Beer. An incomplete A-Z

From ale to zymurgy, I've always wanted to put together an incomplete and under-researched A-Z of beer. So I'm going to. Just not necessarily in alphabetical order.

Mosler. GT Seasons

I once ran a fan site about this big, fat, grunty, hand-crafted-in-Cambridge GT racer. So I thought I'd keep tabs on the marque once more.

Photos: Snap

Sometimes there are times that So Need A Photo. I'm refining my photo skills and looking for that SNAP moment.

Food: a smorgasbord

If I'm not eating it, I'm thinking about it. Here's a rattle-bag of recipes, market visits, challenges and general gastronomic malarkey

Music: prattle and drum

I'm a drummer without a kit and a ukulele player with no sense of pitch. But I'm working on it. Painting a picture on silence. One beat / note at a time

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Time to go

I'm off to play elsewhere for a while. I'll still be tweeting.

TTFN

*<:O)

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Friday 28 September 2012

RIP Brain Selby: How Selectadisc made me a groovy fecker



Sad to hear that Brian Selby, the man behind Nottingham's legendary record shop Selectadisc, has passed away.

Along with the NME and John Peel, Selectadisc defined my musical education in the 1980s. I'd hear a band on Peel, see the advert in NME and then bunk off school to go buy the single from Selectadisc. That was from their Bridlesmith Gate shop; we'd then roll down to the Market Street store to nose around for import albums and pester the staff to play a couple.


But it was more than just a record shop. Billy Bragg and the Clash played gigs there. Bands playing at Rock City would have signing sessions there (even if Wayne Hussey from The Mission always seemed to be terminally pissed and never make it to one). The counter was crammed with fanzines like Blank Reception (which featured my first ever band interview with the Soupdragons. For younger readers, fanzines were like blogs only in black & white printed form).

Brian then opened up a club called The Garage and another Nottingham legend was born. Goth and punk downstairs, Graeme Park playing house upstairs; my Def Jam cherry got well and truly busted.

Meeting friends and strangers. Falling in and out of bands and love. Discovering new music. Chatroom and fan forum. In the days before t'internet, Selectadisc *was* social networking.

Cheers Brian. A generation of groovy fuckers are your legacy.




Pics from Sam Metcalf's Indie Travel Guide and Internet Curtains





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Friday 21 September 2012

Mussel fritters

Finally, the first in what will no doubt prove to be an interminable series of almost-recipes.

The reason being, I tend to buy random stuff and then work out what the hell to do with it. My Twitter followers often pitch in with ideas, I Google a recipe, leave out the bits I haven't got / don't fancy and add in stuff that I like / happens to be in the fridge.

So this started out by buying a box of mussel meat because, uh, it looked interesting. Matt Clarke, the Kiwi-in-exile brewer at Hawkshead, suggested making fritters with it. Google threw me this recipe from what's become one of my favourite foodie sites, Fisher & Paykel.

I used just the cooked meat, left out the parsley and added a dab more chili. The batter then got slapped into a pan two spoonsful at a time and I spent a lazy afternoon making up the fritters as and when.

Got to say that I wasn't convinced by the look of the batter; it had the look of vomitus about it. But, damn, it was tasty.


Best served when: you can't really be arsed to cook and fancy snacking all afternoon.

Best served with: Matt's Lakeland Lager. Although I had Brewdog Punk IPA; robust flavour meets robust flavour.

What I'd do next time: take a photo. D'oh!

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Thursday 20 September 2012

SNAP: Spondon village cricket



Well, the So Needs A Photo series never really took off. So let's kickstart it.

Lazy summer evenings watching cricket. Shadows lengthen. Haze plays with the horizon. Wide balls are swatted lazily. And here, at Spondon Cricket Club as they play a charity fundraiser against legends from Derby County Football Club, I have a photo that I can cherish in the cold, hard, icy months ahead. And dream of dappled sun, leather, willow and whites...

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Thursday 26 July 2012

Mosler: Australian GT 2012 update

Here's another belated catch-up with how the Mosler marque is getting on in GT, this time concentrating on the Australian championship.

In the season's opener, supporting the Clipsal 500 at Adelaide back in March, sole Mosler entrant John Briggs finished fifth and eighth.




Philip Island in May saw Ash Samadi swap his leased Lamborghini Gallardo for the newly upgraded Mosler GT3. He paired up again with Dean Grant in the car that finished fifth in last year's championship. After placing eighteenth in race one, he hung on to finish sixth behind the safety car in race two with a deflating left rear tyre. John Briggs had to park up the Sydney City Prestige car after nine laps after suffering mechanical problems.




