest west Soviet Republics, until this was quickly quashed) and the folks here are quite nice if you try at all to meet them halfway.  For instance, I sometimes can surprise myself at my comprehension of spoken German because, although I have good grades on my high school transcripts for German language coursework I have absolutely no recollection of ever enrolling, attending, or being examined in these lessons; nonetheless, I managed to follow the simplified-for-my-consumption conversations at the three bars I hit on the route.  Very nice of them to let me try.

Down an alley I spotted the Spitzen Gebel and dashed in for a pilsner.  I had a Haake Beck, which I think I could get used to, then smelled something strange…hey! Folks were smoking in here!  I only have an occasional stogie, but this is what a bar should be like.  The small venue was packed and friendly and reasonably priced.  Moreover, I was the only non-local in the place despite its proximity to what should have been the highest density of visitors in the town.

Needing nourishment and loving a kebab, I found a döner place.  No, check that, I found a very good döner place and had quite a delicious pita with lamb, salad, and chilli sauce; not at all greasy and the meat tasted like (and had the texture of) meat.  Result.

Tasty and high quality though it was, I wanted something to was it down and to cleanse the palate.  About a third of the way back to hotel I spotted the weird little side street bar, Baldu, with its Tiki Bar interior and 70′s soundtrack.  I ordered a Franziskaner Weißbier and received an enormous glass of this faintly orange and wheat loveliness that I can still make out, faintly, even after the ‘run’ continued on for one more stop.

Everyone else in the bar was drinking equally large or strong drinks backed with shots of something or other (I recognised vodka and got one for myself after even the bartender rendered horrific face-pulls on some spicy black shot one of the punters bought her…the vodka enhanced the FW, whereas the mystery tipple might have ruined it).

The run started to approach my shoddy airport neighbourhood so I scanned side streets until I spotted a bier sign down one.  I pulled up to the building to find it was a pool hall complete with some stinky bikers out front.  It was still pretty tame inside, the soundtrack included Meat Loaf and the house wine was, I shit you not, Motörhead Shiraz…I had already ordered another Haake Beck but I really wanted to toast Lemmy (maybe I can get someone from work to come shoot a few racks before I have to leave).

 

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“I cook with wine; sometimes I even add it to the food.”
– W. C. Fields

This is the first of my five-at-a-go wine entries, as mentioned in the last of my monthly compilations (February 2012).

A relatively new postdoc at work had one of those brain farts that wreaks havoc on the lab.  When the laser is in use, the lab is locked but you can enter with a code on the keypad or exit by pushing the little green button to defeat the lock for thirty seconds; there is also an enormous red button to kill the laser in an emergency and another, smaller red button near the door to kill power to ALL the instruments in the event of an emergency.  The engineer upgrading an instrument for us gave me a call from the lab and asked if I had a moment to stop by; the background noise was eerily absent.  After bringing the lab back online and starting the reconditioning process, I headed home stopping at the newsagent/off-license and picking up a well deserved cheap bottle of First Cape Cab Sav to enjoy (and I did) with supper.

Had to sit through a seminar presented by someone I had decided was a dickhead years ago, and he actually had the cheek to include some of the data that brought me to that conclusion lo those many years ago.  At the first presentation of this data he whined about his IonSpec FTMS being incapable of suitable mass accuracy; however, a few years earlier I shared the cover of Analytical Chemistry (with a friend who is now at Warwick University) for our complementary papers detailing facile and robust methods for correcting space charge frequency shifts (which said dickhead seemed blissfully unaware at the conference but pointed out when describing his subsequent instrument, a blackbox idiot proof Thermo LTQ-FT).  Moreover, both our papers relied almost exclusively on data generated on IonSpec instrumentation…I hate it when people who don’t even know how to drive try to explain why they think your vehicle is broken. My boss, bless her and her dry, subtle and somewhat mean sense of humour, pointedly asked for some details that I am sure were meant to open the floor to me, but I was seething, in part, and just didn’t give a fuck in larger part.  Once back home, though, a plate of pasta and a nice Montepulciano soothed me.

