Category: Life

At long last I have found the time to get to my computer and type out another post. With Chateau Ghastanbury being as busy as Grand Central Station it has been hard to make time without offending or ignoring guests. The Traveller is staying with me for six weeks until he swans back over to the Southern Hemisphere once more. I think the cold weather has taken him by surprise, indeed it took many Brits by surprise. It is hard to believe that a few inches of snow can make the UK grind to a halt. You have to wonder what the Swedes, Fins and Norwegians make of us. They must be bemused that most of our schools were closed and the transport system shut down completely and all for a sprinkling of snow. Did out forefathers really make an empire upon which the sun never set?

The occasion of my 53^rd birthday came and it seemed like the whole world descended upon my front door. The Prince of Darkness (formerly the taxman) arrived bearing greetings and gifts. The Tiler rang up and was on the phone for over 2 hours. It was great to speak to him and he described how the temperature in Oz was a blistering 46 centigrade but his fridge was working and his beer was ice cold. I promise I will get to go and see him one day. Sophia Loren arrived with greetings and bearing packages and the Animal (formerly the beast) arrived. Naturally Beancounter was with me and spoiled me rotten with gifts and Roger Moor came in for a birthday drink.  The day was looking up.

In the evening we went along to the animals’ house and I cooked what was supposed to be a Chinese banquet.  The first thing to go wrong was the soup, I overcooked it and the eggs separated horribly. It tasted wonderful but it looked as though it had curdled. Naturally I thought things would pick up on the second course but the pancakes for the crispy duck were unlike any pancakes I have ever seen in my life. They were translucent and sticky. The animal threw one against the tiles in his kitchen and it stuck. We gave up on the pancakes and the duck I had cooked was served in slices of wholemeal Hovis, basically crispy duck sandwiches. I figured I could still turn it around with my famous ribs but disaster struck when I realised I had used the wrong sauce. I had cooked them in my homemade Chicago rib sauce in stead of the home made sweet Kentucky sauce I should have used. To say they were hot is a bit of an understatement. There is an awful lot of chilli and cayenne in Chicago sauce and they are really for extreme heat aficionados, in fact they are second to the Texas sauce which has hospitalised some people!

It was at this point we gave up, being really full from the duck sandwiches and quite merry on Tequila slammers, and conversation turned to culinary items and the way they are made. I got around to describing to the animals long suffering wife the difference in the way white pudding was made as opposed to black pudding. His wife loves white pudding but did not know what was in it. I told her that it was the same ingredients as black pudding and made from pigs blood. She asked why it was white and I explained the blood was put in a centrifuge and the smaller red blood cells were spun out leaving only the larger white blood cells to make white pudding. The black puddings were made from the red blood cells. At the end of this elaborate and totally believable description she vowed never to eat white pudding again.  The youngest son who was enjoying the hot ribs asked about chilli sauce when I told him that was what made the ribs so hot. I told him about the dragon fields in China and Nepal.

Everyone knows that dragons breathe fire but what he did not know was the Chinese and Nepalese have herds of dragons and every day the dragon keepers would round up the dragons from the famous dragon fields and lead them to the chilli sauce factories. It was here that the dragons would donate some blood every day to go into bottles just the same way that us humans go and give blood at the transfusion services. The really big and older dragons had the hottest blood and that was why some of the sauce was very hot, the bigger and older the dragon the hotter the sauce. The sweet sauce came from the baby dragons and it was very precious as the baby dragons did not stay small for very long. After a lot of bottles had been filled up the dragons were led back out into the dragon fields. I also explained that this was why the Chinese loved dragons and they featured a lot in Chinese festivals.

I was going to explain that St George had killed the last Welsh dragon and that was why we could not make chilli sauce in this country, but the look from his parents rather suggested that perhaps I should end this line of conversation! After more than a few Tequila slammers, plenty of port and several large glasses of gin and tonic me and BC headed home. It had been a fantastic day and who would have thought you could have so much fun with white pudding and dragons’ blood.