By June in Winton there were still two Moslers in the championship... just not the two that started it. John Briggs and Ash Samadi were absent; in came series owner Tony Quinn and James Brock. Quinn jumped into his spare VIP Petfoods Mosler, having lent his Ferrari out to Peter Edwards and Johnny Reid who were waiting on parts for their 458. Brock had a crocked Mercedes Benz SLS AMG and was keen to keep his hand in the hunt for more championship points.


Tony Quinn hadn't driven the Mosler in anger for eighteen moths but managed to place sixth and ninth in the two races round the Victoria circuit. Gearbox gremlins, however, put paid to Brock's fortunes early on in race one. A tenth place finish in race two, however, kept him in contention with the championship leaders.




Heading into New South Wales for the last race weekend before the summer break. Brock was back in the Merc (albeit not for long) whilst Samadi and Briggs both returned. Quinn continued in the Mosler and bagged the marques best weekend of the year so far, finishing fifth and fourth. Samadi placed seventh in race one with fuel issues at a pitstop putting paid to his chances in race two. John Briggs took tenth in the first outing before a broken rear suspension arm lead to a DNF in the last race.








Bit of a mixed bag Down Under for Mosler, then. Here's hoping for greater things - and a podium place - when the championship revisits Phillip Island in September.

Results taken from the Natsof website. Photos and extra gen are all (c) Australian GT

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Tuesday 10 July 2012

The incomplete A-Z of beer: A will be for...

Attenuation.

Thanks to those who've already started answering my random questions on Twitter. 

To help me keep track, I've opened up a collaborative document; feel free to paste in links to pdfs, include useful diagrams or jot down your thoughts.

I'm particularly interested in hearing from brewers and scientists on the challenges of attenuation, how to control the rate, how to monitor variation, what the variation factors are etc. Have you brewed a beer that was over / under attenuated but it still worked out OK? What if you brew a style and deliberately over/under attenuate? 

The link is here:


I'll digest whatever I've harvested over the weekend and post soon after. Thanks in advance for helping me out; no, I'm not setting up a brewery. Just keen to learn and the best people to ask are those in the industry. I hope ;-)

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Monday 9 July 2012

The incomplete A-Z of beer

Time to get this project jump-started.

In short: I'm looking for contributions / information / opinion / enlightenment on various beery topics. The idea is that I learn something and share it with the rest of the tinternet.

It won't be comprehensive, some parts may be overly-detailed and specialist but that's the way the crumble cookies.

The first four topics are:

* Attenuation
* Brettanomyces
* Chill haze
* Diacetyl

I'm particularly keen on hearing from brewers and academics for their practical and theoretical insights. Links to useful papers / presentations / learning resources are most welcome. Happy to chat to people over a pint if it can be arranged.

Tweet-me-up at @simonhjohnson or email me at beer-removethisbit-@haddonsnet.co.uk.


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Tuesday 19 June 2012

Mosler: Britcar British Endurance Championship 2012


It's been a while since I reported on how the Moslers are getting on, so here's a look at the first four rounds of the Britcar British Endurance Championship.

This season sees just the one Mosler entry, though it features drivers who've driven the marque in the championship previously. Javier Morcillo and Manuel Cintrano have teamed up with Paul White to pilot the Azteca/Neil Garner/Strata 21 car. They got off to a winning start back in March at Silverstone, where they took victory in the three-hour race. With the lead changing hands in the early laps, a drive-through penalty given to the Mosler for pitlane speeding and the retirement of the very promising (and speedy) Flat Speed Racing Rapier SR2, it was an eventful race that saw the team take their first overall Britcar win.

I missed out on the Donington round in April, which saw the Mosler qualify on pole. An early puncture scare proved to be false and they soon regained places lost. Patches of rain and heavy traffic made for plenty of cut-and-thrust, with the Mosler spinning on lap 74 at Redgates as the three cars in the leading group ran neck-and-neck. As the rain began to fall steadily, the Azteca/Strata 21 switched to full wets and tip-toed their way to third place.

Snetterton in May saw Britcar around the 300 circuit. Denied pole by 0.058 seconds and the Optimum Ginetta G50 of Lee Mowle and George Murrells, the Mosler fought hard throughout the race. With the Class 2 Motionsport Ferrari 458 establishing a strong lead, Morcillo chased hard in the last hour. No need for last-lap drama, though; the Ferrari needed a fuel stop due to some gremlins and the Mosler coasted home for its second win of the season.