Saturday shopping resulted in some Italian sausages, artichokes, olives, field mushrooms, and some Provolone piccante which was almost too strong a cheese to top a pizza, but we went ahead and did it anyway.  I’m sure there is an Italian wine that would stand up to the spicy cheese and the rest of the toppings, but I fell back on a beloved Côtes du Rhône:

Following up on the nice Côtes du Rhône with the pizza, I splurged on the grocery store labeled Côtes du Rhône to go with some braised venison.  The Sainsbury plonk, however, is surprisingly good for a generic:

In no mood to cook, we opted for quesadillas made from leftover bits.  There was some beef mince browned with onion and garlic, a fragrant (stinky) hunk of Stilton, and some flavourless tomatoes to fry inside some tortillas.  At the newsagent, the closest match for something this simple was always going to be something cheap so I grabbed the pretty label of Blossom Hill Shiraz Grenache–and reading this I realize just how much I sound like Lenny (although I feel like George): “tell me about the rabbits.”

The list from 1 – 8 March 2012:

First Cape Cabernet Sauvignon
Mondelli Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Le Parimoine Côtes du Rhône Villages
Sainsbury’s Côtes du Rhône
Blossom Hill Shiraz Grenache

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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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The research group Christmas Party was, like last year, at the boss’ house on the outskirts of Islip (famous as the home of Edward the Confessor, last of the Saxon kings). It is dark, these days, by 4:30 but the party started at 7:30 and I fancied a run after these last few weeks of dread illness so I donned a shitload of reflective gear, put fresh batteries in my headlamp, hand torch, and flashing red lamp, plotted a route along fence rows and bridleways and scheduled a stop at 5.5 miles in Beckley to try out the Abingdon Arms. Unfortunately, I realised just prior to leaving the labs that I forgot my compass; one colleague suggested I just follow the river (the ‘Confessor’s Path,’ as it is known). Pshaw! “New miles and/or a new pub…gotta have rules,” I replied; another, less-concerned-for-my-safety colleague suggested I use the position of the moon and this worked out more or less fine.

PLANNED route from work to party via Abingdon Arms (including the deleted dash to the rail station, after)

The run went off pretty smoothly as the moon was Azimuth ~70° and generally SE to SSE in direction. The campus filth had already locked the gates to Mesopotamia Walk along the Cherwell so I had to do an alternative over to Jack Straw Lane and pick up the trail in Headington but all was pretty copacetic on the run. I found the Abingdon Arms without incident and ordered up a most perfect pint of Oxfordshire Gold (it is a Brakspear house). There was a fire going but my clothes didn’t dry during my stay. It is a sprawling, old pub with trenches worn in the doorways from centuries of use. The barman was friendly and the only other customers seemed to know him well enough that the young girl was mocking his chicken-chasing misadventures earlier in the day…her older sister, sister’s partner and his nan and grandad were in for dinner and all held a lively and disjoint conversation of the type that implies they all know these stories by heart anyway. Fun as an eavesdropper.

The Abingdon Arms web site is better than most, giving history of the pub and surrounding area during the time the pub has been there and before. The pub is three centuries old which isn’t so unusual but to get decent information about a lot of the other old bars is like pulling hen’s teeth. I don’t want to plagiarise too freely, but I found it interesting that Evelyn Waugh used to spend time here regularly and that the view inspired some of Lewis Carroll’s inclusions in Through the Looking Glass.

The group has ballooned up to huge proportions in recent months and the party was packed even with some absences. We all spend so much time together (a lot of them also do so socially) that there is fuck all to talk about and yet we blathered on long enough that I had to take up an offer of kipping at one colleague’s house for the night (having missed the last train). So, the last leg of the planned route, the mile from the party to the train station, was scuppered. The consolation prize was his fine collection of single malts…damn the luck, eh?

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My office mate asked how to fix her PC and I gave some suggestions and offered to have a look myself if it all went tits up.  She wasn’t in Monday but had dropped the PC off and I went ahead and took the initiative and sorted it out.  Wednesday there was a bag on my desk with four very nice half-liter bottles of ale, sort of a non-cash payment (we agreed that in these uncertain financial times beer is something like a precious metal).  On Saturday, I executed the first Helena PC Repair Beer Festival.

I started the morning with a cheese omelet/quesadilla and the hot sauce really called for a beer.  Who could have asked for something more appropriate than Spitfire?  The Shepherd’s Neame ale is an old favourite that often appears at Oxford hashes and helped clear the Friday night cobwebs away.

