On a Quixotic quest to find out if Fuller's ESB had been marmalised by the recent-ish takeover of Fuller's brewery by Asahi Europe Ltd. who are a wholly owned subsidiary of Asahi Group Holdings who are a Japanese mega-corporation, I had travelled into London to a pub, The Dove in Hammersmith, that when visited back … Continue reading The quest for good ESB. Part 2.
Real Ale, it's an emotive subject, for some people. I'm fond of a beer or two as anyone who regularly reads this blog will probably have discerned. One of my favourite beers is Fuller's Extra Special Bitter or ESB. Fuller's themselves describe it thus: Twice named World Champion Beer, Fuller’s ESB is one of the … Continue reading The quest for good ESB. Part 1.
Promise was that I should homeward from The Flounder myself deliver; ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Pie-eyed in Holloway at The Whittington with misgivings. With apologies to Aldous Huxley Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer. W. C. Fields In the late nineteen-eighties, early nineteen-nineties, the … Continue reading Pie-eyed in Holloway
Come to Gdańsk they said, it’ll be fun they said.Part 2, in which I go to Gdańsk and then to Łódź.Adventures in Poland, Polish beer and Polish progressive rock. I intended to write this, and its predecessor, Come to Gdańsk they said… Part 1, a lot closer to the time when these events happened, while … Continue reading Come to Gdańsk they said… Part 2
As much as I like pubs and ‘pub culture’, if that’s not an oxymoron, I will not be queueing up for a two hour slot to sit at a table and drink alcohol in a pub just because I can. Alcohol has been freely available from the start so all those people professing to be … Continue reading Staying at home 6: 4th July, Indepubdance Day
Come to Gdańsk they said, it’ll be fun they said.Part 1, in which I go to Poznań and Wrocław then back to Poznan.Adventures in Poland, Polish beer and Polish progressive rock. Thursday 17th October, 2019. 07:31 train out of Chesham, back on that strange conveyor belt;Chesham - Liverpool Street StationLiverpool Street Station – London … Continue reading Come to Gdańsk they said… Part 1
Thursday evenings at 20.00, we applaud the NHS, it’s the new normal. I’ve stood in the back garden, I’ve stood on the front porch, I've clapped, I've rung a bell. Yesterday evening I stood on the front doorstep and played a bodhran solo. My wrist hurts now... But it was worth it! Thank you NHS, … Continue reading Living on bodhrán time
On Friday 29th September I went to the London Palladium to see The Zombies performing their 50th Anniversary show of Odessey and Oracle, an album released in 1968 but recorded in 1967, hence the 50th anniversary. I was there with Marysia and Przemek, keyboards and guitar respectively in the Warsaw based band, Signal To Noise … Continue reading Two Concert Weekend
The Rising Sun, better known as The Riser, is a small canal-side public house in the town of Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, it occupies pride of place alongside lock 55 on the Grand Union Canal and also has the distinction of being the first pub in which I bought a drink, well, the first pub in … Continue reading Early Riser.
In November 2015 I was on a bus going down to Kraków from Łódź, about 4½ hours on the motorway. It was a big double decker, air-con, leather seats and Wi-Fi sort of bus, but a bus none the less. I know it was a bus, It had Bus written on the outside, “PolskiBus” in … Continue reading On the road again.
A Point of Views, A Polish Odyssey and Other Stories. 