Astute refuelling and fortuitous timing saw the Mosler lead from pole to take the victory at Brands Hatch's Indy circuit in June. Safety car stints punctuated the race and one could have ruined the team's chances if the car hadn't then been waved by after being held up at a pitlane red light.

So it's three wins out of four for the Mosler, leading its class and second in the championship overall by just two points. Next race is at Oulton Park on June 23rd.

In the meantime, you can enjoy highlights of the races so far courtesy of GoRacing TV's excellent programmes on Youtube:
Round Three, Snetterton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdSyqpJor8Y

And here's some in-car footage from Donington:

Photo: Dennis Goodwin, Flickr



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Sunday 10 June 2012

Out of the book: Marcus Wareing's Spicy Lamb Sticks

I've a shelf full of cookery books. And a kitchen corner crammed with cookery books. And a lounge table littered with library books. And, yes, some of them are cookery books.

Well, they're feeding no-one as they are. So each week I'm going to pluck out a recipe and give it a bash. In particular I'll be looking for those that feature ingredients and techniques that push me out of my culinary comfort zone. The ones that work really well will get copied over into my Little Black Recipe Book.

First up is a book out of the library, 'One Perfect Ingredient' by Marcus Wareing. He's the chef who shrugged off Gordon Ramsey's shadow and retained two Michelin stars at The Berkeley in London. I've never cooked one of his recipes before, so decided to go for Spicy Lamb Sticks with Raita.

The basic idea: make a raita from cucumber, toasted spice and yoghurt. Shape spiced lamb mince onto skewers and grill.

What was new to me: making the raita, cooking with sweet chili sauce, toasting spices.

What worked well: toasting the cumin seeds made a significant difference, taking away much of its bitterness and so adding a smooth underlying spiceness to the raita.

What I'd do next time: make more raita - the contrast of the mellow spiced cold raita against the warm lamb was fantastic.

Does it make the Little Black Recipe Book? Absolutely. I've even played around with the leftover lamb today, making small spicier sweet chili patties.

One Perfect Ingredient can be bought from Amazon.



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Saturday 9 June 2012

Saturday lunches and Derby Market forces

At some point, my Saturday lunches have segued from ample to simple.

Pub lunches tended to be some place where they served rare burgers, beer battered onion rings and skinny frites. Nowadays it tends to be where I can get thick-cut cheddar and onion in a cob, maybe a slab of pork pie on the side, bags of Seabrook's split to share round the table.

At home it's become simpler still. That's probably down to having a couple of great shops in Derby that sell moreish lunchy stuff. Maybe freshly sliced mortadella from the Krakus Deli on the Guildhall Market or a wedge of Yorkshire Fettle by Shepherds Purse from Morgan's on the Eagle Market. Either will do me as long as it's served on a Derbyshire Sourdough loaf from Baked, the new bakers on the block (well, on The Strand).

Baked is a great example of a small business giving people what they want - quality produce, freshly made, fairly priced and great customer service. Both Morgans and Krakus are great retailers as well but their market locations appear under threat. It seems traders in general are having a tough time making a Derby pitch profitable. The Eagle Market is the UK's largest indoor market yet whole aisles stand empty. Councillors have called its closure 'inevitable'. Traders say their rents are more expensive per square foot than the stores in the adjacent Westfield shopping centre. Meanwhile, the Guildhall Market is struggling for stallholders too.

I'd love to see the Guildhall Market busier with a real range of stallholders. If the City Council want to encourage economic growth in the Cathedral Quarter, they ought to be attracting start-up businesses into the Guildhall. Future plans for the Eagle Market need to preserve those traders who prefer that location whilst opening up the area to new business ventures. Letting both markets dwindle shouldn't be an option.

What Baked shows is that Derby has an appetite for great food producers and retailers. Here's hoping the council has the stomach for entrepreneurship at its own markets.

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Tuesday 5 June 2012

An Open Letter To All The Arseholes Behind The Wheel

To the driver of the Trent Barton Ilkeston Flyer, leaving Ilkeston at 1545 on Tuesday 5th June 2012 and almost ploughing into the back of a car outside Spondon about eight minutes later: the passengers could all see the car slowing, then indicating. You're paid to do much more. Including for having the responsibility for the passengers behind you.

To the driver of the small black car who ran through the red light in the middle of Spondon village as I was two steps off the pavement. Whatever you're on, it's no excuse. The next person on the next crossing may be someone you love. Who can't move that fast.

To the driver of the white Seat who lives down the road from me and decided to pull out from a side road on the left in front of another car before aiming himself into his driveway on the right, Whatever you're on, it's no excuse. If pedestrians had horns, I'd have honked like the car behind you did as well. All I could do was point out that you're an idiot. But you seemed to be in a place where you couldn't listen.

