Whisky Cabal Meeting 5

Assembling the cabal for another foray into the whisky world proved quite easy, it's Freshers week and we decided drink was the best way to cope.

We adopted a highly technical approach to tasting, left to right. Although in the spirit of reasonableness, we did edit that slightly to put the lower percentage drams first.
As usual, all links go to our favourite whisky retailer, Loch Fyne Whisky.

Glendronach Revival 15yo 46% Oloroso cask
Nose: sultanas, raisins, treacle, toffee, old leather, sweet
Palate: sticky toffee, fudge, sultanas, sweet, honey, brandy (but good)
Finish: warm, long, subtle, fireside dram

8/10. We loved this, and were pathetically grateful that it's owner had managed to save some for the cabal. Basically, you cannot go wrong for £40 with this one.

Glen Moray 16yo 40%
Nose: Fragrant, caramalised sugar, sweet, root ginger, marshmallows,
Palate: weak, sweet, hint of christmas cake, warm
Finish: citrus, oak, short

6/10
Regular readers will know we're fans of Glen Moray, but sadly this one is a good 'diet whisky' (not my description, but wholeheartedly endorsed by all of us). Light, very quaffable, and probably ideal on brekkie cereal.

Scapa 43% dist 2000, b 2011.
Nose: parmesan cheese, sweaty sock, salt, sweet, vanilla, light
Palate: drinkable, salt, seaweed, sweet pancake
Finish: medium, warm
6/10
Generally I like Scapa, and this was very quaffable. Indeed, it was labelled as such by the group.

Oban 14yo 43%
Nose: battenburg cake, sweet, honey
Palate: sweet, salty
Finish: tangy, short
7/10
Oban is good stuff, but difficult to get. The group said this was very drinkable, but not before 11am. So more a followup whisky to numbers 2 and 3. If you see this in a pub, get it. In fact we are thinking of creating a guide to whisky in pubs.

Glenrothes 1994 46% Signatory bottling
Nose: cut grass, ozone, sweet, light malted, teacakes
Palate: sweet, smokey,
Finish: salt, med-long, sweet honey, pepper
7.5/10
We like this, and at less than £35, you will too. I'm getting very addicted to Glenrothes, and this signatory bottling is brilliant value for money and taste.

SMWS "A tropical rainforest"35.43 1/229 bottles, 20yo, ex-bourbon, 1st fill barrell
Nose: cut grass, burnt sugar, bourbon, sweet smell
Palate: green banans  [and some other word I can't read]
Finish: fish, more spikey with additional water, complex
7.5/10
Another Glen Moray, as we are making a habit of collecting them. More is less in our world. Very drinkable, although seemed more 'fighty' than you'd expect from a 20yo.

SMWS "Complex and joyous" 35.32 1/183 bottles, 34yo, refill hogshead, ex bourbon, 55.1%
Nose: god, LHC, higgs boson, smooth, complex, Prof Cox, chocolate
Palate: sweet, complex, christmas cake, salt, raisins, smooth, chocolate
Finish: huge, long, mohaaassiive, honey,
10/10 (Alec: 9.9/10)
This was a retaste to confirm our only 10. It's definitely a 10. Except for Alec, who refuses on principle to give one. So he gets his own special rating.
It is a perfect whisky. Everything works, but then at the price it is, and it's rarity, you'd bloody well hope it was good. Oh yeah, another Glen Moray.

SMWS "An Artists Retreat" 4.131 1/542 bottles, 60%, 20yo, 1st fill sherry butt
Nose: Clears the tubes, sherry, salt, peat, honey, sweet
Palate: Salt, sweet, chocolate, big flavour
Finish: medium-short, sweet, more peppery with additional water
9/10
Another retaste as we wanted to balance it against 35.32. It isn't as good, but it is bloody drinkable. This is a Highland Park whisky, I'm still in two minds over HP but hey when it's in front of me...

Another excellent tasting. Definite quality drams there. Our cunning idea to start a pub drams review section deserves further discussion. And at some stage I'll collate what we've already had, and we can work from there...

Slainte!
B

hear me roar!

I'll put some stuff up soon about my attempts to permanently damage myself biking. But today has been a day of manly things.

S had managed to lose the nut that held her pedal onto her bike. Her bike is stupidly put together and I couldn't attach the nut without a ratchet/socket thingy. So I now own one. A big step in my testosterone stimulation. It's got lots of sockety bits, and a couple of extendery bits, all in an ugly black plastic container. Brilliant.