 

It is over a week since I returned from my holiday and it seems like a lifetime away. The weather is cold and the skies are for the most at least still grey. However I do feel a lot better than at the same time last year. The winter break has done me the world of good and I am sure I will be going away at Christmas for the foreseeable future. As usual at this time of year I have splashed out on a load of goodies and my credit card is screaming. I have bought mainly travelling gear and some pieces of what I deem as essential kit for Rhonda.

Seeing as Rhonda has not been out for a few weeks I pulled the covers off her and fired her up. She started after a few stabs of the button and within a few minutes we were flying down the highways and byways without a care in the world. It was at this point I noticed a distinct odour emanating from the engine. It was a truly disgusting smell and one I recognised but could not a put a name to. It was akin to burning rubber and sulphur. Slightly alarmed I stopped to see if any thing obvious was amiss. Not being able to detect anything I carried on and returned home and recovered the bike.

My garden is not really big enough to put another shed into it and I do not have a garage. Rhonda is therefore covered up in a waterproof cover and wrapped in swaddling to keep her warm and relatively rust free. I have enough security chains on her to tie up a medium size battle ship and she is as secure as I can make her. As I was putting the covers on, I noticed a lot of holes in the fabric of the cover and on inspection decided they looked distinctly like cat claw puncture marks. I also notice some paw marks on the pillion seat and the truth dawned on me.

Being warm and waterproof, the local cats have been using Rhonda as a place to doss down in the cold and wet weather. As competition for places have obviously been limited they have been spraying my beloved motorbike to mark their territory in an attempt to keep other cats away. I have to assume the main culprit is Genghis and he has been spraying to let other cats know this is his pad.

Exactly what has been going through his tiny fur covered mind I do not know. I would like to think he has just been keeping guard on my property and making himself cosy in the process but as cats are not exactly renowned for their altruism I suspect this train of thought may have less than a grain of truth in it. I will probably have to rearrange the garden to accommodate a shed of some size to place my bike in. One thing is for sure I not going to tolerate for much longer the smell of burning rubber and cat piss. 

Regular readers will have noticed a lack of posts for the last few weeks. This is because I have been away and only returned in the early hours of January the 9^th. Where have I been? on holiday in Tunisia. Yes, I decided to get away from all of the hustle and bustle of the festivities, the endless turkey sandwiches and the copious amounts of dishwashing for two glorious weeks in the sunshine. How did it go you may ask? Well enough to give me sufficient material for 4 maybe 5 posts in the travel section of this blog with oodles of photos.  Needless to say Christmas day was spent lounging around the hotel pool with several Gin and Tonics. New years Eve saw me diving into the pool on the stroke of midnight and running around the beach stark naked at 2am but that is another story!

What have I come back to? Well the first shock is the weather. The second is a mountain of junk mail and a cat that no longer recognises me and is so fickle he has turned his attentions to Roger Moor and his family. Indeed it is going to take a few days to remind Genghis that this is my house not his and that the bed belongs to me and not him. I feel better than I have done in a long time and the winter blues have for the moment at least melted away. The news papers tell a different story though and little seems to have changed since I left. The world is not a brighter place and seems hell bent on destruction. Israel, rightly or wrongly, appears to filling out the prophecies of Neville Shutes’ novel “On The Beach “. It can surely only be a matter of time before other nations decide to take sides and act accordingly. The UN seems impotent to send in troops and stop the slaughter and retaliation on both sides.

The economy is still in freefall and the Daily Mail displayed only yesterday the headline “Let’s print more money”. This would suggest that the government no longer has enough assets, liquid or fixed to cover its debts. It all seems a far cry from the Gold Standard many nations used as a basis for printing money between the late 19^th century and the early 20^th century. In short what this meant was that each nation had to have enough gold to cover the amount of money it had in circulation. To the man in the street this equates to having assets or savings to at least the value of what you owe. When the day comes that you owe more than you are worth, have no means of obtaining any more and your creditors ask for their money back then you become bankrupt. Governments however can simply print more money but you only have to look at Zimbabwe to see what happens when you do. To compare it would be like you or me attempting to pay our Visa card bills with bottle tops. Foreign countries will simply stop accepting payments in sterling because the notes are worthless. It is a simply ludicrous situation for our government to be in.

