Today I received an email from an organization at my university about their winter party. You'd never guess what they're serving.

"There will be hot mold WINE and sizzling MINCE PIES offered to UCL Postgraduates ALL FOR FREE!"

Now it's rather unusual to have sizzling mince pies (usually they're room temperature and perhaps a little on the stale side), but my attention was drawn to the "mold wine". It's a classic sort of eggcorn for "mulled wine". I say "classic" because an unusual/uncommon word is replaced by a more common/better known one, and the reinterpretation sort of makes sense. And there are plenty of instances of its use out there (google "mold wine" or "mould wine" and you'll find quite a few, even discounting various other contexts where the two words can occur together).

In this case, "mulled" is hardly common, especially in this particular sense; before I looked it up in the OED I hadn't ever noticed any other use besides "mulled wine". The relevant definition looks like this "To warm (wine, beer, etc.) with the addition of sugar, spices, fruit, etc., to produce a hot drink (formerly sometimes thickened with beaten egg yolk)." So it's quite a narrow definition (implying a drink not normally served warm, with sugar/spices/etc added), and not so many modern drinks fit the bill, except during the festive season when traditional drinks get a look-in.   And there is the much more common word "mold" (a homophone in my dialect) waiting in the wings.  "Mold wine" sort of makes sense: mold is already associated with wine (in the sense of being corked), and it's easy to see how heating and addition of spices might be a good treatment against mold.

Mulled wine also is the source of another eggcorn, "glue wine" through the German word for it: Glühwein (trans: "glowing wine", presumably related to its warmth, see also the Swedish glögg which is like Glühwein only nastier, I think). No surprise that the false friend "Glue" makes an appearance here, especially among English speakers visiting German-speaking countries (one example here). 

If only it got cold enough here that mulled wine (or similar drinks) actually tasted nice...

Another substantial delay, sorry about that! Work has been frantic lately: I've been centrally involved in setting up all sorts of new experiments with various different people. I'm feeling quite productive, but little time is left for frippery. Especially since I've also been fighting off a nasty cold/flu sort of thing (my immune system should really get in gear). Anyway.... back to Glasgow.

We took a morning train from London, somewhat loaded down with a bunch of posters/flyers/information sheets for my work presentation. The trip to Glasgow was pretty quick, less than 5 hours up the West Coast Main Line on a Pendolino train. Once we ditched the luggage, we scrambled up the hill for some quick touristic activities before closing time. First stop was Provand's Lordship, Glasgow's only surviving medieval house. But just across the street from Provand's Lordship stands Glasgow Cathedral, so we had to make a quick visit there as well. And of course its surrounding churchyard. We Dunces always seem to find ourselves wandering around churchyards, graveyards, cemeteries, and this was no exception. The graves surrounding the cathedral were quite substantial, and many were surrounded by iron cages (perhaps this was to protect the recently dead from the bodysnatching craze?). One of these cages also contained a Dunce.





But wait, there was more. Up on the hill above the cathedral was a the Glasgow Necropolis! Mrs. Dunce was almost uncontrollable with excitement:


But we were too late to explore the Necropolis (without scaling fences, tunneling or some other similar non-standard means of entrance, so we would have to wait. We took a detour back to the hotel (where I met with my Deaf colleague for a briefing about the next day's event), then made a beeline for the pub. The Babbity Bowster is quite well-regarded (and was quite near the hotel), so we made it our first stop. It's quite small, with fairly minimal decor & lots of hard surfaces which made it noisier than we might have liked. But we managed to get a small table which was no mean feat on a Friday night. Decent ale, and quite good pub food (including vegetarian haggis, neeps and tatties). After that it was a very short wander to another pub, the Blackfriars. This was a much larger place, with quite a mix of people and a larger range of beers (many of which we'd never heard of). There's a smoking ban in Scotland (unlike England, at least for the moment), so the pubs weren't smoky either. Everything was quite pleasant; we didn't see even a hint of trouble, much less the famed Glasgow kiss.

The next day our paths diverged: I spent the day working, and Mrs Dunce hit the museums. Our next joint venture was navigating the complicated and overcrowded Glasgow subway system.


St. Dunce: Patron Saint of the Glasgow Underground:


After a quick drink in a nice enough campus pub, we made our way to dinner. Much to Mrs Dunce's delight we were headed to the Ubiquitous Chip, a very highly-regarded restaurant. Or more accurately, restaurant-bar complex, as it's subdivided into various separate entities, including the Restaurant, the Upstairs, Big Pub, Wee Pub, and Corner Bar. We ate at the upstairs part, which had a sort of fancy gastropub menu, not as expensive (or as unusual) as the restaurant proper. Again vegetarian haggis made an appearance, but the highlight of the meal was probably Mrs. Dunce's smoked haddock salad.

After dinner it was back to the Blackfriar again (told you we liked it). This time we tried some of the unusual bottled beers. Most of them were from the historic ale range by Heather Ale and contained unusual (but historically accurate) ingredients like gooseberry, pine, seaweed, or heather (not all in the same product, thank goodness). We had a good window seat, so we were able to see the Saturday night street traffic. Loads and loads of people out on the town, but we saw nothing even remotely resembling carnage.

The next morning we headed over to the Necropolis, which probably deserves its own entry.

I've had plenty to say in the past about unusual and/or unpleasant pizza toppings, but I'm afraid an even higher standard has been set. Without further ado, let me show you a pizza flyer that recently appeared at Dunce Manor:



Yes, it appears to be an ordinary pizza, topped with pepperoni, green peppers, onions, and GIGANTICALLY HUGE SLICES OF LIME. A very unpleasant combination indeed. Oddly enough, lime does not actually feature in any of the pizzas on offer. So I started wondering why someone might have decided to call their company "Pizza Lime" if lime cannot actually be purchased as a pizza topping.

Googling the phrase "pizza lime" gives very little info, except that "Pizza Lime" is apparently the name given to the monthly discussion forum held by the Trinidad & Tobago Computer Society (originally held at Pizza Hut until the computerers were forced away by price increases). I didn't think that helped all that much, so then I turned to my old friend the OED. Maybe there's a sense of "lime" I'm not aware of.