Oh and I even fixed the bike.

I came away thinking I'd earned a beer. Couldn't find one, ended up with a hibiscus tea instead.

Oh well, small steps.

B

The Book of Job

Time for something different

I need a holiday. Mainly for sanity reasons before anger spills out onto people who probably deserve it. So for something different, I've decided to go on a bike ride for a week.
I'm not convinced this is a good idea, well OK in theory it's a great idea, but I have the feeling I'm going to come back highly damaged.

The plan, such as it is, is to bike from Derby up to Sheffield, with a number of side trips so I'm guessing it'll be 100+ miles, over 4-5 days. This is well beyond anything I've done before. If I'm being honest, I'm kinda worried at how my knees will stand up.

But on the plus side, there's a number of breweries and decent ale pubs that just co-incidently line my (vaguely) proposed route. Brilliant.
I'd like to thank Garry and CAMRA for their assistance in this. Since I'll have the evenings to recover in, I may even write up notes and photos and stuff as I imagine there will be internet webz around the place. Oh hang on, I won't have a laptop, ok you'll have to wait.

So any bikers out there? any recommendations for things I should take? Currently my repair kit consists of: spare inner, puncture repair kit, adjustable spanner, screwdriver, hex (allen) key. Oh and a knee brace :)

B

Cooking with Bruce: Sushi salad

Origins of this one are, again, vague. But it works really well.

Mix: 2T rice vinegar, 3t caster sugar, 1/4t salt until dissolved, then leave.

Rinse 1c rice a few times (until clear) then leave damp for 30mins or so to soften the rice, although you can ignore this step and just cook the bugger if you're in a hurry.

Heat oven to 200C.
Mix: 4T miso paste (or sesame and oyster sauce, which works just as well), 2T sugar, 2T mirin, 1T peanut oil.
Chop: 250gm tofu/quorn; 2c pumpkin chopped 1-2cm squares; 1c courgette chopped 2cm; 2c mushrooms roughly chopped.
Mix the sauce through the chopped veges, then place in a roasting pan and roast for 20-25 minutes.

Place rice in saucepan, add 1.25c of water, bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer 10 mins. Remove from heat (leave lid on). Add the rice vinegar mix. combine with the roast veges.

Serve with some pickled ginger, chopped spring onions and sesame seeds scattered over the top - with soy sauce and wasabi paste. Works well cold too.

Love, B

Self-harm, it appears I'm good at it

I don't mean in a Richie Edwards kinda way, but this weekend has demonstrated I've got what it takes.

Initially I focussed on my fingers, so peripheral damage. I set out with good intentions to make a nice brekkie, using very tasty sourdough I'd had delivered the night before. The problem came when I started cutting the bread, that breadknife is possessed. It's bitten me before, and by the time I'd finished chopping, I had another two plasters on my fingers.
I'm not a quitter, and so when slicing the bagels for Sun brunch, I did the same. My fingers by this point resembled a cloth covered, blood stained, demon hand.

Saturday saw us head into town, and I wandered off to find some 8mm hex keys (allen keys), so I could dismantle parts of my bike. This proved difficult, Homebase had up to 6mm (which I had too), BnQ had 6mm, but suggest ScrewFit who had what I needed. That wander had taken around 80-90 minutes, and then I meandered home, another 90 mins as I was, by this point, down the far end of the industrial estate. My knee for some reason took this all very personally and got grumpy. I ignored this.

Fixed my bike, replaced the back tyre, so it no longer skids around corners as it was missing tread, replaced the inner tube (as I'd patched it a number of times already), and repaired the front brakes. So obviously I'd be going out riding on Sunday. All went well for the first 10miles, then on the way back the knee decided it really hated me. Especially on the hills I'd found. Yes hills, in Leicestershire. Not big ones, but enough that I was feeling them.

And that's why I spent the rest of the day lying on the couch looking grumpy. I'm in the usual denial mood, and will be walking home this evening, as there is nothing wrong with me.

Nothing.

Ow. I really shouldn't have stamped my foot then.

I did discover the village of East Leake is quite picturesque (in places) and found some orchards that sell to the public, so I sense a return trip shortly. I'm also thinking very seriously about a 5 day bike holiday in the UK somewhere, I desperately need a break from work before I start screaming, so figure a few days hard exercise maybe a good plan.