To the cyclist on the pavement who tore towards me and then took great, expletive-riddled objection to me standing my ground. No... FUCK YOU. I'm walking where I'm supposed to walk. You go cycle like a maniac on the streets where your family live. Without a helmet.

To all of you: you may not see the problem. I really, really hope you never see the consequences. See those headlines on the news where it's never you nor the people you love?

It wasn't you today. But someone keeps running out of luck. I don't want to be around when it's your turn.


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Tuesday 22 May 2012

The Right Not To Write

I used to be bought the Letts Schoolboy Diary every year as a Christmas stocking filer. January's became crammed with spidery text telling of snowball massacres, worm executions, tries almost scored and faint glimpses of teachers' cleavage.

By mid-February a pattern emerged: "Got up. Went to school. Came home. Had tea".

At an early age, I'd discovered the tyranny of a diary's expectation. How they mocked me with blank days passed by. "You want to be a writer?", they sneered. "You can't even find fifty words for a diary entry. Pah!".

One year, I asked for a voucher instead of the Letts. I bought a chunky A5 lined notebook. No dates, no boxes into which I'd have to shoehorn teenage angst or leave as a tribute to ennui.

My book. My rules.

Rule 1: The right not to write.

I stopped keeping a diary after my polytechnic years. I had nothing to say to myself.

Nowadays, I blog. I used to blog about whisky.  I still blog about beer. And occasionally I blog here. Not often. There's ideas... the menu bar suggests I'm writing about a real ragbag of stuff.

But, I'm not.

Why? Why go to the trouble of setting up a blog and hardly posting?

It's because I love choosing not to write.

Waking up in the morning - today it's blue sky and slight breeze all the way - I look over the shortening shadows on the lawn as blackbirds pretend to hunt worms and I rarely think to myself: I really want to fire up the laptop and spend the next thirty minutes in front of a keyboard. Because eight hours spent in front of one for my day-job really isn't long enough.

I could be writing about paradiddles or filters, fast cars or slow cooking.

Instead, as a writer, I'm revelling in something luxurious and self-indulgent.

The right not to write.


Feel free to point out that I have, of course, just spent half an hour in front of a laptop writing this. And, yes, I've sort of been here before

By Unknown with 1 comment

Monday 30 April 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: The Land Rover

April 30th 1948: The Land Rover Mk I debuts at the Amsterdam Motor Show.

Regular readers will know that I don't drive, have no intention of learning to drive and even if I did, have no intention of buying a car. That's what Mrs Scoop's little blue beer taxi sporty orange beer taxi is for.

But if I did.... if I really had to... there's only one car I'd choose. A Mosler MT900:



Except it wouldn't fit in the garage. So it'd have to be the Jaguar C-type:


















Except that wouldn't fir in the garage either. So it'd have to be a Land Rover. At least I could leave it parked in the road. It could get scraped and knocked and cow-splat-covered and burst-beer-barrel-drenched. And it would all add to its character.

Land Rovers feel to me as if they want to tell you their tales. Of ewes and daughters born in the back in a snowdrift. Of treks across plains or glens. Of how they made it to That Destination only after a hitch-hiker donated her knicker elastic.

There's something stoically romantic about a marque where the majority of those ever made are still running on the road, field and fell. Indomitable and stalwart. Maybe I ought to start building one by stealth. I'd have to clear some room in the shed though. Especially if I want to build one like this:



















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Wednesday 25 April 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition



April 25th 1769: The Royal Academy's first Summer Exhibition opens in a Pall Mall warehouse.

Something really tickles me about the RA's Summer Exhibition. Maybe it's that anyone can enter; stump up a £25 quid entrance fee and your work could adorn the walls alongside the great and the good and the painting-by-numbers of British art. A great way of getting your name noticed, getting your work sold for a fair commission, being part of such a celebration.

Your prints or photos or etchings or sculpture sharing space with the likes of Hockney, Gormley or Wearing.

Maybe I like it because of the planned-to-look-random nature of how canvasses seem spread eclectically; ordered clutter, organised chaos.

Maybe one day, maybe this year, I'll go take a look and be tempted to buy. Maybe one day, maybe next year, I'll find the courage of my convictions and enter.

Photo (c) Getty Images

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Tuesday 24 April 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: The Pennine Way


April 24th 1965: The last section of the long-distance trail, the Pennine Way, opens at Malham Moor.