Starting with the verbs, there are all sorts of senses which could, in principle, be applied to pizza. But most of them less than appealing. There's Lime(verb, 1), 2a: "To smear ... with bird-lime, for the purpose of catching birds", 4: "to foul, defile", and any number of other senses related to CaO. But not really anything you'd want near your pizza (the citrus version a far lesser evil). Or maybe Lime(verb, 3), "to impregnate (a bitch)". Hmmm... a home-delivery pizza might be an aphrodisiac in certain circumstances, but I doubt this is their intent. Or else Lime(verb, 4), "to hang about the streets" (all examples of this term in the OED come from Trinidad, Tobago or Barbados). Pizza you eat while carnally loitering, befouled in bird-lime. Mmmm good. So maybe "lime" is a noun.

I think I've already safely ruled out Lime(noun, 1): CaO and other various noxious substances you really don't want to have on a pizza. Lime(noun, 2) is the citrus fruit (Citrus Medica, var. acida, and some of its relatives), which is the leading contender so far (I've ruled out the sense of lime as a lime-green color since the pictured pizza is not green). Lime(noun, 3) is no better: the tree also known as linden. Maybe the obsolete sense Lime(noun, 4) "Limit, end" (one solitary example in the OED, from ~1420), or the only remaining one, Lime(noun, 5) "colloquial abbreviation of 'limelight'", mainly Australian. This is quite tenuous but is at least a better possibility than carnal befoulment.

Finally I took a wander over to a less exhaustively researched realm of linguistic information, the Urban Dictionary. The very first entry, well.... "A fanfiction or chapter of a fanfiction in which characters graphically fool around, but do not actually have sex.". But most of the rest come back to Trinidad, not just loitering, but in a pleasant sense of hanging out. So maybe it's like a Trini pizza party (in that case, it's too bad they didn't have any Trini pizzas on offer. The Lime Special contains mushroom, fresh garlic, pepperoni, spicy beef and red onion).

Of course one other possibility is that the term "lime" is a last-minute adjustment of some kind. Perhaps the shop was intended to be called "Pizza Time" but had to change its name due to an already-established competitor by that name or something similar. It would be quite easy to change a "Pizza Time" sign into one that says "Pizza Lime".

The one other odd thing about the flyer is that they give no physical address. I'm always very hesitant to order from a place whose location is totally unknown. I prefer to know which grim industrial estate is the source of my dinner.

We just got the word, everything is finished and we can pick up the keys to the new flat this afternoon!  A good thing as we've been very busy packing up all of our stuff (and cleaning the house, the Landlord will be pleased to hear).

Pictures to follow soon (if I can see through the paint flecks/spatters on my glasses to post them).

Not far from our new flat is one of the most unusual combinations of ethnic cuisine I've ever seen in one place:

("Dardana Chinese and Albanian food": photo linked from mattsal.com)

I'm not at all familiar with Albanian cuisine, but a skim of a few websites (marga.org, wikipedia, boston phoenix) suggests it's not a million miles away from Greek/Turkish/other Middle Eastern cuisines (one Albanian restaurant featuring caged animals should probably not define the cuisine). And has very little in common with Chinese food (at least, any variety I can think of). There are a couple of Chinese restaurants in Albania (Asian restaurants in Tirana), but their descriptions suggest there's nothing particularly Albanian about them besides their location. I have no way of knowing whether there are any Albanian restaurants in China, but I would suspect there are not many. Leading me to wonder whether this particular establishment is (literally) unique (no doubt this claim will be quickly debunked by someone out there, perhaps by an expert on Sino-Albanian relations).

I imagine that it's not really a fusion restaurant in the typical sense of the term (grape leaves stuffed with Peking duck? Sweet & sour chicken with olives and boiled eggs?), but more likely offers an Albanian menu, plus a Chinese takeaway menu to pay the bills. We'll just have to see what happens when we finally (inevitably) pay a visit.

Warning: this entry contains explicit descriptions of property-buying arrangements. Readers of a non-middle-aged persuasion should perhaps look elsewhere for the time being, or risk being bored stiff.

The past couple of months have been a very stressful time in Dunce-land as we come closer... and closer... and closer... and closer to actually purchasing a flat. Back at the beginning of December it seemed like things were ready to work out. We had received the results of a building survey which revealed nothing particularly problematic as far as we were concerned, but just minor problems we were already aware of (like a door frame that needs to be replaced, decorative elements somewhat less than currently stylish, the attic is perhaps not all that nice, and so on). The survey also pointed out a number of points, apparently very ordinary in nature, that needed to be dealt with by the solicitors for both parties (things like searches of deeds and records, any history of damage, whether the seller has any guarantees on anything that will pass to us, service contracts, blah blah blah-de-blah-de-blah). We asked our solicitors to check on these things, and then we waited.

And waited.

And waited some more. A bit before Christmas we got a festive call from the estate agent, asking us what was going on as the other parties involved were beginning to get a bit antsy. They wanted to complete the deal early in January, he said. We replied that this would be fine with us; our solicitors had requested some apparently-routine information and things would no doubt be moving along soon. Of course, our solicitor's office was closed for the Christmas period by then, so our email enquiry was not answered until the New Year. It seems that the seller's solicitor had not yet deigned to reply. Allegedly, of course. Our solicitors promised to chase them by letter and phone in the hope of sorting things out. Did I mention we bought an expensive sofabed just after Christmas, to be delivered in 4-6 weeks. No problem, we thought, we can just have it delivered to the new place.

Conversations with the estate agent continued regularly, and gained further urgency, because the current owner of the property we are purchasing is also buying a place. The sellers of said place appear to be the antsy ones, threatening to pull out of the deal entirely unless things move along soon. It also started to become clear that the seller's solicitor was (allegedly) a difficult character indeed, according to both the estate agent and our solicitor. He's apparently quite keen to avoid telephone calls, and when finally reached is especially free with vulgarities and insults directed at anyone who is trying to make his life miserable. At one point he apparently stated that he was no longer willing to correspond with our solicitors, accused by him of "talking in riddles", and repeatedly asking all sorts of stupid, pointless questions (those questions that were portrayed as "ordinary" by our surveyor) but also being condescending and rude, when they tried to clarify the confusion.