It merely remains for me to hope that things get better in the coming 12 months and to wish everyone a very happy new year 2009.

 

You can tell Xmas is just around the corner, houses are ablaze with lights and festive decorations. In fact it would be hard to believe there is a credit crunch and sky high energy prices when I look at some of the lighting festooned on the outside of some of the houses near Chateau Ghastanbury.  I have never been a true believer in Xmas as regular readers will know however it is a cheering sight to see so many bright illuminations in these dark times.  Talking of dark times the mercury is falling and it took me 20 minutes to defrost the car and scrape the ice off the windows before I could go to work the other morning. How I envy my friends in southern Europe and the southern hemisphere right now.

I have noticed a distinct lack of writings from some of my fellow bloggers, indeed one or two blogs have disappeared altogether. Maybe it is the times we live in that no one has anything cheerful to say and so just give up. I have suffered from Bloggers Write myself a few times in the past 3 months. Nothing of any significance happens or there is so much of it you do not know where to start. By now just about every one in the civilised world must know that the monetary system of the planet is on the verge of collapse. Jobs are being lost and many of my friends will be soon be joining the long queues at the benefits office. I wish them all well and a speedy return to the workplace with as little loss of dignity as possible in the meantime.

On the bright side, the winter solstice is only a few days away and that means more sunshine and shorter nights. Autumn will be over and winter will arrive shortly to be replaced with spring and the start of the barbecue season. It is one of the few things there are to look forward to at the moment. I have resigned myself to staying in the UK for at least another 2 years and may have to admit that I will never leave. Economists are predicting that the recession will start to level out some time in 2010 and maybe, just maybe a recovery will take place within four years of that. At that rate I would be close to 60 and probably too old to do the things I want to do. This news has been met with cheers by some of my friends because I may not be leaving and they will still get to see me on a regular basis. Those who have left understand the disappointment I feel at the prospect of having to stay here in the UK.

Now as gloomy as this seems, I am truly lucky compared to others. I received news last week that two people I know have fell upon disastrous times. One has had a stroke and has been in a coma for over a month and the other has been diagnosed with cancer. It is not looking good for either of these two. My sympathies and best wishes go out to both of them and their loved ones.

I made the decision last early on in the year that I did not want to spend another Xmas here in the UK and consequently booked a holiday to Tunisia for me and the Bean Counter. On Xmas day I hope to be drinking a toast to absent friends as I tuck into my dinner of couscous and a sheep’s head. Here’s to all my friends and family. A merry Xmas and may your god go with you.

 

Ok lets get the bad news out of the way. The economy is in a terrible mess, the housing market has fell through the floor, companies are crashing by the minute and jobs are being lost on a spectacular scale. The weather is cold grey and foggy, terrorist attacks all over the world are increasing and most of the people I know are feeling lower than at any time I can remember. I have as I write, a raging hangover and the housework is piling up.  You would wonder what there is to write about!

Well even in these uncertain and gloomy times there are a few rays of sunshine about. For instance Commander Riker and me have gone on a health kick. We have finally come to realise that chips with tomato sauce do not count as two of your five portions of veg a day. With this in mind I went shopping for our dinner one day last week during our lunch break. I came back with a bag of fried chicken for protein, a couple of steak pies for carbohydrates and a salad box filled with tuna and pasta covered in salad cream to give it some flavour. The only thing that could have made this healthy wholesome dinner even better was to wash it down with a couple of pints of ice cold Becks but as we were both in work we declined. I have also discovered that a glass of fresh orange juice with juicy bits in it counts as one portion of your five a day. This means that five glasses of Gin and orange a day should have me in the peak of condition very soon! If only my chief partner in crime and best drinking buddy, the Tiler was here then we could support the flagging drinks industry, put more money in the chancellor’s coffers and become healthy.

