Profile for BrianHequator:
Guess I should stick a little bit of guff up here before I start posting rubbish on t'interwebz, but what to say? Here goes nothin'.
Born early 70's. Not dead yet. From depths of Suffolk, so originally summat of a yokel. Now almost naturalised Londoner, I suppose. Fan of Blues/Rock, especially live, and even more especially when in close proximity to nice beer. A little bit obsessed with food (this may become clear in posts, I think). Oblique sense of humour (as spelled by those in the know).
That'll do for now. I'm not so interesting that I'd expect anyone to have read this far anyway!
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Guess I should stick a little bit of guff up here before I start posting rubbish on t'interwebz, but what to say? Here goes nothin'.
Born early 70's. Not dead yet. From depths of Suffolk, so originally summat of a yokel. Now almost naturalised Londoner, I suppose. Fan of Blues/Rock, especially live, and even more especially when in close proximity to nice beer. A little bit obsessed with food (this may become clear in posts, I think). Oblique sense of humour (as spelled by those in the know).
That'll do for now. I'm not so interesting that I'd expect anyone to have read this far anyway!
Recent front page messages:
none
Best answers to questions:
» Complaining
I Like Beer
I like beer. I like it a lot. (Possibly too much, but that's a different story for a different QotW.)
Having drunk a lot of it over the years, I can tell the difference between beer I'm not a fan of, and beer that just doesn't taste like beer should.
People ought to complain if the beer doesn't taste right.
A while back, I met a chap in a slightly swanky bar/restauranty place for drinks on his tab, and it being lunchtime, I started with a pint of Greene King IPA - just about drinkable, but dull (well, that's GK IPA for you). Next to it was a pump for Old Speckled Hen, a good tasty pint, so I was planning on trying that next. As I'm finishing the last of my IPA, two suits wander up and ask for two pints of the OSH - good timing thinks I, as that'll mean mine won't have been sitting in the pipes for hours.
The pints are poured, suits take a sip, and wander off, ostensibly happy. I get a pint of it. It's Sarson's, utterly rank - sharp and horrible, easily detectable from a casual sniff, so naturally I have a moan and switch back to the IPA. Boo.
However - what on earth were the two suitmonkeys playing at? I think it's highly unlikely the beer went from nectar to gnatpee in two pints, so they must have been drinking stuff that'd take the enamel off your teeth. WTF?
Again, another pub, with a mate of mine, I plump for Hobgoblin, he goes for a different pint.
Mine's good, I ask how his is, and he replies that it's not really that good. (We're nearly a quarter of a pint in by now.) I ask to taste it, and sure enough, it's properly off. I take it back and get a replacement, no problem.
Folks - if you're going to drink beer, do it properly. Also, complain properly. Sometimes you might not want to if you're in a pub you're not used to, but as a landlord mate of mine observes, he can't taste every pint he serves.
Beer is a bit of a living creature, and will vary in quality over the course of an evening. The staff will usually appreciate you giving them a warning that the barrel might be getting towards the end. (Or certainly ought to - and if they get funny, you want to find a different pub to drink in.)
Life is too short for bad beer, and by complaining nicely and at the right time, we'll be affected by it less.
Cheers!
(Fri 3rd Sep 2010, 12:48, More)
I Like Beer
I like beer. I like it a lot. (Possibly too much, but that's a different story for a different QotW.)
Having drunk a lot of it over the years, I can tell the difference between beer I'm not a fan of, and beer that just doesn't taste like beer should.
People ought to complain if the beer doesn't taste right.
A while back, I met a chap in a slightly swanky bar/restauranty place for drinks on his tab, and it being lunchtime, I started with a pint of Greene King IPA - just about drinkable, but dull (well, that's GK IPA for you). Next to it was a pump for Old Speckled Hen, a good tasty pint, so I was planning on trying that next. As I'm finishing the last of my IPA, two suits wander up and ask for two pints of the OSH - good timing thinks I, as that'll mean mine won't have been sitting in the pipes for hours.
The pints are poured, suits take a sip, and wander off, ostensibly happy. I get a pint of it. It's Sarson's, utterly rank - sharp and horrible, easily detectable from a casual sniff, so naturally I have a moan and switch back to the IPA. Boo.
However - what on earth were the two suitmonkeys playing at? I think it's highly unlikely the beer went from nectar to gnatpee in two pints, so they must have been drinking stuff that'd take the enamel off your teeth. WTF?
Again, another pub, with a mate of mine, I plump for Hobgoblin, he goes for a different pint.
Mine's good, I ask how his is, and he replies that it's not really that good. (We're nearly a quarter of a pint in by now.) I ask to taste it, and sure enough, it's properly off. I take it back and get a replacement, no problem.