Many walkers who like peat between their cleats will have faced up to the challenge of the 267-mile, 249-stiled walk. They will have a favourite section, one that lives long in the memory. For me, it's Kinder Downfall to Edale. It's the only section I've ever walked. It's the only section I ever plan to walk. And only if I can walk it downhill.

And it was on this day in 1932 that the Kinder Trespass took place. A political act; organised by the Communist-led British Workers' Sports Federation in protest at how rich landowners prevented public access to the countryside. Established ramblers' groups opposed the trespass, but further widespread action took place. Within years, such actions had engaged thousands of walkers to take to the Peaks, leading to the formation of the Ramblers Association and the lobbying that would herald the introduction of our National Parks.

Including the Peak District. If you haven't yet had the pleasure of following even a smidgen of the Pennine Way in the Peaks, congratulations! You now have something to add to your to-do list this summer.


"There's pleasure in dragging through peat bogs and bragging
Of all the fine walks that you know;
There's even a measure of some kind of pleasure
In wading through ten feet of snow.
I've stood on the edge of the Downfall,
And seen all the valleys outspread,
And sooner than part from the mountains,
I think I would rather be dead"

'The Manchester Rambler', Ewan McColl



Photo of Kinder Low (c) David Hayes on Flickr


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Monday 23 April 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: St George's Day


April 23rd: England celebrates the feast day of Saint George.

To be honest, it's not something that all Brits celebrate. St. Patrick's day may be an excuse to dress like a twonk and drink over-nitrogenated stool-water masquerading as dry stout; St. George's Day tends to lead to head-scratching as what to do. After all, many are unclear as to how a Roman soldier who was born in Syria Palaestina and died a Christian martyr in Turkey became the patron saint not only of England but of over another dozen countries.

Well, Christian martyrdom and popular veneration made Saint George the figure he is today. Poor Saint Edmund was edged out as England's patron saint in the fourteenth century, possibly because George wasn't connected by legend to England and associated neither to a particular guild nor location.

A man of principle and belief, unafraid to stand up for what he believed in, venerated by Christians and Muslims alike. I'd say that was good cause to celebrate.


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Thursday 19 April 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: The Oxford English Dictionary

April 19th 1928: The last section of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles is published.

Show me the adolescent who insists they haven't looked up a rude word in a dictionary and I'll show you someone who "speaks untruthfully with intent to mislead or deceive".

Released in sections over four decades, "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles" was immediately reprinted and renamed the "Oxford English Dictionary".

In the pre-internet days, if you didn't understand a word you looked it up in a big papery thing tied together with string. I carried a dictionary around with me all my school days. I still have several; general ones from Oxford and Collins dotted around the house, specialist ones, foreign ones. I still love sticking my nose into them at random and finding words, birds, cities or citizens that I've never heard of.

For me, dictionaries are never a means to an end. They're the first step on a broader learning journey.

So, with due reference to Edmund Blackadder, I'd like to thank the OED and offer them my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.



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Tuesday 17 April 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Extreme Ironing

April 18th 2011: Jason Blair irons a shirt on the southbound carriageway of the M1.



As a measure of British eccentricity /our general desire to bugger around, extreme ironing is right up there with toe-wrestling and lilo rafting. It was invented by rock climber Phil 'Steam' Shaw in 1997 and has seen boards taken up mountains, beneath oceans and, uh, into the middle lane of a motorway. Albeit one that was closed. So perhaps not that extreme, really.

On a moving coach, in a lion's den, at the fiery end of an oil rig, on the North Korean border. They all sound far more extreme.

Or there's the ultimate. Iron five work shirts in the gap between the end of the regional news and the start of Match Of The Day on a Saturday night. Hardcore ;-)


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Monday 16 April 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Canterbury Tales


April 17th 1397: The Canterbury Tales are first told by Geoffrey Chaucer at the court of Richard II.

It's been a long time since I blogged about Richard Happer's excellent little book. So here we go again.

The Canterbury Tales continue to fascinate me. A work that may or not be complete, in an order that may or may not be correct, spanning styles and subjects with the added attraction of Middle English to decipher. It's a rich vein for contemporary dramatists to mine and stands as a foundation of English literature that's too often ignored by many, thinking it'll be difficult to read.

Well, take a look at Michael Murphey's excellent modern spelling version. I've had the PDFs loaded onto my Kindle and now enjoy an accessible version of the Tales wherever I go. Purists may prefer a plain text version that preserves the original language; whatever floats your boat.

I've been thinking about visiting Canterbury Cathedral for some time. Maybe I ought to take the train from London Bridge, see the city, read the Tales on the way there and back, then treat myself to a slap-up meal at the Royal Oak on my return to the capital...