In the meantime, the level of antsiness had reached an all-time high, with the unknown sellers finally deciding they'd had enough. Either we'd all exchange contracts on 30-January (observant readers will note that this is today's date), or they'd pull out of the whole thing and leave us all to start over again (or so said the estate agent, who, it should be noted, has a very significant interest in having the whole transaction completed ASAP). Fortunately (?) for us, at least some conversation continued between the solicitors, so last week we finally received a large packet of information from our solicitor (containing the contract, payment details, all sorts of details about the property, and a bit of correspondence between the solicitors, further suggesting that the characterization of the seller's solicitors as "difficult" was neither inaccurate nor unfair). Some of this was a pleasant surprise, such as learning that the seller planned to leave some items behind (like a refrigerator, for example, which we thought for sure we'd need to buy ourselves). But we were also informed that one of the longest-running sticking points was still sticking.

The flat we are buying is on the first floor (second floor as they say in the USA), but has access to the rear garden (yard as they say in the USA) via a set of stairs. The lease, however, says nothing about these stairs (which actually appear to encroach upon the downstairs neighbors' garden). Our solicitors quite rightly inquired about the status of these stairs: whether the current resident used them for any purpose and whether we would require access rights to them. This was apparently a riddle worthy of the Sphinx; the seller's solicitor replied that "like most people, the current occupant accesses her flat by the front door". And on, and on, and more on. But apparently the end of the saga of the stairs is in sight; Mrs. Dunce spoke to the estate agent again this morning, and there appears to be a meeting point between a two-sentence clause and a six-sentence clause of a somewhat incoherent nature (three guesses whose is whose). Anyway, having been assured that things would be put in order, yesterday we made some major steps.

Our first stop was the bank, where our bulging bank account was instantly deflated as we zapped every last penny (or so it seemed, anyway) to the solicitors' account. Our second stop was the post office to rush the signed contract to the solicitor. I really shouldn't mention the third stop which was a lunchtime drink at the nearby bowling alley (I should note that lunchtime drinking is a totally extraordinary activity for both of the Dunces, although there were a number of lunchtime revellers also present, for whom this might be a more regular event). And oh yeah, one of the additional requirements of the whole thing, of which we had remained blissfully unaware until receiving the information packet a few days back, was that we were required to insure the property from the moment at which we exchanged contracts (perhaps this very moment). So we had one additional scramble to get insurance in place on short notice. It's not easy, especially when you don't actually have complete information on the property (do all the doors and accessible windows have British standard locks? Heck if we know. And so on). We still managed to do some quick comparison shopping, answered questions carefully (if we didn't know the answer, we chose the less secure option so that the insurance would remain valid if something happened before we figured things out). So our yet-to-be-purchased property is now insured by us.

So it appears that contracts will indeed be exchanged today, although the completion date (i.e., when we get the keys) remains to be decided as far as I know. Then we'll begin all the fun of moving, installing shelves and shower, decorating, and figuring out all the quirks of the new place (never mind the challenge of keeping the cat indoors for a certain period, so she won't work her way back to the old home place a la Poco). Did I mention it's all been a bit overwhelming? And I didn't even mention the phone call on Saturday from the freeholder, who wants to sell it to us, really soon, at a very fair price of £7.5K (No I am not being sarcastic; this does actually appear to be a fair price). If only we hadn't spent all our money on the place itself....

All that said, I think we'll wait until we have the keys before planning a housewarming bash.

Yet another dodgy clothing collection flyer has been slipped through our door (the same format and paper stock as all the ones I've mentioned before), but this time with a new, especially vile gimmick: breast cancer prevention. Here's some of the text included on the flyer (with a background of roses, of course):

DO NOT DELAY!
For yourself and for those who love you.

Project DO NOT DELAY! was founded to educate women who pursue a healthy way of living and won't allow their lives to be ruined by cancer. Breast cancer effects every 9th woman in Europe. So far, so good (barring the minor departures from grammaticality). I'll skip the details about leaving donated clothing in a bag, etc. and get to the important stuff, the explanatory text at the bottom:

Do Not Delay is an important project that provides information and screenings for women in Lithuania to help prevent Breast Cancer. More information about a project visit our website www.donotdelay.org or write Email info@donotdelay.org.
Our authorized stock collector is Intersecond LTD, Company No 5713257.
13/14 New Bond Street, London W1S 3SX. Tel: 07983 018041.

Very detailed information: they even have a website, registered company number and a postal address on New Bond Street. But there are quite a few alarm bells, starting with the telephone number they provide. Numbers beginning with 079 are mobile phone numbers, and I've yet to come across a real charity that uses a mobile phone number as their first point of contact. They also claim to be a charity but only provide a company registration number (NOT the same as a charity registration). The rules are not different for international charities; they must still be registered in the UK to collect in the UK. The company listed as the "authorized stock collector" does appear to be a real company (registered in the UK and currently active according to Companies House), in the business of import and export of second-hand clothing. Their website (intersecond.com) contains minimal information and is indeed registered in Lithuania.

The "charity" itself also has a website, donotdelay.org (registered in Lithuania). But this website is just a redirect to a site at nedelsk.lt which has a long bit of text about breast cancer (and bank information in case you're moved to donate). Nedelsk.lt is a curious site indeed, first have a look at the URL you reach from donotdelay.org:
http://www.nedelsk.lt/index.php?set_lang_id=en&show_content_id=573
You might wonder what content appears in sites other than number 573. Strangely, seems to be nothing, except for an odd set of forums (in Lithuanian so it's hard to know what's in them). Oddly, the main page at nedelsk.lt contains a language-selection link "LT/EN" (the English one shoots you straight to 573 only). This seems very, very sneaky to me. But even if this IS a real charity (and it might well be) there is absolutely no way to know whether these flyers are actually linked to them in any way. I did send an email to the address provided, but I'd be shocked and surprised to receive any kind of response.

Of course I haven't been the first one to spot this flyer as questionable, check out this post which gives a very good explanation, and even a look at the collection process in action. That post has a number of interesting comments, one of which suggests that a number of "DO NOT DELAY!" people were arrested for stealing charitable donations (I have not been able to substantiate this claim).

All this suggests once again that a dodgy clothing collection company (of a non charitable nature) has come across a very inexpensive way to collect second-hand clothing to sell on, tricking people into thinking they are donating to a charitable cause when in fact they are just providing merchandise to be sold for profit. They also play upon people's natural laziness; why make the effort to donate to a known charity when "some other charity" is willing to come right to your door to collect the goods.

