Insane Drinking Suggestions...

This story on the BBC Website talks about suggestions that Parents who give alcohol to children under 15 could be prosecuted. The suggestion seems to be that this would be in a bid to 'reduce' binge drinking in children.

No-one seems to have noticed however that it would be completley counter-productive - a lot of my friends (and myself) enjoy a drink, but appreciate the taste of proper real ale (or whatever) rather than the feeling of getting completely 'off your face'. For most of us, we were taught and brought up with alcohol in the home.

I distinctly remember having sips of my fathers real ale as young as 10 when we went to the country pub as a family, which graduated to him pouring some into my lemonade to make a bitter shandy, to having my own bought for me at about 14/15. It meant that I learnt to enjoy alcoholic drinks for the taste, and learnt to respect the effect that it could have on you. (OK, so the respect aspect was perhaps helped by cycling to the pub, and having to cycle home again... ;-) )

I just don't understand the logic behind this suggestion - just a look at Continental drinking habits should be enough to convinve anyone that tackling the binge drinking culture in this country starts in the home at a young age. But no - authoritarian answers of prosecuting parents seems to be the suggestion - Daft.

Mortgage Brokers are scum of the earth...

...no seriously... still having problems with house sale / purchase. Large delays caused by Buyers of our flat having a Mortgage Broker that seems to take forever to get no progress, charge a fee in the middle, and all for something that any half intelligent person could find out using 15mins on Google or similar.

Apologies, Rant over... but as you can see, House things taking up more time than anticipated... still...

Easter Weekend - A Review

OK, so for the Easter weekend the wife, her sister and I went over to Bath to visit her Dad, Step-mum and 2 half sisters. Weather was gorgeous as it was in most of the rest of the country but there were a few things that I was wanting to write about. As you might have guessed if you know me - Beer, Religion and Politics. Apologies in advance, but trying to tie them all into one post would be a bit cumbersome so I've split them up below - I just hope that they still tie together somewhat...

Easter Weekend - A Review - Beer

OK, so Beer. Bath is renowned as a Real Ale City and I was wanting to take the opportunity to sample a couple.

First up on the Saturday was lunch in a country pub somewhere in the wilds of rural Somerset (We were on the way to Montacute House, and apologies for not knowing the name of the pub or its location). I took the opportunity to sample a pint of the 'Gem' by a Bath based local Brewery. Delicious, nice and heavy (perhaps a touch too much for a normal lunchtime pint but hey) with a chocolatey, caramely overtone and a perfect bitter finish. I will most definately keep an eye out for this in future.

Next was a bottle of Nepalese Lager (we were eating at Yak Yeti Yak, a Nepalese restaurant) which was, as far as lagers go, perfectly pleasant and a reasonable accompaniment to the food. It was quite similar to Tusker lager from Kenya in my opinion, I suspect due to the levels of barley.

Moving on from dinner we went into town to the The Old Green Tree. Great little pub tucked away down a side street with 3 different rooms and always a good range of real ale on tap. I went for the Pubs own Bitter 'Old Green Tree Brewery Bitter' which was pleasant but a bit of a disappointment - not nearly enough flavour for my liking - I even managed to persuade a lager drinker 'what should I order, they don't have any Stella?' to go for it on the basis that it was a bit like lager without any fizz. Given he then agreed I think that tells you all you need to know!

After that I went for the Pitchfork - a much more complex beer which was overflowing, perhaps a touch too much, with hops but with a good overall structure and taste.

Easter Weekend - A Review - Politics

Just a couple of points that I want to make really - was having drinks with a friend of the wifes in the Old Green Tree. He was an admissions officer for a failing school in Bristol until recently and has just quit in frustration at the system. I appreciate that it's a one-sided view but he was saying that in a school where 90% of the pupils attend for 89% of the time, andn 10% for 11%, as an admissions officer he was asked to focus on trying to massage the figure to show that 90% attend over 90% of the time, and to leave the 10% to fester as clearly thats much harder. As he saw it a focus on targets and a target culture was so all pervading that the original aim of the targets (the kids that aren't attending) have been completly lost. If this is at all indicative of what Labour has done in Education, the NHS, etc. then things are potentially much worse than we think they are, and will take a lot more fixing to get people back to focusing on what the real issues are.

Easter Weekend - A Review - Religion

So after drinking and chatting in the Old Green Tree I got up obscenely early on Easter Sunday to go the 'Daybreak' service at 6am just down the road. Always really nice to go to a different church to see a different way of doing things, but the really strange was a Daybreak Service on Easter Sunday that didn't contain communion. It was all very nice, but was much more like an Easter Eve service (complete with renewal of baptismal vows etc.) than an Easter Sunday 'First Communion of the Ressurection' that I'm much more accustomed to. Intersting.

The London Drinker Beer Festival

A group of us found our way to the Camden Centre on Friday evening - not a particularly enticing venue you might think, but for the fact that North London CAMRA were hosting the London Drinker Beer Festival.

So... recommendations... will not be forthcoming; whilst I had quite few halfs that were very comfortable 'session' bitters and a couple of milds that also were not unappealing for what they were, I didn't drink anything that struck me as 'Wow this is great'. Partly that's the problem with going on the final day - anything really good will have been drunk off already. Still - it was good to see a host of new brewerys that have started recently and seem to be doing well, as well as the busyness of the hall to indicate people keen on real ale enjoying a wide variety. Next up as far as real ale goes will almost certainly be the Cambridge Festival in May - unless I manage to escape the in-laws briefly over Easter to nip down to the Old Green Tree (Bath). If you have other suggestions in Bath that are worth trying - much appreciated!