News arrived from the Traveller who is working in Oz and he is settling in very nicely. He is due to come home in January for a few weeks; boy is he in for a shock. Captain Pugwash rang me the other night; it was the first time I have spoken to him in almost six months. I can report he is in rude health and we are going to meet up one night during the coming week. The Beancounter and I are going along to Sophia Loren’s house for an advent meal. If it is anything like the meal she prepared for Lent then my whole health kick is going to go out of the window within a matter of days. Speaking of which I  have managed to tidy up a lot of the photo’s that SL gave to me  from Halloween and as soon as time allows I will put them in the gallery with a link to them. I will also try and tidy up some of the many photos taken from Bonfire night and do the same.

Last Night Roger Moor arrived with a bottle of Jim Beam (it is the reason I have a hangover). I could not let the poor man drink it all by himself and so with my help we dispensed of the said bottle. During an evening of talking bollocks about a great range of topics we ventured onto English grammar and particularly the use of the apostrophe. It has appeared to me that the use of correct grammar has sadly declined and just two of the many reasons are the use of text speak and the Microsoft dictionary. This then begs the question should we bother at all with the apostrophe? Very few people get it right and even when you do Microsoft tells you it isn’t. It is actually a hot topic with many younger people dispensing with it altogether and a lot of English teachers sadly shaking heads. My guess is that it will die out within a couple of generations with only scholars using it, a bit like Latin. No one uses it anymore except for professionals who like to slip in the odd phrase to make then seem more knowledgeable than the average prole. In short it will die a death or possibly intereo mortalitas.

 

It’s been a fairly hectic past two weeks, starting off with a Halloween party and barbecue in the garden. This was fairly well attended with all the usual suspects, Bean Counter, The Beast, now known as The Animal due to the discovery of certain unpleasant connotations associated with that name, Sophia Loren and her mum and Roger Moor. Bowls of chilli, stew and a stream of burgers were rustled up by Commander Riker and Ted Magnum to feed the hordes. The photographs would have been brilliant save for the smoke from the fire pit and barby.

Fast forward a few days and it appeared as though the world was on tenterhooks awaiting the outcome of the most powerful man in the world, the incoming president of America. He is the first black man to become the new resident in chief of the Whitehouse, Barrack Oboma. This was followed the next evening by our very own tradition of Bonfire night in which we Brits celebrate the failed attempt to blow up the houses of parliament in 1605. Who knows what the world would have looked like if Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators had of succeeded. However the Ghastanbury posse celebrated in style with an enormous bonfire and enough fireworks and explosives to start a small war in Central America and of course heaps of food and the odd beer or two. Congratulations to RM and his other half for a fantastic spread.

The Driver came to see me on Saturday gone and he stayed for a couple of nights while we put the world to rights. That brings me up to today which as we all know is the anniversary of the end of the Great War. There are only three men left alive in the UK that fought in that terrible conflict. Who knows how much longer we will be fortunate enough to have their company as living reminders of mans inhumanity to man and the ultimate triumph of good over evil?

Whilst watching the commemorations on TV I started thinking about world events today and the similarities with 96 years ago, two years before the start of World War 1. Europe was in the grip of a financial meltdown with right wing parties across Europe vying for power and the arms race that ensued allowing countries to take part in the war. It is not hard to see the comparisons with the 1930’s. Financial meltdown, particularly bad in Germany due to the terms of the Versai treaty, the rise of the far right in Europe, Franco, Hitler, Mussolini and mass production of ordnance and armaments in Germany.

Now let us stop for a moment and look at early years of the 21^st century. Worlwide financial meltdown, an insurgence of the far right in Europe and whilst not yet a threat they are certainly growing. The comparisons are not favourable, but, with all we have learned from the last 100 years, they would not do it again would they?

