Why This Is Hell

ETA: Clearly a work in progress - as the Lympics occur I imagine trips to London will be curtailed and I will venture aross the border into Sussex. This is shamelessly plagiarised from a CAMRA page, but tidied up into my obsessive compulsive gottacatchemall format of a list in alphabetical order. A few of them are about to go into production; others will fall be the way side.


* 1648 Brewing Company (East Hoathly, Lewes, East Sussex - www.1648brewing.co.uk - The Kings Head)
Adur Brewery (Shoreham-by-Sea/Steyning, West Sussex - adurvalleycoop.com)
Anchor Springs (Littlehampton The Crown - www.thecrownlittlehampton.co.uk)
Arundel Ales (Ford, Arundel, West Sussex - www.arundelbrewery.co.uk )
* Ballards Brewery (Nyewood, Petersfield GU31 5HA - www.ballardsbrewery.org.uk
Baseline (Small Dole, West Sussex - www.baselinebrewing.co.uk)
Bedlam (Albourne, Hassocks, West Sussex - www.bedlambrewery.co.uk)
Beachy Head Brewing Co. (East Dean, Eastbourne - www.beachyhead.org.uk/brewery – mainly bottled)
Black Cat Brewery,(Groombridge - www.blackcat-brewery.com)
Brighton Bier Company and Kemptown (The Hand in Hand pub, Kemptown, Brighton)
* Dark Star (Partridge Green - www.darkstarbrewing.co.uk)
Edge Brewing Co. (and Franklins) (Bexhill, East Sussex - www.edgebrewing.co.uk www.franklinsbrewery.co.uk )
Fallen Angel Microbrewery (East Hoathly, East Sussex - www.fallenangelbrewery.com – bottles)
* Filo Brewery (Hastings, East Sussex - www.thefilo.co.uk)
Full Moon Brewery Ltd (Battle, East Sussex - www.fullmoonbrewery.co.uk)
Gribble Brewery (Gribble Lane, Oving, near Chichester, West Sussex - www.gribbleinn.co.uk)
Hammerpot Brewery (Poling, Arundel, West Sussex - www.hammerpot-brewery.co.uk)
* Harveys (Lewes, East Sussex)
Hastings Brewery Ltd (St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex - www.hastingsbrewery.co.uk)
Isfield Brewery, Maresfield
Kissingate Brewery (Lower Beeding - www.kissingate.co.uk)
Kitchen Garden Brewery (Sheffield Park, East Sussex - www.kitchengardenbrewery.co.uk – bottles)
Langham Brewery (Petworth - www.langhambrewery.co.uk)
Long Man (Litlington East Sussex - www.longmanbrewery.com)
Pin-Up (Stone Cross, Sussex - www.pinupbeers.com/about/ - moving from Essex)
Rectory Ales (Streat, East Sussex).
* Rother Valley Brewing Co. (Northiam, East Sussex)
Southdowns (Small Dole, West Sussex - www.southdownsbrewery.com)
Turners Brewery (Ringmer - www.turnersbrewery.com)
* W. J. King & Co (Horsham, West Sussex - www.kingbeer.co.uk)
* Weltons (Horsham, West Sussex - www.weltonsbeer.co.uk)

Having done much walking of late, I've felt very inspired by (and jealous of) the artist Hamish Fulton, who has said "If I do not walk, I cannot make a work of art", and lives round these parts. Most of his art are posters (or, rather, large areas of paint with vinyl lettering) recording walks - from coast to coast, from source to sea, across mountain ranges, along the Pilgrim's Way - and there is something about them that I like. There's a show at the Turner Contemporararararary - alongside the Turner - which is paired with a show at the IKON Birmingham, which I'm convinced I've had a brief look round before.

After a recent daytrip to Nottingham - to see Thomas Demand, which I suspect I've failed to write about - I booked tickets to and from Birmingham, and plotted an itinerary from New Street via various shops and coffee places to the bookshop to IKON to the BMAG and to a reportedly good pub and back again. I didn't do anything useful like print out a map or anything. This may have been a mistake.

The journey there was uneventful, aside from a new walking route from St P to Euston, avoiding Euston Road, which is unpleasant in differing ways, and to time, although I see that they are (still? again?) improving New Street. They've done something to the Pavilions which I can't put my finger on, and I got a little lost in my search for Digbeth. I did find a rather useful secondhand bookshop, where I bought a volume of the Sturgeon short stories - five volumes down, eight to go - for two quid. I forebore to purchase anything else, and then got lost via the market (and an illicit pork pie) in search of local cheese (fail) and Brindley Place. I have Googlemaps on my phone, but the instruction HEAD NORTH is no use without a compass on a day when the sun is obscured by cloud.