The woodcut illustration of the pilgrims at the Tabard Inn, London is one of the woodcuts by William Caxton used to illustrate the second edition of the Tales. You can read more about his work here.

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Sunday 15 April 2012

The sun shone that day too

Shadows on the pitch. There's something about the sunshine at a late-season game, moreso those at the latter stages of the Cup. Maybe it's a holiday feeling: on a coach with your mates, an ice cream when you get there even though the wind whips between streets, a day in the sun with long shadows and the right result.

Shadows on the pitch. Not fans dying.

Today is the twenty-third anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster. Ninety-six Liverpool fans died as a result of a crush at their FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest, played at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough ground on April 15th 1989.

Ninety-six Liverpool fans died because the police and the club failed to prevent overcrowding. Remember, these were the days of terraces and fences. Where crowd control equalled containment. Where sections of terraces were called pens. When fans were treated like cattle.

The interim Taylor Report into the disaster had far-reaching consequences for the way football grounds are designed, managed and policed today. Lessons were clearly learned. Maybe there is more to learn, though.

Coroner Dr Stefan Popper limited the 1990 inquest to events occurring up to 3:15pm, on the basis that fans would have received their fatal injuries by this time. Lord Justice Taylor notes in his interim report that it was "improbable that quicker recourse to the emergency services would have saved more lives".

The inquest records that Kevin Williams, aged 15, died at Hillsborough of traumatic asphyxia. His mother, Anne, has long argued that independent evidence shows Kevin was still alive by 4pm. After ceaseless campaigning, including one of the few e-petitions to gather over 100,000 signatures, the Attorney General is to consider whether an application for a new inquest to be held.

This is not about unearthing conspiracies. This is not about compensation. This is about responsibility.

With responsibility comes accountability.

Let the Hillsborough Independent Panel release their findings in good time.

Let Kevin Williams have the inquest he deserves.

Let every lesson be learned.

Let there by justice for the 96.



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Monday 9 April 2012

Back in the room

The last fifteen months have been fairly difficult for me. Working for a private sector company delivering public sector contracts, the squeeze on the business began to feel like a slow strangle. Redundancy dates staggered forward under the hope of new contracts coming through. Although it soon became apparent that the Coalition's strategy for business support weren't aligned with my employers'.

I'd applied for jobs off and on. Cube jobs. Where I'd be no more than the digestive system of a data monster. I've had the frustration of not even getting an acknowledgement for positions that I know I'd be great at. The condescension of recruitment consultants who could barely understand the job specifications they were reading out. The interviews where I soon realise that if I'm from Mars, the panel are from Venus and then a few more galaxies to the left.

Last week, I was finally made redundant. And then offered a new job on the same day.

Having spent so long feeling like I've been in the mental equivalent of a treacle bucket, every project shoved on backburners until they caramelised, blundering through the days without really knowing where I'm going, I feel like I'm back in the room.

I start my new job in two weeks. So it's time for a new hairstyle and specs, some contemplative days out walking, some boisterous days brewing and drinking and a little more love shown to this blog.

You know that thing you want? You can't hope to have it until you convince yourself that it can be yours.

And that's all the cod-philosophy you'll see from me. Honest.


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Monday 9 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Humphrey Davy


9th January 1816: Humphrey Davy trials his safety lamp at Hebburn Colliery.

When I left school, we still had pits in Nottinghamshire. Five minutes from my house was Moorgreen Colliery, as seen in the picture. When we visited grandparents every other Saturday we drove through the site, over the open railway crossing and underneath pipes and vents and conveyors.

My walk to school took me close to the spoil heap, a lumpen hill formed from the dirt dug beneath our feet by Moorgreen, Underwood and others. Past Eastwood Hall, the National Coal Board offices, where we may or may not have seen Arthur Scargill being helicoptered in for talks during the miner's strike.

So it came a no surprise to find that, as well as reading far too much D H Lawrence, school were keen on sending us off to mining museums. As a treat. Because we didn't seen enough of the industry out of our bedroom windows.

Trips to Chatterley Whitfield and Big Pit taught me three things:

- wearing a hard hat and travelling in a cage is fun. Up to the moment when you're told to turn your lamps off. Dark becomes redefined.

- Welsh ex-miners can have a wicked sense of humour. Let's face it, if you work in a pit that's big and is called Big Pit, you need a few pithy lines to counter sarcastic teenagers.

- the Davy Lamp actually lead to an increase in deaths. And Davy was only one part of the equation. And that's four things. And there's more.