We did our Saturday out-and-about stuff and I came home to start the evening meal.  We had a bit of zucchini that was about to go bad and the tomato vines keep producing so I opted for an umido, a sort of stewed vegetable recipe from Italy.  I paired this chore with a Fursty Ferret that was bitter but had a sort of citrus odour to it that was very pleasant.

While actually cooking (we had some beef patties on the grill and some chips, as well) and faced with a choice I opted for the Hook Norton Haymaker.  This also took me through the feast and met the rich and varied flavours of the vegetables on side and the main dish (with mushrooms and savoury spices mixed into the patties) with aplomb.

Then it was time for dessert as the HPCRBeerFest drew to a close.  Timothy Taylor Landlord has always been a good choice in bars and it went especially well with some oat, raisin and hazelnut cookies.  As time was called on these festivities the committee (that is, me) agreed that this should become a regular event.

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I thought I had exclusive license on all 'Bunny' names, but apparently not

This is a grab bag of stuff from this month, maybe becoming a recurring feature.

The concept of ‘Qualifications’ is a funny one in Britain.  To be qualified to do something doesn’t mean that you have the skills to perform a task, but rather that you have “done a course” at the end of which you have received a certificate (literally, a printed out and endorsed bit of paper) saying that you are thus qualified.  As an example, I am not qualified to use a step ladder in this country and when I ask our facilities personnel at Oxford to borrow one it is denied me due to my lack of qualifications.  It doesn’t matter that I was using 20 foot high ladders to climb into hay lofts in the mid 1960′s, that as part of my jobs in a steel mill and on construction sites I dragged acetylene cylinders up higher ladders still, or that upon landing in Grenada (yes, technically I am a war veteran: the beaches were nice and the live fire was distant) I wasn’t allowed to retrieve my cameras and film until I had hauled enough explosive ordnance to level St George’s for my jarhead and squid colleagues up–you guessed it–a ladder down the ship’s hold.  Nearly 50 years worth of experience, but it is deemed too risky for me to climb three feet up to secure some copper tubing with a zip-tie in England , so I have to put in a work request (and, yet, they turn me loose on high voltage systems and powerful motors–kookoo).

So it is amusing to know that a ‘QUALIFIED‘ plumber installed the drains in the trough urinals at the Oasis gym not only poorly (the solder is sloppy enough for me to feel I can comment on it) but upside down so that a half-inch of piss accumulates (diluted, to be sure, by the occasional burst of water):

I mentioned something about the preponderance of lost kitty articles in the Swindon Advertiser in a post about the Queensfield.  Here are the moggy-and-other-small-pet-related articles from the last few days (Tuesday through Saturday) in the paper, not including the pet supplement in yesterday’s edition:

I mentioned a duck I was roasting, and the recipe is worth trying.  My version slit the skin in a few places, salted the inside and threw crushed pepper on the outside, and stuffed it with ten or eleven crushed garlic cloves and a handful of thyme sprigs.  This was tented under foil and shoved in the oven at 130 C to be turned over hourly, then the temperature was raised to 170 C after 4 hours and it was uncovered until the end of the 5th hour.  Served with some sautéed kale and a little rice, this turned out pretty well.

Ready to cook...

...it tastes better than it looks.

Between hour one and two of the roast, I went out for a run and stumbled upon this weird looking statue of Diana Dors, Swindon’s gift to middle-aged drag queens:

Swindon is home to the Research Councils, UK, so science research gets occasional coverage in the paper.  It is good to see that funding for researchers at Leeds that I originally reported on is to continue at, I believe, Leicester…not sure, I really only looked at the photos in this article:

The funds were allocated in small bills....

 

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Socket not working?  Of course not…some idiot has pasted tape across the pins:

Yes, the University of Oxford: home to the best and the brightest.

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Route home...it wasn't so much the wine and beer as the shear mass of food that made it difficult

No one got naked or threw up; there wasn’t even a fight. Despite all this, it seemed a pleasant enough way to kill the evening and wait for the cold meds to alleviate the fever. Definitely beginning to understand why Doug Stanhope wants the drinking age raised, though; [paraphrasing]: “Who wants to get loaded in a room full of people that still have hope and ambition and their whole life ahead of them…fuck that.”