Folks - if you're going to drink beer, do it properly. Also, complain properly. Sometimes you might not want to if you're in a pub you're not used to, but as a landlord mate of mine observes, he can't taste every pint he serves.
Beer is a bit of a living creature, and will vary in quality over the course of an evening. The staff will usually appreciate you giving them a warning that the barrel might be getting towards the end. (Or certainly ought to - and if they get funny, you want to find a different pub to drink in.)
Life is too short for bad beer, and by complaining nicely and at the right time, we'll be affected by it less.
Cheers!
(Fri 3rd Sep 2010, 12:48, More)
» Cars
Dylan's Demise
I was due to be going back to the sticks to see the folks in my car, a trusty student Astra 1.3L-boring (christened Dylan by my late Mum due to the registration nearly spelling that), and I was in an excellent mood as I'd had some good fortune that morning.
I'd needed some new tyres for a while as they were looking a little on the smooth side and weren't going to get through the MOT back down home way (didn't trust these-here dodgy London garages packed with rip-off merchant grease monkeys).
I'd wandered along to Kwik-Fit (yes, I *know*) and left the motor there and was meandering around town when I get a call from KF saying one of my wheels is bent, we can't put another tyre on it 'cos it won't be guaranteed, yaada yaada. OK, how much? £70 - fair amount of dosh for a penniless student type, so I say I'll call back. Just then, as luck would have it, my mate Mart phones me, and he's a local, so I ask if he knows of anywhere I might be able to get a cheaper replacement.
I'm in luck, he knows a local scrapyard, we get there, and I get a replacement for the princely sum of a fiver - result! A short while later, and two new front tyres to the good, I head off to the parents' place with a full tank of fuel and some computer gear I'd managed to score for Dad.
It all went wrong trying to leave the roundabout to get on to the M25 at J17 - a monstrously large roundabout - very wide indeed, probably wider than a motorway carriageway. I'm going at a fair lick because you go uphill off the roundabout onto the motorway, and joining the M25 doing 35mph is a pretty bad plan overall. It's drizzling a little, but I've been round this junction scores of times.
Going round nicely, there's no problem until I straighten the wheel to drive off the roundabout onto the slip road ... and nothing happens, the car keeps turning ... so I turn the wheel more and more ... and suddenly the grip returns, the car skids violently to the left and slides sideways over a very tall kerb, knocking down the slip road sign, and ends up with me looking back down the towards the roundabout. With a very strong smell of petrol permeating my nostrils, I'm guessing I've ripped most of the bottom of the car off on the kerb.
I am not pleased. I was giving Dad a quick call ("not going to be with you as early as I thought") as Old Bill turned up, and we had quite a pleasant little chat, considering. At one point the PC asked "Do you think, sir, that there's any particular reason you left the road at the point at which you did?", and I thought a little and said "I think I was driving a bit too fast", at which he cracked an almost imperceptible grin and said "Well, I can't argue with you on that". They didn't breathalyse me or anything. (The car got written off for about £100 more than I'd have been able to sell it for, and I didn't get a bill for the road sign either!)
Apparently, as I later learn, going too fast round a roundabout in the wet with a heavily laden car on a brand-new set of front boots was always going to end in disaster. Thanks Albert, wish you'd have told me that *before* I stacked the bloody thing.
And upon what date did these troublesome events unfold?
Year 2000. April Fool's Day. Har-de-fuckin'-har. Fair split my sides, I did.
*pop*
*relurks*
(Thu 22nd Apr 2010, 13:13, More)
Dylan's Demise
I was due to be going back to the sticks to see the folks in my car, a trusty student Astra 1.3L-boring (christened Dylan by my late Mum due to the registration nearly spelling that), and I was in an excellent mood as I'd had some good fortune that morning.
I'd needed some new tyres for a while as they were looking a little on the smooth side and weren't going to get through the MOT back down home way (didn't trust these-here dodgy London garages packed with rip-off merchant grease monkeys).
I'd wandered along to Kwik-Fit (yes, I *know*) and left the motor there and was meandering around town when I get a call from KF saying one of my wheels is bent, we can't put another tyre on it 'cos it won't be guaranteed, yaada yaada. OK, how much? £70 - fair amount of dosh for a penniless student type, so I say I'll call back. Just then, as luck would have it, my mate Mart phones me, and he's a local, so I ask if he knows of anywhere I might be able to get a cheaper replacement.
I'm in luck, he knows a local scrapyard, we get there, and I get a replacement for the princely sum of a fiver - result! A short while later, and two new front tyres to the good, I head off to the parents' place with a full tank of fuel and some computer gear I'd managed to score for Dad.
