The extinction of a whole species isn’t as rare as you think. It happens all the time. However, the extinction of a prominent and popular species, now that doesn’t happen so often. The Humulus lupulus, or hop plant, first started to encounter difficulties after a series of freak weather incidents led to several major crop failures. Read the rest of this entry »
The finest pint is the earned pint. After a proper day’s work there are few things better than that first sip of beer. Now, as something of a desk jockey by trade I don’t really have many days that genuinely deserve a drink of that nature as I’m not exactly physically exerting myself as I write reports/complete spreadsheets/answer dumb questions from colleagues/stare at a screen. Read the rest of this entry »
A night in with some craft beer and I figured I’d record a few thoughts whilst still under the influence. Obviously, I am a sensible drinker, so this isn’t as reckless as you might think. I am well aware that heavy drinking and posting stuff on the internet is not a great mix. I’m sure none of you need me getting all tired and emotional on you all, telling you I love you and miss you all very much. Read the rest of this entry »
The other week marked my first wedding anniversary – an opportunity to look back on a wonderful day and a wonderful first year of marriage. And my wife, being the awesome wife that she is, bought me a great anniversary present. Two tickets to see The War on Drugs was the perfect present for two reasons. Reason one, Slave Ambient was my record of 2011. Reason two, the tickets were obviously made of paper[1], paper is the symbol of a first wedding anniversary, and so here was a present that was both incredibly thoughtful, and incredibly apt. Read the rest of this entry »
Amongst all the goodness in the first issue of the New Inquiry magazine, one article in particular stood out – The Resentment Machine, by Freddy De Boer. It is available in full in that link back there, so you should probably read that rather than this, but anyway, it challenged me in all number of ways (I should probably offer some sort of summary here, but even after multiple readings I won’t do it justice and you’d be better off just reading the real thing, or failing that reading what follows in the next paragraph…), but one quote near the end particularly got to me. Read the rest of this entry »
Wait until next year 