 

Château Ghastanbury has at times resembled grand central station with so many people arriving and phoning over the last few weeks. I am not grumbling mind but it is one of the reasons for so few blog entries of late. As usual many things have got my goat recently, not least the fact that ticket touts inflate the prices of tickets required by Joe Public. For example, last week tickets for the ACDC Black Ice Tour went on sale at 9am. By 9-20am the box office for the venues had sold out and only promotion companies had any for sale at all. My usual port of call, “master of tickets” (made up name naturally) was selling tickets with a face value of £40 for almost £180 each and merely one hour after being on sale.

This represents an absolutely monstrous profit but worse still is the fact that so many vendors had managed to obtain tickets at short notice at the expense of Joe Public. When will tickets be sold to the people that actually want to buy them and isn’t it about time that concert tickets, like airline tickets had to be purchased with some form of identity and that identity shown when entering the arena? Such a simple action would at a stroke stop profiteers from buying tickets they have no intention of using to sell on ebay or to unscrupulous touts who wish to make an obscene profit from honest fans. I have no problem with people making a profit from a commodity that supply far outstrips demand for but touts and tickets agencies are up there with solicitors and estate agents and I suppose these day’s bankers. Vultures with a human face!

There is almost a happy ending; I managed to acquire tickets in the end but not for any venue in this country. With tickets for the MEN going for £180 each it was cheaper to buy tickets for Paris with a night’s accommodation thrown in. The cost of the tickets for Paris? £179 each. It has taken some time to warm to the new Album from ACDC with the tour of  the same name but I am getting there. There is not one track that leaps out and grabs you with the same ferocity that “Whole lotta Rosie” did nor “Back in black” to name a few but the whole album is starting to grow on me. By the day of the concert I expect to know them word perfect.

Summer has finally bowed out and the clocks have gone back bringing short days and long nights. Sadly it has been accompanied by a dramatic drop in temperatures and for the first time in what seems like ages I have had to switch on my central heating. Naturally such actions have had me turning green with envy at the thought of friends far away in sunnier climes. Friends of over 20 years standing have recently moved to Spain to run a coffe bar in Camposol Spain. It is called the Costa Café and Tearoom and naturally it based in Camposol on the east cost of Southern Spain. As soon as I obtain more details I will post them here for any one who wants to pop in and try the menu. I wish them all the best and if you are in the area and passing, pop in and let the hard working staff behind the counter know Smokehouse sent you. The Traveller is now working in Oz and from the sounds of it may well obtain an extended work permit and perhaps a living permit. Will I ever see him again? Who knows but if our positions were reversed I would not be coming back!

The big news is that I am to become a great uncle. Well not exactly, but Little Miss Sunshine’s daughter is pregnant and as I am an honorary uncle to the daughter it follows I would a great uncle to granddaughter. I wish both mother and daughter the very best and all that they would wish for themselves. It never ceases to amaze me how many nephews and nieces I have. I seem to be the black sheep of the family, the one who is spoken about in whispered voices and never in front of the children! My extended family grows by the day.

Desperate times require desperate measures and the current economic situation has thrown what plans I had into complete disarray, so much so that I have taken to looking at alternative lifestyles and accommodation. With this in mind I have booked a short stay in a Yurt some time in the summer months of 2009. As well as being a break it will give me a chance to see if these dwellings live up to the reputation of the Mongols as being somewhere you can live in for years, completely waterproof and capable of withstanding temperatures of minus 35c whilst having a life span of 20 years or more.  In short a glamorous tent which has coined the phrase Glamping.

 

Roger Moor and his family are back from a long well deserved weekend break. During the time RM was away it was left to me to look after his goldfish. While I was feeding the little fella his ant eggs, I started to think about how this guy spent his time. I mean can’t be that exciting swimming around the same old bowl everyday and going nowhere can it? So in order to brighten up his day I took him outside and let him loose in my garden pond. Having a bigger stage in which to strut his stuff, certainly suited him and within minutes he was swimming around like a dolphin in the ocean.