ADDED 26-JAN: On the morning designated for pickups by "donotdelay.org", we were surprised to receive a new set of flyers (same format, style, paper stock), this time purporting to be from "Orellana LTD" (a dodgy clothing collection company I've previously blogged about: LINKY, or just google "Orellana LTD" to see numerous other discussions of their questionable nature). Same scam, different name.

Last night the Dunces paid a visit to a new Japanese restaurant in north London, Akari (196 Essex Road). It's located in a former pub (see this amusing comment on Fancyapint), and in its previous incarnation was French restaurant Le Montmartre. Although Akari is quite new, I did find a couple of reviews (Viewlondon, Japanese guide to Essex Road). It still looks very much like a pub, full of wood tables surrounding the bar area which has been converted to an open kitchen. The menu is fairly short (even including a page of specials) but quite varied; on the other hand the drink menu is quite substantial (we stuck to Yebisu beer, a favorite from our trip to Japan which we haven't seen in London before; they also had Orion beer, in addition to more standard Japanese beers). Mrs. Dunce described it as a more accessible version of an izakaya (sort of like Camden's Asakusa in having an interesting range of very Japanese dishes, but differing by aiming to also accommodate people who are not so familiar with Japanese food); a gastro-izakaya if you like. Definitely izakaya-ish, though; other customers were working their way around the shochu/sake menu, also ordering small dishes one or two at a time.

We ordered a few dishes (all to share) which was just the right amount of food: a nice hot miso soup to start with (temperatures dropped to near freezing this week. As individuals of midwestern heritage it's rather embarrassing to admit that we were both uncomfortably cold. When it wasn't even below freezing!). Shrimp & vegetable tempura, then an excellent dish of mussels in a sake-based soup. An order of hand-rolled sushi with salmon, avocado & tempura shrimp. And the highlight of the evening: kaki fry. Fried oysters, one of Mrs. Dunce's favorite dishes. With a splash of sauce (quite reminiscent of okonomiyaki sauce) and a home-made tartar sauce on the side. These were fantastic. And we finished up with hot tea before venturing back out into the cold. The bill came to (exactly) £40 including two beers each.

We'll definitely be heading back there in the new year.

Over the past few months I've been obsessively collecting and categorizing every piece of advertising that finds its way through our letterbox (ie, not addressed to us or delivered by the postal service). One surprisingly common category is the dodgy clothing collection company. I've mentioned a couple of these in previous posts (Silverwall; Island of Hope) but now have a whole slew of them. A baker's dozen, as it happens, and oddly they are all exactly the same format, though purportedly coming from a number of different companies. They're all printed on a slightly glossy, lightweight stock (size A3), and they all feature the words CLOTHING COLLECTION in large, prominent type. They all mention that donated clothing will go to poor people (about half of them refer vaguely to third world countries, and half to Eastern European countries). And they all have small print which explains that they are not in fact charitable organizations. Since they have so much in common, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they are actually coming from exactly the same people. The company details listed on the advertising sheets appear below; if you find this post searching for more info on one of these companies I'd be quite interested in your comments.

Silverwall Ltd. (2 ads) I've mentioned this company before. Their advert includes an odd picture of two small shirtless boys (presumably in the throes of poverty, but who in fact look like they're playing on the beach). They're providing people in third world countries with clothes for their families they can afford [sic]. Information on the ad includes gives a company registration number (5433460) and a mobile telephone number 07769 811992. Looking up this number on the Webcheck service at Companies House (official register of UK businesses) show that this company was incorporated in April 2005 and has current status of "Active - Proposal to Strike off".

Orellana Ltd. (2 ads). No picture, just a stylized image of clothing as a background. They too are providing people in third world countries with clothes for their families they can afford [sic]. They list registration number 5496347 and a hotmail address (orellana_support@hotmail.com). This company actually appears as "dissolved" on the Companies House website (incorporated 1 July 2005, dissolved 27 June 2006). It's somewhat strange that a dissolved company would continue to solicit products.

Europe Suppliers Ltd. (2 ads). This one has a blurry picture of a dove as the background. Unlike the previous two, they provide people in need Eastern Europe countries with affordable clothes for them and their families it provides jobs in Eastern European countries for those sorting the clothes for distribution [sic]. Another company registration number (5401427) and another hotmail address (europesupplier@hotmail.co.uk). And hey, it's another company with a status of "Active - Proposal to Strike off" (incorporated April 2003).

Ambertop Ltd. (3 ads). Two of these have background images of small children; the third has a truly bizarre image of cats, possibly photoshopped to make it look like one has an arm around the other (I'll have to scan it in when I have a moment). They provide people in need in Eastern European companies with affordable clothes for them and their families [sic]. And yet another registration number (5333502) and hotmail address (ambertop_support@hotmail.com). Hey, wait a minute, Ambertop was dissolved on 11 April 2006 (incorporated 17 January 2005). See any patterns here yet?

But what about Cotrado Ltd.? (2 ads). An image of three miserable children (perhaps taken from Depression-era stock images). This company provide people in third world countries with clothes for their families they can afford [sic]. Registration number? Check (5545502). Anonymous contact info? Check (mobile number 07792 270755). This company is just barely cold, having only been dissolved a few weeks back (incorporated 24 August 2005, dissolved 28 November 2006).

But wait, there's more! General L&A Wardship Ltd.. Decorated with clip art reminiscent of Hands Across America, this one doesn't even bother with contact information, providing only a company registration number (5477636). This one also uses a slightly different spiel: Can you spare any of your old unwanted clothes whitch will send to the third world where the garments will be carefully sorted and worn again [sic]. And hey, for once this is an active company (incorporated 10 June 2005), with a relevant business type actually listed with Companies House (Nature of Business (SIC(03)): 5116 - Agents in textiles, footwear etc.; registered at 71 EMMOTT AVENUE, ILFORD). But it still looks very questionable to me.

And finally, one that doesn't even include a company name (background image, three nerdy children sitting in someone's back garden). They provide people in third world countries with clothes for their families they can afford [sic]. And provide a company number (5482825) and anonymous email address (pajuryss@yohoo.co.uk [sic]). This company (PAJURYS LTD of Leyton) is active, but proposed to be struck off (incorporated 16 June 2005).

All in all, a healthy stack of unwanted clothing collection scam advertisements. How much unwanted clothing do they think we have?