B.

Gardening update

The dedicated fanbase out there will recall my replanting of a herb garden a couple of months ago. I did promise some updates, and promptly forgot. So...

Parsley
1st batch: died
2nd batch: dying
Seeds: died

Coriander
1st batch: died
Seeds: died
Seeds 2: sprouting

Basil
1st batch: died
2nd batch: hanging on, but probably terminal
Seeds: died
Seeds 2: sprouting

The trays have been moved downstairs, avoiding the direct sunlight, so we'll see how that goes. Of course this means, if they do grow, I have to move further to get the herbs. Meh.

B

David Cameron, Britain's greatest politician?

These thoughts have been bubbling around for a couple of weeks now. However the current Murdoch phone hacking drama has thrown them some focus. Although I dare say I'll break that by the end ...

For anyone living in a box, Murdoch, or more accurately his organisation, News International (NI), have been hacking phones. The Guardian has been prattling on about this for at least two years now, with varying degrees of buy-in from the authorities, and other news businesses. A lot of it was dismissed as harassment by NI and the police.
Vindication has come in the last fortnight when it was revealed the News of the World (UK tabloid, owned by NI) had hacked phones of: celebrities (meh); families of 9/11 victims; politicians; and the clincher, the phone of Milly Dowler who was murdered a few years ago - what got the public's attention was the NotW deleted off messages as her mailbox was full. Thereby giving her parents hope she was still alive. Ahhh all class. Finally the other non-Murdoch papers have caught on, and the politicians decided that public opinion was strong enough to challenge Murdoch.
that last point is important, as the political class in the UK were in thrall to newspaper editors, and in particular NI. NI owns the biggest selling daily paper (the Sun - and no, I'm not linking to it), NotW (biggest selling Sunday paper, until it was axed last week), The Times and the Sunday Times. Murdoch and his various editors were frequently seen courting the politicians, so no politician was prepared to speak out.
It wasn't just a Tory thing either, Blair and Brown also kept NI close, although Brown's relationship with them seemed more fraught. Which, if nothing else, is a point in favour of Brown. Oh and NI possibly hacked Brown's phone or blagged info from the hospital, before running a story of his newborn son having cystic fibrosis. Class.

So how does this fit with Davey-boy? Well, as mentioned Cameron has a close relationship with NI, the (now ex) editor of NotW Rebekah Brooks hung out with him, he had a number of dinners with high ranking NI people, and possibly of greatest concern, hired Andy Coulson -  the editor of NotW, during the main period of hacking, as his Director of Communications. Brilliant!

I'll get back to that, and how Cameron has dealt with the phone hacking allegations.
He's been in government since May 2010, and has managed to piss off pretty much everyone when he's tried to change policies or funding. Now, I'm not against all of his proposed changes, there is a hell of a lot of bureaucracy here, and as one example, the NHS does need reforming as opposed to tinkering - as most governments seem to do. He also seems keen to break the monopolies of Union's in the UK, and I suspect that's not necessarily a bad thing. The conflicts inherent in both of those examples relate to change, something the UK doesn't take to very well (in my experience). This conflict over change, has led to a number of protests and development of the Met's kettling techniques.

What I've found interesting is that in each case, the mud, which should have stuck and caused massive political embarrassment, has slid off Cameron. He's been prepared to sacrifice Ministers when public opinion reaches a level he's uncomfortable with, and is prepared to perform U-turns on policies. These are described as indicating a listening Government, one that has enough confidence to change its policies on the basis of consultation and feedback.
In effect, this means that critics of the Government, and there are many, find it difficult to hook into an issue and critique it properly as the boundaries keep changing. The Government is also introducing a large number of policy changes, so creating a large number of fronts of conflict. thus splitting critics, and the public. I imagine for a large majority of people, and I count myself in that number, the sheer number of protests concerning policy change begins to meld into one amorphous blob.
It is this flexibility and shape-shifting that is keeping Cameron afloat.

What has really struck me is that nothing has stuck to him, sure he's been canny and used the LibDem's to front a number of unpopular proposals, and their ratings have plummeted. But Cameron seems to be pottering along nicely. I have to hand it to him, and the Tories, their policy introductions have been brilliantly managed.

