Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

…of The Guardian’s Top 200 Pubs and Those I’ve Been To Is 5.

Each of those I’ve been to is thoroughly deserving of its place, though I’d suggest there are a few omissions (even though I can’t authoritatively say the 195 pubs I haven’t been to aren’t better). Scotland and Wales seem a little under-represented, too.

Steve Bell often makes me smile.  But this is is incredibly good; he couldn’t lampoon a more deserving target more accurately.

Did you threaten to over-rule him asked Jeremy Paxman of Michael Howard 12 times in 1997. He later seemed surprisingly regretful about the incident, but he still asked William Hague the same question a dozen times last night. It’s not quite such edge of the seat stuff (perhaps because the stakes aren’t so high) but Paxman is just as dogged and considerably less polite.

Robert B. Parker is still one of my favourite authors, although his earlier books are the ones I enjoy the most: the twelve novels that introduce Spenser and chart his relationship with Susan Silverman from The Godwulf Manuscript (1973) to A Catskill Eagle (1985) are sublime.  Whilst the character of Spenser, like the novels, has lost some of his edge in recent years, Parker’s books are hugely more entertaining than almost all the contemporary crime writers I’ve sampled. 

Now I’ve just spotted on Amazon Chasing the Bear: A Young Spenser Novel. When I’m rereading an early Spenser, it rarely bothers me that I now know how (like the writing) he softens in the later books. But filling out his youth (the details of which Parker has retconned already) is something that is best left to the reader.  I’ve never wanted to read Young Bond or Young Holmes books, but at least they aren’t by the original creator.  And can you imagine wanting to read what Philip Marlowe got up to at school? Like Spenser, his character may have juvenile traits, but for us to believe in him he has to live entirely in the adult world.

Spenser is an almost entirely self-made person; he’s often stated how much better being an adult is than being a kid.  He wouldn’t want to go back.  Nor do I.  I wonder why Parker does?

I’ve been reading about this all week, but before I got round to blogging it the Guardian’s been and visited it .  A friend told me they’d linked up the Welsh Highland Railway and the Ffestiniog, as it used to be, crossing the mainline on the level and running through the streets of Porthmadog.  It’s true: 

 
Though that bit isn’t officially opened yet.

Ffestiniog trains can run from Blaenau Ffestiniog right through to Caernarfon (Welsh Highland trains can’t run through to the Ffestiniog though! The loading gauge is bigger on the WHR). That’s a run of 40 miles.

This history of the project is extraordinary, and actually encompasses two railway companies. The relaying of the line was bizarrely driven by the Ffestiniog’s attempts to block it. The politics and business arrangements are so complex I think I’m going to have to read several books on it.

The section from Dinas to Caernarfon, which has been open for 12 years, wasn’t actually part of the WHR. It used to be standard gauge, though originally Parliament approved a WHR extension on the route that was never built. There’s a nice symmetry to this, because the full length route is truncated at the Ffestiniog end, where the old Ffestiniog and Blaenau Railway route is now standard gauge (standard gauge transporters used to convey the narrow gauge wagons until the closure of the quarries).

Oh yeah, and I’ve realised what’s wrong with my job: unlike Partrick Barkham I don’t get paid for riding narrow gauge trains.

I’m not that keen on dance. Usually I’ll run a mile at the merest whiff of a dance receital. Actually, I don’t go to the opera that much either. But look at this, from David McVicar’s Glyndebourne production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare:

I know it’s wrong (surely you aren’t meant to be able to swing your hips to Handel), but how can something so good not be right? So George Frideric may not have realised he was writing a cabaret, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t.

And this isn’t even the best bit (Cleo’s opening scene when she kicks Ptolemy’s butt is great). Though Danielle de Niese (Cleopatra) may not be the best singer in this rather spiffy production (only because the competition is fierce), but she’s an amazing performer.

It’s a bit like parsnips in soup. Dance in opera can not only be palatable, but rather tasty.

So Paul Parker, a red squirrel enthusiast is trapping and shooting greys for eating.  I support this; in fact I want to know where you can get this squirrel pie.

I’ve got just one concern.  Parker says

“I cannot personally get enough of these grey squirrels, people are eating them. If I was getting a hundred, they would take a hundred each and every day, the demand is so high. They are sold as soon as they hit the counter.”

How long will it be, then, before some unscrupulous entrepreneur starts breeding the pests and all the good work will be undone?

I’m having a little play with Wordpress 2.7’s image handling. Here are some pictures I took today at Sheffield Park Gardens.

Today’s Guardian is carrying a story about biodynamic wine drinking on page 7.

The idea that the taste of wine changes with the lunar calendar is gaining credibility among the UK’s major retailers, who believe the day, and even hour, on which wine is drunk alters its taste.

Ben Goldacre is on page 11. But perhaps this is beyond his remit, since wine tasting is surely subjective? Not when the Guardian’s report tries to give it a scientify veneer:

Jo Ahearne, winemaker for Marks & Spencer, became convinced of the theory when she sampled more than 140 wines over two days. “Before the tasting, I was really unconvinced, but the difference between the days was so obvious I was completely blown away.”

So, 140 wines?  Assuming this wasn’t just a really colossal bender, and therefore her judgement was not impaired, that’s a reasonable sample.  But two days?  The Guardian decided further testing was needed: 

The Guardian tested the theory this week and tasted the same wines on Tuesday evening, a leaf day, then again on Thursday evening, a fruit day. Five out of seven bottles showed a marked improvement.

It must be true then.  The Guardian does note that Steiner:

claimed to have conceived the concept after consulting telepathically with spirits beyond the realm of the material world. Among his other works are claims that the human race is as old as the Earth and descended from creatures with jelly-like bodies, and a belief that men’s passions seep into the Earth’s interior, where they trigger earthquakes and volcanoes.

But that’s not what makes it nonsense.  If Einstein had claimed to conceive of special relativity because he’d consulted with spirits, it wouldn’t have invalidated the theory. Newton was a religious nut.  It’s just not a good week for science and technology writing in the Guardian (on page 8 Matthew Weaver explains how electronic cigarettes work: they have “a clever-sounding atomiser inside”).

They get later every year.

Last Saturday (21st March) frog spawn in the pond. For one day the frogs went absolutely mad.  Burping and croaking and motoring around, showing off to a garden full of humans without a hint of their usual timidity. 

Video to follow!