This week was time for another beer festival, this time at the Pembury, sister pub to our local and quickly rising into the top tier of London real ale pubs since the very early, very quiet days (e.g. my post from January). We've been there on a few occasions since our first visit, and every time it seems to have improved: more customers, something on the walls to improve the ambience, pub games, even a fantastic kitchen. And its rating on Beerintheevening.com has skyrocketed (up to the point at which pubs enter the "top 10" list, where tactical So how could we miss the beer festival?

As soon as we finished work, we jumped on a bus and made our way there. Just in time too, every table but one was occupied (although... the tables are quite large and fairly well suited for sharing). There were 20+ beers available (plus a few in the cellar not quite ready to be served). Ten or so from the Milton brewery, but a good assortment from elsewhere. I have to say the landlord made some excellent choices; it was very hard for us to find anything worse than a "half smile" on our simple beer rating scale (explained at the bottom of this post). And not because of drinking to excess; we chose to drink half-pints in order to taste more of them. Along the way we had a very nice dinner (the special Ploughman's sandwich featuring four different Neal's Yard cheeses for me [I've already reached the point where I find it difficult to even consider anything else], a vegetable cheese bake for Mrs. Dunce, and an order of root vegetable chips [fries] for both of us), and we finally took a chance at playing bar billiards (thanks to a local friend of ours who taught us how to play, thrashing us in the process). The pub seemed quite busy all night which is very encouraging. Without further ado, here are the beers and our ratings (note that only the "owner" of a beer was permitted to give it a rating. Where there were two ratings, we each had one.):

Dark Star: Old Ale (4.0%). Full smile rating from me, half smile from Mrs. Dunce. This was a dark beer with quite a smoky taste. Not quite as strong as the German Rauchbiers but sometimes the latter are somewhat like drinking a big glass of bacon. Mrs. Dunce thought it was a little too much smoke for the time of day (although thanks to the Pembury's no-smoking policy this was the only smoke we experienced).

Dark Star: Winter Meltdown (5.0%). Mrs. Dunce's beer of the night (full smile rating). Not as flavorful as you would expect from the beer tasting notes which ran to four lines. But very drinkable, and a good hit of ginger as an interesting touch.

Milestone: Crusader (4.4%). Full smile, A blonde Belgian-style ale, very smooth and tasty but perhaps slightly too balanced for me. I did still like it quite a bit.

Milestone: Rich Ruby (4.5%). Mrs. Dunce gave it a half-smile. Initially it was horrible: the aroma was vaguely reminiscent of urine (verified by me [not that I went and smelled some urine, but that I sniffed the beer too and agreed]) and this carried over into the first sip or two. After that it was fairly nice, but hard to get that initial impression out of your mind.

Milton: Gargantua (5.6%). I was going to avoid the Milton beers which are usually readily available at the Pembury and the Oakdale. But I'd never tasted this one before, and the description "extremely hoppy" suggested it was my kind of tipple. Yes indeed, a full smile it is, and my choice for beer of the night. Maybe a little less than subtle, but I'm a sucker for the hops.

Milton: Mammon (7.0%). I had one of these late in the evening: it's just too strong, and rich, and sweet, and everything else. The notes indicate that it was brewed in September 2005 and had over a year to mature. It was just too much and I had to give it a flat-mouth rating. A special offer was noted, a pint of Mammon and a plate of Stilton for £4. Stilton is perhaps the only food that could stand up to the aged Mammon. Just not my thing on this occasion.

Nottingham: Bullion (4.7%). I rated this one only a half-smile, rather bland and light in flavor. Lacking any sort of distinct finish, but still nice enough.

Nottingham: Dreadnought (4.5%). Mrs. Dunce was blown away by the flavor, describing it as quite biscuity, and almost too complex for its own good. Still deserving of a full smile rating.

Saffron: EPA (3.9%). Mrs. Dunce gave this one a half smile. It's a bit hoppy but all right. She prefers the malty beers; I've had this one before and thought it quite nice, although light and perhaps better suited for summer.

Saffron: Silent Night (5.2%). Described as a dark and hoppy bitter, so I jumped at the chance to try it. It didn't seem so hoppy to me, but more chocolatey and stoutish. I still found it quite lovely, giving it a full smile rating.

Springhead: Cromwell's Hat (6.0%). Mrs. Dunce gave this one another full smile: malty with a cinnamon hit (although she didn't notice the juniper mentioned in the tasting notes).

Finally we had two beers as a sort of quiz challenge: Tring: Buzby (4.0%) and Tring: "It's for you!" (4.0%). The quiz came from the tasting notes ("Amber coloured and spicy. Suggestions gratefully received as to what the spice actually is"). Sadly, we had no idea what the spice might be (and didn't even notice the spice in the "It's for you!"). I took the Buzby, giving it a half smile as "decent but not special"; Mrs. Dunce appreciated the maltier character of the "It's for you!" (I'm not sure I approve of drinking beer whose name contains multiple punctuation marks) but didn't rate it higher than a half smile.

And that's about it. We were a little disappointed that a couple of the listed beers were not being served yet (Nottingham's Rock Mild, and Milton's Marcus Aurelius in particular), but the selection was already plenty good.

It's been a busy time here in Dunce-land, perhaps no surprise what with the extended silence on this page. Or whatever the printed-form analog of silence is (definitely not "darkness"; "blankness" isn't right either because the last old entry just sits there gathering dust [e-dust?]; perhaps "stasis"?). I spent most of last week re-haunting some old haunts, presenting some of my work at a conference in the Netherlands (Nijmegen to be precise). Mrs. Dunce joined me on Thursday for a few intensive days of Dutch tourism (Thursday night/Friday morning: Nijmegen; Friday afternoon: 's Hertogenbosch; Saturday/Sunday: Leiden). It was a great trip (we both really enjoy the Lowlands), but quite exhausting, especially considering the conference itself which went from 9am-7pm on Wed, Thu and Fri (and worse, the bus to the conference left my hotel at 8am sharp). I did sneak away for a few sessions including the aforementioned Friday afternoon. One thing about visiting the Netherlands (at least the parts we visited): if you'd like to have your dinner in a sit-down restaurant, you'd better be quick. Mrs. Dunce and I missed out the first night, wandering around after the witching hour (9pm) looking for food. We ended up at a fast food stand where we had a perfectly good falafel (and of course, friets; no Dutch meal is complete without french fries and mayonnaise). Our planning was better the next two evenings, getting to the restaurants at 8pm (and as it turned out, still just about the last people to arrive). Both meals were fantastic, although I don't have time to write about them today (or anything else about the trip for that matter). Here's where I make an idle promise to write about them in the next couple of days.