So what has changed in the last fortnight? Well for one, Ed Milliband has found his voice. He decided early on in the debacle, to risk NI's wrath, and go after them. He didn't really have an option there, as his leadership has been, thus far, a little weak. So credit to him. Cameron vacillated, defending NI, Coulson, and anyone else, until it became obvious that public opinion has reached whatever threshold he uses to gauge issues, and then he came out all but saying that Brooks should go. Which, eventually, she did. So the Government, led by Milliband, suddenly decided that NI was fair game and started digging into them. Launching inquiries, criticising their behaviour etc. All the stuff you'd expect leaders of a country to be doing as a matter of course.

And yet, so far, Cameron appears to have escaped unscathed, again. He's managed this by his standard method of sacrifice, in this case using NI. What remains to be seen is when the inquiry reports back, how much did Coulson know, and how (or if) he lied to Cameron. Cameron's judgement in hiring Coulson looks doubtful at best, and his defence that the Met had vetted him will need to be examined. If only as there is now evidence that NI was paying off police officers, and that a top police officer left the force to write for NI (Andy Hayman, described as a dodgy geezer -by politicians no less!), others had frequent meals with them, and another ex-editor worked for the police. Hmmm.
Given Cameron's ability to shift, removing the target from critics, I don't think this will bring him down either. The inquiry will take some time, by which time the public will have moved on. However, it will be interesting to see if this is the making of Ed Milliband as a decent opposition leader. He's been on form so far, and staked his claim early.

Back to the question, is he Britain's greatest politician? From a best for the country perspective, too early to say - depends very much on his reforms and what eventually happens with them. From a politically savvy approach, oh yeah - he makes Tony Blair seem positively static. And he had a huge majority to work with. This slippery approach makes it very hard to see what his end-game really is, unless it's politics and power itself. Which, as a career politician, makes sense.
Depending on how the phone hacking goes, as it does have the potential to bring down the government, depending on what revelations come out,and how well Cameron does at distancing himself from NI, I'm going for a qualified, yes.
You get what you deserve.

Most of the links are to the Guardian, but theirs has been the most indepth coverage, and well, I do read them by choice.

B (oohh a serious post, wow)

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Sometimes they don't work. This is from my last.fm page.

And in other news, my daily average number of tracks has increased from 39 to 40. That may have something to do with the amount of music being played over the last couple of weeks...

B

Of various musical endeavours

There's been a number of gigs and music related events recently, so briefly:

Pallas - Glasgow
After significant peer pressure by the rest of the caped crusaders, my trusty gold cape was packed and I headed up to Glasgow for the prog-gods Pallas. Beer was consumed, an additional caped crusader was acquired (the cape maker no-less, resplendent in purple), and we headed to the gig. Bear in mind this was Friday night, in Glasgow. The neds were most confused. Arriving at the venue we found yet another cape crusader, our number are growing. Today, the prog, tomorrow, the world. Caught up with the band, who seem quite keen on the cape-age.
Gig was good, seemed to be a warm-up for High Voltage, and everything flowed well. The new material sounds very rocky, and is quite different from the 'old' Pallas. Not worse, just different. I've found it a bit tricky to get used to that, but live, it works well.

Due to time pressures with a nightclub afterwards, the caped crusaders were turned into caped roadies.

Roger Waters - London
The next day saw me flying back to London for the Roger Waters gig. I was always a bit nervous about this, given how much the Waters tickets were, and how much I wanted to see him. The plane I was booked on was 2 hours late leaving the airport, meaning I got into London at 6, just in time to head straight out to the gig (at the O2).
Crickey, that was a gig and a half. A performance of The Wall, with a full multimedia show. I think that's pushing to be best gig I've been to. Sure, there were a couple of mawkish moments, but over-all, emotionally draining.

The Weakerthans - London
One of my favourite bands, so really pleased I got to see them. Quirky Canadian indie-rock. Very relaxed band onstage, similar to Tragically Hip or the Phoenix lads - well ok, possibly not that relaxed. One of those gig you come out of going, yeah that was exactly why I love the band.

Had a quick trip up to Nottingham last weekend to share a pint or two with the Glaswegian contingent down visiting the Nottingham posse. We may have met up in a vinyl shop. I may have bought some cheese, and also Japan 'Oil on canvas' to try and recover some credibility. Europe Final Countdown (12" mix) and The Firm Star Trekkin (12" mix) were the cheese...
And I believe I have a rock gig next week, Queensryche and Judas Priest. Brilliant!

me