A bit later I put him back in his bowl and brought him indoors and placed the bowl in front of the TV screen. Bean Counter poured a large gin into his bowl and I set up what I thought would be a really interesting film for him. Naturally it was Jaws. What could be better than relaxing on a Saturday night with a stiff drink and watching a blockbuster film? Then after the film was finished I offered him a slap up meal with a choice of a tin of sardines, a tin of salmon and some tinned shrimps. By now the little guy was feeling tired so we took him back into RM’s house and BC read him a bedtime story. What could be more fitting after his hectic day than listening to a chapter or two of Moby Dick?

The Traveller texted me on Saturday morning to say he has finally arrived in sunny Malaysia and is set to venture to Australia in the very near future. I wish him well, it would appear I have more friends and relatives over there than I do at home! The weather is finally turning and the leaves are falling off the trees. What has been good though is the fine weather we have had over the last couple of weeks. Sunday gone was an exceptional day and I used it to take Rhonda and BC for a spin. It’s just a pity that the good weather is five months late! Sunday evening came and we ventured to see The Beast and we ended up having a small bonfire in his garden. All in all it has been a great weekend, one that I won’t forget in a hurry and I am sure that the fish wont either. After all even fish have feelings.

 

It is with some relief that I can misquote Mark Twain and say, “rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated”. It is true I was struck down by the dreaded lurgy (manflu) and confined to bed for a week shortly after my last post. However, since my recovery a week later I have been busy busy busy. A long weekend to the Isle of Wight accompanied by Bean Counter aided my recuperation. The IOW is another part of the British Isles that I can now cross of my list of places to visit. It is for me at least, a spectacular place to go. It is quiet, peaceful and the shoreline and scenery are fantastic. The weekend passed away all to soon.

Upon my return I decided to do something that has needed doing for many years. I ripped down my old back fence and gate replaced it with double gates and some new fencing. Sadly the fencing that divides my property from the home of Roger Moor is a joint fence and as soon as I removed the old rotting supports his fence and back gate literally fell over. With the help of The Beast and RM new concrete support posts and fencing were soon in place and after several coats of exterior wood paint both houses now look as though they have had a major make over. The best news is that I can take Rhonda out quite easily as when both gates are open the gap is now 5 feet and not 34 inches and Rhonda is 37 inches wide. I expect the Tiler will be quite pleased with the result when he sees the photos.

The economy has come crashing down and the news is almost exclusively full of reports that yet another bank somewhere around the world has gone into liquidation. This has left many savers worrying if they will have access to the money in these accounts. In the case of the Icelandic banks it is really serious. The assets of the country are worth less than the value of the money they owe. It is the first time that I have ever heard of a country going bankrupt. This news is not confined to any one country, continent or hemisphere and more than a few texts were exchanged in the early hours of this week between The Printer and me. Australia it seems is also in dire straits demonstrating how truly global this economic crisis is.

At least on person has managed to escape from it all and the Traveller departed for Indonesia, (it may actually be Malaysia but it has an sia at the end of it) yesterday to seek out dusky maidens and a better way of life. I hope it all comes off for him and I expect to see him briefly sometime in January before he departs for good and sets up home in the southern hemisphere. With so many people departing for sunnier or brighter economic climes it is a wonder that there is anyone left in the UK. At least Genghis and me will be here for another two years.

Genghis has taken to terrorising the rabbits in Ogri and Bodiceas’ garden. Each morning he goes to the rabbit hutch and tries to stick his paw through the wire grate. I personally believe he is merely trying to say hello and stroke the rabbits but other people tell me he has a hungry look on his face while he attempts this. Anyway he will be 12 months old in a few weeks and sadly it will be time to take him to the vets for THAT op. The mere thought of it makes my eyes water! At any rate it is nice to be back and posting again.