Thus it felt like a forty mile walk to the gallery - the signage is erratic - and I managed to plot a coffee bar free route (although there was a Costa in the square and if I've realised there was wifi, I would have used the cafe in the gallery). I climbed the steps to the top of the gallery and had a look round the exhibition, which, to my relief, was rather different from the Margate one, although along similar lines. I was rather taken by a couple of the acrostics -

Chinese
Economy
Tibetan
Refugee
Beijing
Olympic
Triumph

and

Brain
Heart
Lungs

(rare to have five letters rather than seven in these acrostics).

Alongside the Fulton were various rooms of Sarah Browne's "How to Use Fool’s Gold", not an artist I knew, and it includes a couple of crystal radios, pictures of flowers, a vodka still, photos of Icelanders in knitted jumpers. Sculpture, I suppose, in the widest sense, and usually collaborations - brewing, knitting, printing, electronics, writing, weaving. Intriguing, although I'm not clear what it all means...

On the back stairs were various "postcards" by Japanese artists - actually larger than usual postcards - which I wish I'd spent longer looking at. And there was a Martin Creed piece in the lift.

I'd almost found the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery by accident when looking for the IKON, so it was relatively easy to find. I had about 45 minutes, so I had a quick look at the Staffordshire Hoard, and spent a little longer on the Pre-Raphs and the twentieth century stuff. I'm getting better at recognising British artists. I wish I'd had longer.

By then I was feeling the lack of coffee (I don't think I'd had one since Euston), and I accidentally found a Caffe Nerd whilst in search of a Caffe Nerd - I suspect not the one I was looking for. It was pleasingly close to the Wellington, the pub I had in mind to visit, so that avoided getting lost. I fear the glory days of Birmingham beer are over - local breweries having been taken up and moved, and not the same level of microbrewing as, say, Nottinghamshire. Subsequent research reveals three local microbrews - ABC and Beer Geek in Ashton and Two Towers (Tolkien reference?) in Hockley - which demand a subsequent visit I feel. The Wellington has sixteen hand pumps, each with a different real ale, each replaced as the barrel empties. There is a screen telling you what is on and the ABV, and you are meant to order by number. The bar was predictably busy, but long practice meant I was served both times pretty well straight away.

For the record:
Purity Mad Goose 4.2% (Gt Alne, Warwickshire)
Hobsons Twisted Spire 3.6% (Cleobury Mortimer, Worcestershire)
Slater's Top Totty 4% (Stafford)
Ossett Excelsior 5.2% (Ossett)

I manage to find my way back to the station via a Tesco for sustenance without getting lost, although I found a shop I'd been trying to remember to look for earlier. I sat opposite two people - a couple? I'm not convinced - who'd been drinking in the Old Post Vaults, which has eight pumps, and who supplied me with a real ale map of Birmingham. I think I have a cunning plan to deploy in due course...

I'd planned to do a bit of work tonight, but the walk home seems to have intoxicated me. My sense of direction wasn't good, either.

Sampled (half pints) tonight:

Hydes (Manchester): Owd Oak 3.5% http://www.hydesbrewery.co.uk
a kind of sticky Guinness; tastes a bit like the smell of loose change

Dow Bridge (Catthorpe, Leics): D. B. Dark 4.4% http://www.dowbridgebrewery.co.uk
initially thought evap milk, but it's a very weak fruit pastille. How lousy are my taste buds?

Big Bog (Waunfawr?): Bog Standard 3.6% no information I can find...
Hits back of tongue and top of mouth; kind of a high pitched taste, hardly citrus, minor fizz.

Raw (Chesterfield, Derbys): Edge Pale Ale 4.5%: http://www.rawbrew.com/
gets you on the upper front jaw first then a long aftertaste on the edges of the back of your tongue. A kind of Seville marmalade taste.

Wednesday

Castle Rock (Nottingham): Preservation 4.4%: http://www.castlerockbrewery.co.uk/
bland and flat on first taste, but it has a long toffee aftertaste. Back and side of tongue fizz.

Robinsons (Manchester): Build a Rocket Boys 4%: http://www.elbowbeer.co.uk/#
Back and side of tongue fizz.Robinson is thicker and sourer - sherbet flavour, with a buzz on the bottom lip. Apple flavour. (Something to do with Elbow)

Castle Rock (Nottingham): Snowhite 4.2%: http://www.castlerockbrewery.co.uk/ as citrus as you'd expect an IPA style - though it's off yellow. Top/back of throat tickle.

Captain Cook (Stokesley): Discovery 4.4% http://www.yourround.co.uk/Brewer/Stokesley/Captain_Cook_Brewery/Beer/Discovery/TS9_5BL.aspx pear sherbet, very bitter aftertaste.