Earlier this week Mrs. Dunce and I went for a birthday meal (hers) to Konstam at the Prince Albert, a London restaurant with an interesting gimmick: food served there is sourced from London (within the M25, and/or within the area covered by the Tube Map; I'm not exactly sure where the line is drawn). I'd have to say I thought this was quite a gimmick, overly gimmicky perhaps and surely the food would suffer (especially after seeing a number of uneven reviews). After all, most people don't think of London as an especially productive region for restaurant-quality food. Sure, years ago it was all fields, full of livestock and crops of various sorts. And plenty of eels; all you had to do was drop a horse's head in your local river/canal. Not to mention other river/canal dwellers not requiring decapitated bait. But these days, hmmm. Most people probably think of "London-sourced food" as food you get from London restaurants. Perhaps fried chicken from the popular London restaurant "KFC" or any of the numerous knock-offs (Dixie? Dixy? Hentucky? Kennedy? Kent's Tuck Inn? Kansas? Mississippi? Tennessee? All real chicken places documented HERE). Or perhaps from a more upscale restaurant (I don't know any of these as all my meals come from chicken places). Or maybe something made from rat or a cannibalistic treat of London-sourced human flesh, both of which are quite readily available London ingredients. OK, perhaps I'm being a bit excessive; after all we did see some episodes of the BBC2 documentary which followed the man behind Konstam as he traveled around London trying to source products that were truly produced in London (here's a BBC link). But it still seemed very gimmicky.

Nonetheless, Mrs. Dunce's particular interest in Konstam at the Prince Albert (higher than any other London restaurant, which is saying something) became quite clear as her birthday approached. So she was quite happy that it was our destination for the evening (I kept it secret until earlier in the evening, even resorting to telling an outright lie). The place doesn't look like anything special from the outside; it's a converted pub on a very busy street (I ride right past it when I cycle to work, and hadn't noticed it at all). The interior is a very aggressive green color, but the most noticeable aspect of the decoration is the light fixtures. I can't really do them justice with a verbal description, so check out this Flickr photo. The string-looking bits on the light fittings are tiny chains, of the sort that are most readily associated with dog tags. "But what about the food?" I can almost hear you asking. I was sort of dreading that part, because I didn't pay close enough attention to remember the exact details (and we did not take our menu along with us, as apparently you are meant to do if you're of the "foodie" persuasion [it's not stealing; it was that day's menu, with the date on it and everything]). We decided to go headlong into the "locally sourced" aspects of the menu, choosing an English red wine (not from London, but close). A bit on the "cheeky" side but unexpectedly tasty. To start I had some sort of very nice smoked fish with blinis and sour cream, Mrs. Dunce had a salad of some kind featuring a soft-boiled duck's egg (exact provenance of the main ingredients unknown). For the main courses we swapped sides of the non-meat menu: Mrs. Dunce had the fish (sea bass, presumably from the Sea of London, with some kind of sauce possibly including some rather unusual tarragon leaves), and I had the veggie choice, pierogis with chard, cheese and some other something-or other (see what I mean about not keeping track well enough?), with a green salad (mint, parsley, and a few other flavorful, small-leaf greens). Everything was prepared extremely well, and both the starters and main dishes were quite nicely designed to be eaten with their accompanying vegetables/etc. in the British manner: a little bit of everything on the plate stacked onto each forkful (I am usually a strong "separatist" in matters concerning the diverse contents of plates of food). And they left us with enough room for dessert: I chose a very tasty plum-and-something tart (which was quite tart indeed, but I'm a fan of tart tarts), while Mrs. Dunce went for the cheese (a blue cheese and a very fresh goat's cheese). It was a fantastic meal, right up there with the best meals either of us could remember.

Yesterday Mrs. Dunce and I took another step towards indoctrination into the cult of Circulus, following their charismatic leader into a "rather quaint old slaughterhouse at the top of Brick Lane" (his words, not ours) yet somehow escaping with our lives (although perhaps not our free will; the combination of Moog and sackbut is dangerously hypnotic). Our first stop on our way there was the revered Wenlock Arms where Mrs. Dunce made a beeline for the Mild (makes sense, as she'd spent a long, hard day at the factory and needed a combination of low-alcohol drink and sustenance). But this entry is really about the interval between our stop at the Wenlock and our arrival at the Cult Member Processing Centre. You see, it involved a visit to yet another well-regarded Mexican restaurant in London. And lest I be accused of being obsessive about this topic, erm, well, I suppose those accusations should stand.

This time it was a visit to Green & Red (just around the corner from aforementioned slaughterhouse), a place that's been receiving quite a few good reviews, both for its focus on drink (Time Out), and its food (london-eating). The food reviews in particular gave us some encouraging signs: frequent references to authenticity and regional focus (Jaliscan in particular), and contrast to the standard "London Tex-Mex" which has been so rightly scorned by so many for so long. We arrived and managed to get one of the few remaining tables (all had "reserved" cards, but we were seated anyway, thanks to some combination of charisma, persuasion, and maybe a sense that we would go berserk and run amok if denied a table) in the dining area (there was also a very nice-looking downstairs bar area). We started off with a selection of tasty cocktails mostly along the tequila dimension (Margarita, Diablo, and a pomegranate something-or-other). My Diablo was nice, although perhaps nothing to write home about (yet here I am doing exactly that). But we were really just biding our time until the food arrived.