 

It should have been a normal day, I arrived home from work just like any other, fed the cat and chilled out. At around 6pm Roger Moor knocked and we sat talking and drinking tea until he said do you fancy a cider? I think I said yes before he finished his sentence and so he trotted off and duly arrived back with 2 cans of Blackthorn dry cider. I opened one can and poured it into two glasses and then I said do you fancy a Bulmers? So we opened that one and poured it into two glasses. The difference between the two drinks was amazing. The Bulmer’s was fantastic and by comparison the Dry Blackthorn was disgusting. It was then we decided to do some taste testing.

We set off to the local Tescos and arrived back at Château Ghastanbury with 10 different types of cider and decided to record our comments about each one. So we sat down watching Nigella Lawson give us tips on cooking and drooled while faced with 12 different types of cider.

Here is our written commentary on those we tested.

1)    Bulmer’s original, 4.5%. Smelt wonderful, sweet taste very appley would buy again.

2)    Dry Blackthorn 5.5%. Smelt like gas mains, very sour chemically taste would not buy again.

3)    Frome valley 6% No chemical smell, flat, no alcoholic aftertaste. Refreshing on the palate, appley aftertaste. Very smooth but flat and expensive. Would not buy again

4)    Savanna 5.5% South African cider with a very fizzy head and a good nose. Not unpleasant but no cider taste and very sugary. Would not buy again.

It has to be noted that at this point our descriptions were becoming more flowery and we slipped effortlessly into Jilly Goulden mode.

5)    Aspinalls 7% English apples but from a French family based inSuffolk. Smelt of pears with almost a pear taste (perhaps it was Perry and labelled incorrectly?) Very smooth with a fizz that disappeared rapidly. Barrel matured which you could taste and almost no CO2. We reckoned it was best served at room temperature because it almost tasted like a wine. We would possibly buy this one again.

6)    Tesco’s finest oak conditioned.6.6% Light appley smell, sharp and very dry. Definitely oak conditioned. ( we had to spit the splinters out) This was more of a dining cider and best drank with food

7)    Henry Westons special vintage reserve 8.5% Nose was very appley with over tones of wood, flat but smooth and strong. Distinct appley aftertaste. We would both buy this again.

NB by now we had really got into the swing of things and were starting to take this really seriously with as much verve and endeavour as the scientists at the particle collider in Cern

8) Oakley’s original 4.5% Nose was very appley with a hint of chemicals. Nice colour and a very nice taste that was sweet with no unpleasant aftertaste. Not too gassy and 2^nd so far to the Bulmer’s. We would definitely buy this one again

9) Gaymers 4.5% A very appley nose, which was sweet to taste and not too gassy. Tasted of apples and it was nectar in a glass. Almost as good as Bulmer’s. Would definitely buy again

10) Thatcher’s vintage 7.4% Nose was very appley. Medium dry and very smooth with no horrible aftertaste. Not too gassy and neither sweet nor bitter. We would buy this again.

NB After can no 10 each we were becoming completely shitfaced and having a wonderful time.

11) Thatchers katy 7.4%. Wonderful and we are too pissed to pass any criticism save for my comment of I could live on this stuff and RM’s comment of sex in a glass without having to stimulate a clit for 30 minutes. Would definitely buy this again.

12) Merrydown vintage 7.5% Nose very appley with a chemical taste. RM said it had smelt like Blackthorns but tasted closer to the Bulmer’s. We would both buy this again but only under duress. In fact this one divided the two of us so much we each had another can to confirm our original judgement on it however we still failed to agree.

With our entire stock depleted, I realised I had lost the pen and could not be bothered scrabbling about on the floor to find it again. RM staggered home and I crawled to bed. In hindsight we have come to realise that the strength of cider has no bearing upon its’ taste and while for most people this was just an excuse for a piss up to us it was all in the interest of science.