Photo c/o the Shane Phillips collection at Fionn Taylor's website

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Sunday 8 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Queen Mary 2



January 8th 2004: RMS Queen Mary 2 is christened and is the largest ocean liner ever built. Still.

Cruises have never appealed to me. There could be endless gourmet food, a microbrewery and Pearl Jam playing an acoustic set in the Tropicana Lounge, I'd still be in a floating retirement home where the bored crew are running out of places to shag. But taking a trip on an ocean liner... that's a journey with purpose. That's crossing the Atlantic. That's waving goodbye to Blighty and running up to the rail as the Statue of Liberty hoves into view.

That's travelling in the wake of history.

And there's really only one way to do that now. RMS Queen Mary 2 is the only transatlantic liner left. There are cruise ships that are taller and longer and wider and larger. But QM2 was designed to move people across the Atlantic - the rough, turbulent Atlantic - at comparative speed.

I rather fancy spending some time in the cigar room or the planetarium. But I'd really love to revel in the pleasure of arriving somewhere that's either the beginning of an adventure or its last chapter.




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Saturday 7 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: William Dickson

January 7th: William Dickson patents 35mm film.  Apparently.



Whilst developing the Kinetoscope for Edison, Scotsman William Dixon is said to have invented 35mm celluloid film and patented it. And I'm buggered if I can find any internet reference to such a patent.

It's all confused further by the fact that Dixon was credited two days later as the first copyright holder of a motion picture - "The Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze".

Irony alert: my propensity for searching the tinternet any further for patent info is hampered today by my stonking cold. But anyone's got stone-cold evidence of the patent - not a link to another 'on this day' site - do let me know.

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Friday 6 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: The Stones roll



January 6th: The Rolling Stones play the first gig of their first headline tour.

Which, according to the Rolling Stones database of Nico Zentgraf was at the Granada Theatre, Harrow-on-the-Hill. And the possible set was Girls/Come On/Mona/You Better Move On/Roll Over Beethoven/I Wanna Be Your Man. And their impact on me was significant.

My Dad is a Stones fan. Some of my earliest memories are listening to the Stones. And not playing with the zip on the Sticky Fingers album. And never wondering why it was called Sticky Fingers. I was probably too busy playing with Some Girls, making the faces change.

He catalogued all the tracks on all the albums into a notebook. A-Z by track, noting on which album, side and track number it could be found. I instantly warmed to this value-added approach to a hobby.

And I've been cataloguing, indexing, cross-referencing and appending ever since.

And I've been dreaming that I can play drums like Charlie Watts ever since.

And I'm still tickled by the fact that I love a band that first headline gigged four years before I was born.



Photo borrowed from LondonJazz, which I try not to read too often as it makes me insanely jealous about what I'm missing.

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Thursday 5 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: William Smith


January 5th: William Smith discovers the principle of faunal succession. Sort of.

I studied geography. In primary school, I yomped through all the 'Countries Of The World' worksheets so my teacher had to make up more for me to complete. Hence my arcane knowledge of the Gabonese Republic. Who really do have a president called Ali Bongo.

The upside of studying geography was, of course, the field trips. Industrial cider shared with girls who didn't speak your language but understood your intentions. In far-flung places. Like Swansea.

The downside of studying geography? A year of the physical. Standing in freezing rivers with flow meters. Pretending to understand how to use a theodolite. Collecting rocks on a beach that wasn't even fit for naval bombardment. And drawing geological maps. Endless, soul-destroying, pointless geological maps.

Not that I blame the father of English geology, William Smith. Big on fossils, was Smith. On January 5th 1796 he noted "that wonderful order and regularity with which nature has disposed of these singular productions, and assigned to each class its peculiar stratum". Date the fossil, date the layer. Map the layer. And force A-level students to spend sunny Wednesdays slaving over colour-pencil reproductions.

Actually, it was one of our teachers who had taken it upon himself to force us into a syllabus last taught pre-war. He was, I believe, invited to leave the school soon after. Which meant we got a replacement; an ecologically-sound frizzy-haired hotty with an American accent and a dazzling cleavage.

Which taught me a valuable lesson. Don't blame history; just get even with it.


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Wednesday 4 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Rose Heilbron

January 4th: Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey.

What surprises me more about Rose Heilbron is not what she achieved but how I've never heard of her before. Especially when I'm in Liverpool. Heilbron was born and educated in the city and went on to be a trailblazing female barrister; the first woman to

- lead an English murder trial
- plead a case in the House of Lords,
- act as Recorder.
- preside as judge at the Old Bailey,
- lead the Northern Circuit

Given these achievements, I would have imagined there would be a statue. Or a plaque. Or something. Maybe there is. Maybe I've missed it. Maybe there isn't. In which case, there really ought to be.