It all went wrong trying to leave the roundabout to get on to the M25 at J17 - a monstrously large roundabout - very wide indeed, probably wider than a motorway carriageway. I'm going at a fair lick because you go uphill off the roundabout onto the motorway, and joining the M25 doing 35mph is a pretty bad plan overall. It's drizzling a little, but I've been round this junction scores of times.
Going round nicely, there's no problem until I straighten the wheel to drive off the roundabout onto the slip road ... and nothing happens, the car keeps turning ... so I turn the wheel more and more ... and suddenly the grip returns, the car skids violently to the left and slides sideways over a very tall kerb, knocking down the slip road sign, and ends up with me looking back down the towards the roundabout. With a very strong smell of petrol permeating my nostrils, I'm guessing I've ripped most of the bottom of the car off on the kerb.
I am not pleased. I was giving Dad a quick call ("not going to be with you as early as I thought") as Old Bill turned up, and we had quite a pleasant little chat, considering. At one point the PC asked "Do you think, sir, that there's any particular reason you left the road at the point at which you did?", and I thought a little and said "I think I was driving a bit too fast", at which he cracked an almost imperceptible grin and said "Well, I can't argue with you on that". They didn't breathalyse me or anything. (The car got written off for about £100 more than I'd have been able to sell it for, and I didn't get a bill for the road sign either!)
Apparently, as I later learn, going too fast round a roundabout in the wet with a heavily laden car on a brand-new set of front boots was always going to end in disaster. Thanks Albert, wish you'd have told me that *before* I stacked the bloody thing.
And upon what date did these troublesome events unfold?
Year 2000. April Fool's Day. Har-de-fuckin'-har. Fair split my sides, I did.
*pop*
*relurks*
(Thu 22nd Apr 2010, 13:13, More)
» Bedroom Disasters
When drinking a dark-and-stormy I spilt it over a certain species of flower, permanently staining it.
I'd found that beer'd rum dyes aster.
Sorry.
(Tue 28th Jun 2011, 18:28, More)
When drinking a dark-and-stormy I spilt it over a certain species of flower, permanently staining it.
I'd found that beer'd rum dyes aster.
Sorry.
(Tue 28th Jun 2011, 18:28, More)
» "You're doing it wrong"
I was always doing it wrong ...
As a young turk I used to work in a little gaff off Denmark Street. It had soon become painfully obvious that I was never going to knock Hendrix off his throne when it came to guitar-playing, but at least I had a technical mind, so I figured I could at least do setups, tunings and all that. I was OK on the newer electrics and stuff, but occasionally we'd get some vintage kit in and I wouldn't know where to start, and it'd take me forever.
One of the other guys, a middle-aged American guy (Abner, a proper folk music name) used to take great pride in stuff like that. We were just techs, but he could build these things himself. Used to reckon he'd be able to clean and service one of those in less than a half day, always.
That was Ab's old lute par.
What? Was I doing it wrong?
(Fri 16th Jul 2010, 11:55, More)
I was always doing it wrong ...
As a young turk I used to work in a little gaff off Denmark Street. It had soon become painfully obvious that I was never going to knock Hendrix off his throne when it came to guitar-playing, but at least I had a technical mind, so I figured I could at least do setups, tunings and all that. I was OK on the newer electrics and stuff, but occasionally we'd get some vintage kit in and I wouldn't know where to start, and it'd take me forever.
One of the other guys, a middle-aged American guy (Abner, a proper folk music name) used to take great pride in stuff like that. We were just techs, but he could build these things himself. Used to reckon he'd be able to clean and service one of those in less than a half day, always.
That was Ab's old lute par.
What? Was I doing it wrong?
(Fri 16th Jul 2010, 11:55, More)
» Bizarre habits
Guinness
After taking each sip, swig or draught, I find myself rotating the glass clockwise (as viewed from the top) about 72 degrees or so, once the level's below about three-quarters full.
That way, you end up with a nice clean glass at the end of your pint, in contrast with those common amateur quaffers whose messy pint glasses have foam wastefully plastered all over the place.
Is it too early for a drink?
(Wed 7th Jul 2010, 11:47, More)
Guinness
After taking each sip, swig or draught, I find myself rotating the glass clockwise (as viewed from the top) about 72 degrees or so, once the level's below about three-quarters full.
That way, you end up with a nice clean glass at the end of your pint, in contrast with those common amateur quaffers whose messy pint glasses have foam wastefully plastered all over the place.
Is it too early for a drink?
(Wed 7th Jul 2010, 11:47, More)