Rebel (Penryn): 80 Shilling Ale 4.1%: (or 5%) (http://www.beermad.org.uk/brewery/4853)
- long after taste, a bit liquorice

Abbeydale (Sheffield) Gothic Stout Porter (http://www.abbeydalebrewery.co.uk/index.html): 4.2
I really like the stout. At first I thought strawberry - it's fruit - but it's Muller Fruit Corner Black Cherry Yoghurt.

Cottage (Lovington) Mini Cooper (4.7%): (http://www.cottagebrewing.co.uk/about.html)
a limey fruit pastille - long aftertaste which goes to the back of the throat.

On Thursday I went forth to teach at the BFI. That's the British Film Institute - and the constituency was a group of home schooled 12-16 year olds, although I swear most looked younger. It was difficult to know how to pitch it - instinctively I didn't talk down, but three hours is a long time or not long enough. For reasons which need not detain us, I didn't get the script assembled until the night before and was choosing clips at 2.30am. Not smart.

Getting there was fun - I'd managed to offload the urgent purchasing of tickets that needed to be done at 10am, and I'd decided that, of the four potential routes, the train to Victoria was simplest and speediest. Only there was a bomb scare at Rainham, so I ended up on the fast train, have just missed the slow train to Waterloo East, which would be the most sensible. I say fast - the train was delayed at Ashford as the driver was stuck at Rainham (uh?), so no time was saved in the catching of this train. Thence, via tube, to Waterloo and a Bux for wifi, and trying to find the BFI and a woman who they hadn't heard of who was delayed getting there.


Feel my stress.

I went straight out to Bethnal Green to walk to my hotel in London Fields - bit of a trek in retrospect, and it really wasn't as dreadful a place as the online reviews suggested. I didn't find the public wifi. I could have done without the 24 hours garage next door. I fell asleep at 10pm, a little early for me. The beans were stone cold at breakfast - which fortunately I like, but, still.

Good Friday I had a day to kill before a party - the reason I had stayed over - and went to the British Museum, although a slower journey than anticipated meant that I was still drinking coffee when they opened and hit the crowds. I wasn't in the mood as I hit Anglo-Saxon remains, and thought to myself that I enjoyed Maidstone Museum rather more. Having failed to find an open Oxfam (neither Museum Street nor Drury Lane), I edited in Caffe Nerd for a couple of hours before hitting three surviving secondhand bookshops on Charing Cross Road (who clearly don't really want to sell books) and heading south to Balham. From there I took a Southern train north to Sydenham and then the Overground to Highbury and Islington - I needed a Bux for wifi and more editing and the one in Whitechapel was too far from my eventual destination. Then I wandered south, jay walking the A1, to the party at a pub just off the Regent's Canal.


I went in only really knowing the host, and slightly his girlfriend, plus his brother, who at times has stalked me via the World Service, and I am not a party bunny, so it was a little scary. Would I find people to talk to? Would I hide in the corner? Would I get distracted by all those seventies sf paperbacks including 334 and The Sundered Lands? Would I get spectacularly drunk? I got to spend little time with the host, as expected, but still found people to talk to and had a great time. This was somewhat despite the pub which, although stocking Seafarers and Spring Summat and an Adnams, seemed to have run out of glasses (I'm guessing they don't expect having twelve customers at any one time) and didn't seem able to serve, let alone in sequence.

Then I walked back.

I'd researched transport links, of course, but most involved walking half a mile north or south and catching a bus east before walking half a mile south or north. Or I could walk a mile east. Ish. Along the canal was ruled out, too muggable I felt and too much chance of a plunge, and besides it was more or less a straight line, aside from going north and south at two points, and obviously not cutting through London Fields. Actually, I did cut through London Fields. I hardly saw anyone - mostly women on their own - and three guys who offered to knock me out for a tenner, which seemed reasonable, although they'd have to gave me change from a twenty pound note.


I really could have done without the drum n bass at 5am from the garage.

After more cold baked beans, and a slow checkout, I went to meet Prof Rog at Spitalfields - which has clearly changed since my last visit. A couple of Americanos later I headed back to Victoria, via Oxfam on Strutton Green, where I bagged the Patrick Ness trilogy. And then the train home, mercifully straightforward although for once I needed to be in the front four carriages.


Then, I crashed. I have no idea why my stress levels hit the roof...

I thought this weekend would be busy - the Euro Food Fair, the Brogdale Cider Festival and the Broadstairs Food fair - but I figured I could one a day, although it was likely making going to see Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Tamara Drewe awkward. Then I realised the Broadstairs thing was later, and we had a natural Euro Fair Friday, Cider Festival Saturday (complete with bookshop raid) and movie Sunday, possibly both.

