Category Archives: Beer

Russian cats and rats

Yesterday evening, after a particularly heavy week at work, I really needed a beer. Or two.

Fortunately, my second in command had noticed that the Happy Cats were playing in the Tuns. They were as good as usual, but I was left with a painful hangover this morning. A small example …

My second in command had to miss the second half of their set (work at five this morning), so there were other videos which may end up on Youtube.

Said videos were shown to my mother today; she may accompany us next time we see the band. My mother likes Lindisfarne stuff and they generally do a couple of theirs.

Today, my killer hangover was eased by some Russian Imperial Stout. At 10%, it’d cure (or kill) anything. But it was lovely. Jakehead may also have been involved this afternoon. And a pretty nice Almasty IPA.

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I have a real problem with beer right now. I do like beer, but I don’t do fake beer (Fosters, Carling, John Smiths etc). It was primarily a fish bits thing, but I’ve found that I can no longer abide such products. Fishless beer is now becoming more commonplace, which presents me with something of a problem. I have greater access to fishless beer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with a growing range of unfined beer, but I’m now faced with an impressive choice in most decent bars.

Anyway, the stout was gorgeous.

On our way home, we stopped off at the castle (the actual castle, not a pub) to watch rats while waiting for a bus.

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Unusually, though, there were no (visible) rodents. We assumed that the recent forwarding of clocks meant that, with dusk delayed, rats would still be lurking in the undergrowth. They may be disgusting creatures, but I guess they have to do what they do.

Batteries

After purchasing some batteries for my camera, I realised that I’d not transferred pictures from Kendal Calling last summer.

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Of which these are just a few. The weather was a lot better than it appears and the mud wasn’t of Glastonbury standards. That was a particularly nice pint of raspberry beer too.

Wylam

Wylam brewery produces a lot of fish-filled beer. I appreciate that clear beer without finings is a serious financial undertaking, but there’s got to be a long term ethical proposition. Jakehead, for example. It’s quite delicious, as cloudy as a wheat beer, and tastes pretty nice too. And, at 6.3%, it has some weight behind it.

I’ve had some Almasty, Out There and Cloudwater over the weekend, so my veggie real ale needs were catered for, but Jakehead is something pretty special. Take note, Wylam.

We’re now watching EastEnders. Yay.

Perseverance and Gin

A great deal of fruitless time today was spent in attempting to bring our new Hannspree Micro PC back to life. Sadly, to no avail. I was unable either to boot from Linux or restore a Windows image I’d found on the Internet. But, after a couple of stiff Gins, I was inspired. At the point of giving up and putting it down to experience, I had something of a light bulb moment.

In short, we now have a fully working PC on a stick.

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It was a painful process, but the outcome was positive. In an awful Windows kind of way.

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My resolve is strong though; I shan’t abandon my aim to have a working version of Ubuntu on a pocket device. Apart from my phone, that is. I’d say more about that, but the Gin’s influence prevents me.

Broken stick

Yesterday afternoon, in view of the unusually nice weather, my second in command and I spent some time in Ouseburn; the Ship, the Cluny, then the Tyne Bar. We skipped the Free Trade Inn, since it was really busy and didn’t have any obviously fish-free beer.

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Followed by the Bridge Tavern, then, on returning home, the Traveller’s Rest. And then it was time to set up our new ‘computer’, a Hannspree PC on a stick. It’s small, around the size of the Android devices that’ve been around for a while now. It has 2gb memory and 32gb storage, although there’s a micro SD slot too. It manages to fit in a full size USB port and has both WiFi and Bluetooth. The quad core processor seems fast enough too.
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The device comes with Windows, unfortunately. There’s a Linux version (from Intel), but the spec’s not great. Getting it up and running was painless, even after a pint or two of beer.

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I bought the Windows version after reading about the potential to replace the OS with Ubuntu. Which I set about doing today. Sadly, I also managed to trash the device while installing Linux.

Breaking free

Yesterday, after work, I visited the City Tavern, with a colleague from work. He drank Bruges, while I had Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Pleasant conversation was had, followed by a quite random text message conversation. While in the bar, we noticed that an employee, possibly the manager, resembled Freddie Mercury on a bad hoovering day. After we’d parted company, texts were exchanged, mostly related to Queen song titles. While this was enjoyable, I didn’t do very well and had to concede defeat.

Aches

After a day of decorating at my mother’s, I’m somewhat achey. Fortunately, I have a vitamin drink to restore me to normal.

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Stumpy II

Well, as expected, my second in command is now without her special broken foot shoe  And one crutch. She has now returned to matching shoes, although her Ugg boots do appear now to be different in colour/shade. Presumeably, since only one has been worn for some time now.

A minor celebration was allowed. Mostly because my significant other’s breakage was significantly worse than initially explained. It now transpires than an ankle was also broken. While the issue wasn’t highlighted at the beginning of this journey,  I do understand that there may have been a desire not to panic my second in command.

It’s all over now though. We’re now a single crutch household. And, after a week or two, we shall move to a walking stick.