After not very long at all, it happened. The highlight of the meal was one of the starters: excellent guacamole with totopos. Not a very large portion at all, but then again it was a starter. We also had a relatively spicy (and also not very large) chile relleno, and some fairly ordinary (perhaps a bit citrusy/spicy) corn-on-the-cob. Those all disappeared rapidly (think heads down, spray of saliva, blur of forks, etc. Or at least that's what my side of the table was like). And then it was time for the mains. I ought to mention that the menu is quite limited (it does seem more like a bar than a restaurant; the drinks menu is far more extensive than the food menu): six choices of mains: four meat, one fish, one vegetable. So it wasn't too difficult to decide what to order. I had the fish, a very nice sea bream cooked in a banana leaf + tomato/ancho salsa; we generally thought this was the best of our main dishes. Mrs. Dunce had a pumpkin thingy ("Roast ironbark pumpkin with lentils, sweet potato and chayote"); and the mysterious third party had the birra, a slow-cooked marinated lamb shank that's featured quite frequently in reviews of the place. Along with the mains came a somewhat paltry serving of refried beans (nice, but small), shredded cabbage, small (freshly made) corn tortillas, and a couple of salsas. We all had the same general reaction to the food: we enjoyed everything, and considered it far, far beyond "traditional London Mexican fare", but (except for the guacamole) we were not truly excited by any of it. Maybe we've become jaded by the sudden boom in good Mexican food in London, but there are still a couple of restaurants I think are better than Green & Red: El Panzon and Mercado (I'll start subtracting points if Mercado's website stays as it is. "Opening May 2006" indeed). As far as Mexican *restaurants* in London are concerned, anyway. Green & Red's strength seems to be as a cocktail bar, moreso than a restaurant. We paid our bill (just under £90 including 12.5% service charge) and made our way to be indoctrinated by the Circulus cultists.

Earlier this week Mrs. Dunce and I made our annual visit to the Great British Beer Festival. This year was a particularly good one, as we had booked advance tickets to a tutored tasting event, "Champion Beers of Britain". All the beers to be tasted were rated as top of their category by a panel of judges, and the champions had only been selected the day before the tasting (so we were tasting the same batches that had been judged). Our guide through these beers was Roger Protz, one of the best-known beer experts out there (I'd say that at least in English-speaking circles, only Michael Jackson [not that one] is a contender, and ). Protz has written all sorts of beer-related books, including 300 Beers To Try Before You Die, Complete Guide to World Beer, and a mess of others. The tasting included six beers, one from each of six categories. For each one we got to hear some interesting information about the category and the style of beer, an exact description of the ingredients, and then Protz's comments on the "cyclops" features of each one (appearance, aroma, flavor). Most importantly, those aspects that (in his opinion, as one of the panelists) led to each beer's selection as champion. Here are our own opinions of each one:

Mild: a traditional sort of dark beer, lower in alcohol (usually in the 3% range), intended for industrial workers (after work!). The winner of this category was Oscar Wilde Mild, by Mighty Oak brewery. This was the first one we drank, and got Mrs. Dunce's vote for her favorite beer of the festival: "smells like chocolate milk; growing chocolate taste". I noted that it had a very light starting flavor, and was an easy drinking mild. We both rated this one as a "full smile".*

Bitter: another traditional style, lighter in color than mild, and with an alcohol content of up to about 4%. The winner was Cambridge Bitter by Elgoods, which included roasted barley in its ingredients (unusual for a bitter). I found it very very bitter indeed, but a nice mix of malty and hoppy flavors (my favorite beers are usually quite hoppy). The finish was quite long; it had a very lingering flavor. Mrs. Dunce (who isn't hop-crazy like me) said "not too hoppy, very sweet finish. Complex malt balances it". Two more "full smile" ratings.

Best Bitter: Higher in alcohol than the Bitters (cut-off point seems to be 4%), the winner here was Sussex Best by Harvey's. This one was the runner-up in the overall championship, and Roger Protz's favorite (also voted as favorite by the tasting audience, but perhaps strongly biased after hearing Protz's effusive praise). "A hymn to the hop" is how he described it. I enjoy the hops, and no surprise I liked this one: very smooth drinking, hoppy but mellow. Not so much malt flavor, particularly in contrast to the previous bitter which had a notable malty taste. Mrs. Dunce thought "Definitely hoppier, but still well balanced. Bitter finish". Yet again we gave two "full smile" ratings to this one.

Strong Bitter: Here we go: this category is even higher in alcohol content. The winner, Centurion's Ghost by York was 5.4%, and had a very strong aroma. Mrs. Dunce said "beautiful aroma; chocolate, coffee, raisin flavors with a very dry finish." I thought there were all sorts of flavors going on, very roasted, maybe coffeeish. Long, long, long finish. This one was my favorite of the festival (by quite some margin), and Mrs. Dunce also gave it yet another full smile.

Specialty Beer: This category includes beers that don't fit into the other classifications. The winner, Tradewinds by Cairngorm, included a substantial amount of wheat (30%) but is considered "specialty" because of an additional ingredient: elderflower (added at the end of the copper boil, ie when secondary hopping is being done). I didn't notice anything elderflowery about it (but might not recognize elderflower if it bit me in the bum). At first I rated it only a half smile as it seemed more aromatic than flavorful. But it grew on me, as a nice light and tasty beer. Mrs. Dunce was not quite as impressed, considering it unsubtle and giving it only a half-smile rating: "hoppy and peppery aroma. Bitter in the mouth but growing sweetness. A little bit one-note".

Golden Ale and Overall Champion: The winner of this year's Golden Ale category was also deemed the overall champion: Brewer's Gold by Crouch Vale. This beer also won last year's overall championship, something that has never happened in the history of the award. It's made from identical ingredients to lagers, but is brewed in an ale style. There was some discussion from the audience about this, especially as golden ales have won more than their fair share of awards recently (according to some), and whether this is bad for "ale in general". And whether one year's champion should be ineligible the next year. Anyway, on to the tasting. Hmmmmmm. It was definitely not a double-champion in our eyes. It had a very, very lemony aroma ("smells like floor cleaner" said Mrs. Dunce); the flavor was very hoppy, and I thought it would be much better if only I could drink it without smelling it. Mrs. Dunce found it just too lemony, and very one-note all the way through with the palate and finish almost exactly the same. "Flat mouth" ratings from both of us.

And that was the end of the tasting. It was a really fun thing to do, and in addition to the details about tasting, there were plenty of interesting comments, discussions, Q&A and asides about brewing, beer history, international styles and so on. But then, the beer festival itself was still going on, so we made our way downstairs where all sorts of choices awaited us. As usual some of our intended targets were not available (or just overlooked), but we still managed to have several additional beverages before running out of energy. Comments on them are noted below (perhaps not in the order in which they were consumed):

Maypole Mild by Oakleaf. Mrs. Dunce gave this a half-smile: sharp start but a good finish.

Malvern Magic blended perry from Herefordshire. I thought this was ok, maybe a half-smile. It was rated as 10 on the 1-12 sweet-to-dry scale, but I thought it was somewhat sweeter than a 10 would warrant. Somewhat bland and not all that complex (this judgment may be affected a lot by following all the champion beers).