But then there's B. It would be good to go with someone else - sample more cider, compare and contrast, guard seats, conversation. And Sunday suits B. Not much of a problem, although it's a shame to miss the bookshop. But there's history.

In 2008 I'd planned to go on Saturday with B, but Sunday ended up more convenient, then not at all convenient as he had too much on. I forget now precisely why I didn't go on the Saturday in the end, but it seems to be that Wye market was on the Saturday, and that would be a prelude to a walk when I damaged my knee.

In 2009 I'd planned to go on Saturday with B, but Sunday suited him, and then he was busy ... but he could meet me in the pub afterwards.

So, he wouldn't me mess me around a third time, would he?

Friday, I went to the Euro Fair after finally writing a report, had a coffee, finished Gateway, weighed out dried fruit and left it to soak before heading for the pub.

Saturday I can make the cake, do some writing and see Scott Pilgrim.

Sunday, cider festival.

( Simples. )

It turns out that it's harder to get pureed cherries into a bottle of brandy than whole ones - who knew? Perhaps I should have dug out the liquidizer. Anyway, that needs to macerate for another month before being strained and becoming drinkable.

The rain was a blessing - the wearing of a leather jacket in August protected me from the worst of the bramble thorns and nettles, and I came away unscathed. Poor timing of buses meant I walked about two miles to my secret spot, where about half of the crop was ripe. There were also various haws or hips, and what looked like blackcurrants. I managed to pick 800 grams before it looked like I was running short of time and energy, then plodded back via Morrisons, where I bought double cream.

To jump ahead of myself, I tried to turn half of this into jam, but it looks like I boiled for too long and it has gone very thick. Need jam thermometer.

I turned a goodly part of the elderberry syrup into ice cream - basically syrup, sugar and double cream, whizzed and frozen. It is a pleasing purple. I have yet to taste. I will defrost the rest of the elderberries - and will find a pair of scissors in the process - to make more syrup, to add to vodka. It turns out that mashing the lemon and berries makes a thicker syrup.

This morning I made cheese and bacon scones, which seemed to go down well with their intended audience.

I have 4 lb of elderberries promised. This needs more thought.

Turns out the maceration should end today, and I need to decant a litre of brandy and cherries into the blender. Of course, the cherries were squeezed into the bottle, so the neck is going to be somewhat of a, ahem, bottleneck.

Slice the top of the bottle off, I'm guessing.

This is why it's being done in plastic.


Elderberries to be picked latter.

A belatedly birthday drink with N. who endured yet another journey from hell thanks to a) the traditional old woman who can't use ticket offices and b) cancellations at Ashford.

Three pints at the Doves and a few games of pool most of which I won (or he lost), then headed into town via City Arms which we walked out of before being served as it felt odd. Unfortunately, the first decent pub is the far end of the high street, the Hobgoblin, but we had a quick drink at Casey's on the way. By then we had a plan: to make it to ten, and we had a good ninety minutes to make it in. The Carpenters was dead, so we made quick work of number six, and the Tales was relatively quiet so we got to seven easily. Then to the Bell&, and things get a little blurry. There were certainly two rounds, and drank N's Guinness in his absence. I think #11 may have been free as I couldn't find any money.

Home, via the kebab shop for N. I can't remember how we crossed the ring road. Did we use the bridge or risk death? I don't remember going to bed - but did hang my keys on the keys hook, which is a good sign. I didn't turn the light out. N found the duvet - or maybe I showed him where it was, but the futon stayed as a sofa.

Today, dehydrated, and tired. A mystery: N was wet down his left side. Looks like he spilt a bottle of water, but a little went a long way. It has been carefully sniffed and has been determined as water. At about one thirty we went into town for a huge all-day breakfast (I demurred a little at the chips, but with sausage, fried eggs, bacon and black pudding it is too late to be claiming healthiness). I bought some cheese from the market on the way home and a 99 on the high street. A bath, to finish reading Black and Blue, watched an episode of Homicide: Life on the Stree (final episode of season two or three, depending how you count) and an episode of The Wire season four to avoid being spoilered. In fact I've time to watch another before bed at midnight.


Hoping my body has recovered for Monday.

Yesterday was Mitch Benn, an unexpected reunion, much beer but a surprising lack of being in an alternate state of consciousness and a 4.30am bedtime.

Today was meant to be ... a trip to London to see various crack at the Barbican and the Tate, with plan b being marking.

Today plan b seemed more likely.

Today was pretty well a write-off - dozing through Radio 4 until the end of Any Answers, albeit with a trip to buy a paper. Now the modem is spending as much time down as up and I'm not sure if I can be bothered to search for images for the lectures on Monday.

The pub in called for - but orange and soda. Will I sit and edit? I've taken stuff back and forth this week to little effect.