Part of the route home without the headlamp

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The deck upstairs at the Pickle Barrel

Jackie used to work at the Pickle Barrel back in the early 80′s after it was bought by Nick and Brian, two former air traffic controllers at loose ends after the whole PATCO fiasco.  In many ways it was the best job she ever had and when she moved to Atlanta many of the Pickle Barrel denizens of that time soon followed.  I met many of them before we met, in fact.

So, rare is the visit to Tennessee during which we fail to stop in for a round or two.  This time I had an ice cold half pitcher of New Belgium 1554, but eventually it warmed to a drinkable temperature (bunch of savages!).  On our way out we spotted Nick at the bar being very Nick-esque and had not so much a conversation as a few disjoint words.

The place predates Nick and Brian (Brian has since left for greener pastures).  In the years preceding the PATCO strike it was run by some sort of religious cult and, I am assured, the food was superb.  The one remaining nod to this past is the toilets marked “Brothers” and “Sisters” although if you’ve been there more than once you’ll realise these are arbitrary and superfluous labels.

Reading matter in the brothers (or, possibly, the sisters)

The kitchen looks good, still and they have always had the best bar eats in town.  The servers can’t possibly be as surly as Jackie ever was, but I’m sure they try.  DO, by ALL means, plan on stopping in for a few drinks if you find yourself in town.

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Every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world...

Jamie had some stuff to post and when she got the stamps and saw what they were, said, “hey…give me another one of those.”  The Royal Mail has been putting out a number of these with great rock album covers (Never Mind the Bollocks was NOT on the shortlist for a sticky back with the Queen’s head on it).  But, this is just another good omen of the move and the change of residence and I couldn’t have been more pleased with a 39p gift.  Bless her.

We are slowly getting settled into our new house in Bicester.  Smaller by about half and younger by about 250 years than our place in Stretham it is still fairly nice and not at all a bad change.  The buildings in the neighbourhood are all less than 20 years old, but we do have a local pub (The Nightingale…all the streets are named after bird breeds, too), a surgery, chinese takeaway, grocery (Tesco), and copious foot and cycle paths cutting through the parkland the houses surround.  It is about a ten minute stroll to the center of Bicester where a dozen or so other pubs exist.  A running club (the Alchester RC which I will shortly join since affiliation will greatly reduce my paperwork for the Firenze Marathon this year) meets in town Thursdays for a long run and in my neighbourhood Tuesdays for speed work.  There is a hash here as well, the oldest continuously running one in the country (Bicester HHH).

None of these amenities have been taken advantage of by yours truly as of this writing.  The move and concomitant culling of possessions have taken up our precious little spare time and I stepped back into work a bit more busy than I have been in over a month (but still not even nearly at capacity, thankfully).  The week ahead should be a bit better and I am certain the pub count and some serious mileage are on the near horizon…I had a lousy 22 miles last week, largely sprints to stores and slow, purchase laden jogs back home, lost in our twisty neighbourhood streets and I haven’t been to a pub in 9 days.

I DID find a number of signs and such that made me giggle in that sort of immature way that some things just Do, like this:

The masterbaker packaging is just a hint of things to come (uh-huh-huh) as I start to carry the camera around again.  Y’all check back soon!

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New job approaches and I need to change my work status which means applying for a new work permit and Leave To Stay.  The new form is a bit simpler than the previous one but still has its wee hurdles (mostly gathering documentation, but I’m on top of all that).

A sad comment on society (or sad comments, as it were) is the series of questions about past illegal activities (the “have you ever been a member of or supported” kind of thing).  First off, if someone had been involved in genocide it isn’t likely to be something they were going to admit.  Secondly, the definitions page (attached with the “Rehabilitation of Offenders” notice redacted for brevity but all available by tracking down the Tier 2 application at the UK Border Agency) is somewhat surreal and seems to implicate many of my elected (more-or-less) leaders in the past:

Well, my forms are filled in honestly and ready to go as soon as our passports are returned by the DVLA (verification of our identies for new drivers’ licenses).  Fortunately, public nudity is neither against the law here (some stipulations apply) nor is considered the sort of evidence of moral turpitude that concerns the Home Office.