And one other thing - Dame Heilbron has another first attributed to her. One that I can't find any corroborating evidence for.

That she was the first woman in Liverpool to wear a calf-length evening dress.

It smacks of urban myth. But, given Heilbron's history, I'd love it to be true.






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Tuesday 3 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Thatcher and Ice Cream

January 3rd: 1n 1988, Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century.

Almost.

As Hugo Young has taught me, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, completed his third term of office in 1902 and totalled thirteen years. So Mrs T will have to be content with the title of  'longest-serving Prime Minister first elected in the twentieth century'.

The book goes on to say that "she helped perfect the soft-style ice cream dispensed on tap in ice-cream vans". Indeed; as a research chemist at Lyons she worked on emulsification projects that, basically, involved doubling the amount of air into ice cream without it collapsing. Hence ice cream became cheaper to produce. But could still be sold at the same price as cornets are sold by volume, not weight.

So is it any wonder she snatched my free milk later on in life?

I'm hoping that the Mr Softee link was some influence on Fluck & Law's puppet of the fey-haired Douglas Hurd...



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Monday 2 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Kipling writes 'If'

January 2nd: The Jameson Raid of 1896 fails and later inspires Rudyard Kipling to write 'If', one of the most mawkish poems in English literature.

It graces the likes of over-wrought Powerpoint presentations, sports trailers on TV and the entrance to Centre Court. And it never fails to bring a little bit of sick up into my mouth when I read it.

Victorian spin-poetry at its worst. Jameson made a ballsup of the Transvaal raid yet was venerated as a hero upon his return. And as for rot such as this:

"If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
And never breathe a word about your loss"

That makes you a problem gambler, not a man.

As an ex-rugger-bugger I've always had a softer spot for Invictus:

"In the fell clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance 
My head is bloody, but unbowed"


After all, there's only one version of 'If' that really resonates. That by Max Boyce.

Well, two other 'If's are rather splendid too. Steve Bell, possibly the best political cartoonist since the days of James Gilray, with his strip for the Grauniad,


and Robert McDowell's cinematic crowing glory. For many reasons, but especially for the line:

" There's only one thing you can do with a girl like this. Walk naked into the sea together as the sun sets. Make love once... Then die".

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Sunday 1 January 2012

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: The Union Flag

January 1st: The Union Flag (as we know it today) is first flown.

The Acts of Union passed in 1800 came into effect on January 1st 1801 and so the Union Flag was revised into the form we see today.

I remember little about my junior school education. It was a rather progressive place, stuffed full of slightly hippyish teachers who believed in a child's right to self-expression and the power of play. And learning mathematics via the use of continued use of Cuisenaire rods. And singing Pink Floyd songs at morning assembly (no, I'm not joking).

Because I'd already had a year or two at a decent primary school I'd had some proper eduction knocked into me. So I usually rattled off the hippy  lessons in swift order. But I didn't fancy playing in the sandpit (sorry, 'tactile learning environment in the courtyard') afterwards. So, I drew flags instead.

Which is why, from an early age, I've been one of those annoying sods that points out when a Union Flag is flown upside down. Because the broad white band of the St Andrew's white cross should be above the red band of the St Patrick's cross in the top corner nearest the flagpole.

As this splendid diagram by J.D.A Wiseman illustrates:


So, what else have I learned about Union Jack today?

- the white stripes are examples of fimbriation

- the scientific study of flags is vexillology

- no-one's really sure what happened to Geri 'Ginger Spice' Halliwell's Union Jack dress after it was sold at auction to the owner of Hard Rock Cafe

- that dress was made from a Union Jack tea towel sewn onto a Gucci dress

- Firestone Walker's Union Jack IPA is ranked the 25th best IPA in the world on ratebeer.com. And I still haven't tried it.


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365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British

It's backtrack time.

I've just picked up 365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British from the library. Mainly because I recently bought another book by the same author, Richard Happer, which has been making me snort hot tea out of my nose on a regular basis.

This one's a little different; more in the QI 'fascinating facts' mould. Each of which inevitably leads me onto the tinternet to find out a little more. So... a master plan was hatched.

If I'm digging up resources linked to the best-of-Britishness featured in the book, why not share them? Every day?

Except for the fact that it's the fourteenth of January already.

Time to get surfing and backdate posts. It's about time this blog had some content anyway...


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