Black Gold by Cairngorm (same brewer as Tradewinds, the elderflower Specialty Beer noted above). Mrs. Dunce gave it a half-smile, noting its bitter/malt balance.

Double Hop by Robinson's. I gave this one a flat mouth. Very bland and uninteresting; nothing wrong with it but nothing particularly right, either.

Dunkels Weissbier by Andechs. The only beer from outside the UK either of us tried this time around. Mrs. Dunce gave it a full-smile rating, "Dark and refreshing, like it should be". The only full smile rating from either of us outside the "champion beer" tasting. Which set a high standard indeed.

IPA by Woodlands. I gave this one a rare full frown rating. It was sharp and nasty. Very dry and unpleasant to drink. I even poured it out instead of finishing it.

Midnight Stout by Woodlands: Flat mouth rating by Mrs. Dunce who called it "undignified"; nothing special.

Dragon Smoke Stout by Beowulf. Yes, for some reason we tried an awful lot of dark beers at this festival. I found this one ok, worth a half-smile rating. It had a nice roasted flavor you'd expect from a stout, a lot of bitterness, but not quite top of the heap.


*Our rating system is quite elementary in nature, as it's designed to withstand various potential issues related to beer festivals, particularly the possibility that many different products may be consumed and thus a complex system might fail disastrously. Hence, the smily face rating system:
full smile: liked this beverage unreservedly
half smile: enjoyed it, but it could be improved upon
flat mouth: fine, but nothing special
half frown: not so great, but not terrible
full frown: bad, nasty, maybe even worth pouring out instead of finishing it.

Yesterday we visited yet another new Mexican restaurant in London, Mercado (I've linked to their website even though it's still quite inactive. You never know). It's actually relatively close to our house (31 minutes' walk according to journeyplanner.org. So how could we resist the suggestion by a certain gentleman of our acquaintance to give it a try?

Mercado is at the top of Stoke Newington Church Street, and occupies the former location of Yum Yum Thai Restaurant (now moved to a fancy new location just around the corner). There's no sign of Thai there now; it's been redecorated in a colorful Mexican manner (not just sombreros and piñatas). When we sat down we were given a (small) serving of tortilla chips and a smidgen of salsa verde. The chips were nice and did not seem to have come from a bag (always a major strike). They have quite a range of cocktails and I can definitely report that the house margarita is quite tasty. Due to some sort of miscommunication (errr, a nice way of saying that I just wasn't paying any attention) both Mrs. Dunce and I ordered guacamole with chips. I understand that some previous reviews (which I haven't seen) have complained about the stingy portions of chips, and we felt the same way when we got our guacamole: each order had a nicely hefty portion of guacamole, but only a little handful of chips. However, as we got to the end of the chips (but nowhere near the end of the guacamole), the waitress brought us more (we didn't have to ask, nor were we charged). The main courses were really good as well. The menu is fairly brief, and features a number of dishes you wouldn't exactly call "ordinary". I had, erm, I've forgotten the name but it was a poblano pepper, stuffed with cheese and black beans and stuff, covered in a lovely-spicy almond mole (and with a side of new potatoes and spinach). Mrs. Dunce had a crepe with cuitlacoche (a much nicer term than "corn fungus" or "corn smut", never mind the description "a bulbous black fungus (Ustilago maydis) that infects corn, producing silvery, swollen, pebble like kernels") and cheese, covered in a light sauce whose ingredients failed to register with me. Cilantro, perhaps). And our gentleman companion had a chicken mole dish. Portions were quite large, but we somehow managed to make short work of them anyway.

The bill came to something like £75 (+ tip) which isn't bad at all, considering that we each had two cocktails. We'll definitely be back, it's really worth a repeat visit or two.

On special offer today at the coffeeshop near my office:

LEAK AND POTATO SOUP

too bad I brought my lunch today.

I've been writing a lot about Mexican food in London, and since our first visit to El Panzon I've been repeatedly (perhaps annoyingly) enthusiastic that London finally has a great Mexican restaurant. They've recently left the Hobgoblin and moved to a more convenient (for us) new location, the Dogstar in Brixton. And I'm pleased to report that the food is still fantastic.

But things are going crazy with new places popping up all over town. Earlier this week I finally made it to Daddy Donkey, a burrito (errr, I mean "burro") stand in Leather Lane. They're open only at lunchtimes M-F, but I have to say, mmmmmmmmmmm! I had a big-ol veggie burrito: beans, rice, guacamole and a tasty hot salsa. Although I gulped it down like a madman (I was in a bit of a state, getting ready for my British Sign Language assessment) I can report that it was excellent. I'll have to go back again (soon!) when I have a little more chance to savor my lunch.

But this is only one of many new places; I'm way behind the times ("the times" being most clearly illustrated on the long-running comments section on Phil Gyford’s prescient 2003 post "London's lack of Mexican"). There's apparently a new place called Beach Burritos just opened (4 Berwick Street). And a stall that sometimes appears at Chapel Market called Poblano. Not to mention Mercado Cantina which has recently opened just down the street from us. Heck, we haven't even visited Crazy Homies or Green and Red (not sure why the latter is listed as Argentinian) but they sound really good too.

The other evening I was biking home and heard something I could have sworn was the song "Hava Nagila", played on the traditionally somewhat out-of-tune sound system of an ice cream truck*. I figured this must have been an auditory hallucination or something; perhaps an ice cream truck was playing a song that vaguely resembled Hava Nagila in some way, and the presence of numerous Orthodox folks going about their afternoon business may have been enough to cause this illusory conclusion. Sort of like a summertime McGurk Effect where you hear one thing, see another, and the visual input biases what you end up hearing.

In any event, I am pleased to discover (thanks entirely to yesterday's post by Quink) that it was not a hallucination or illusion but was in fact an ice cream truck playing "Hava Nagila". Uncle Doovy's kosher ice cream van** to be precise. I guess I live just a tiny bit too far from the most concentrated Orthodox neighborhoods to have seen him before. Or perhaps the one (non kosher) ice cream truck controls our street with an iron fist, and Uncle Doovy doesn't want to get whacked.

* For an interesting article about ice cream truck sound sytems, check out D.T. Neely's article "Soft Serve: Charting the aural promise of ice cream truck music", PDF link.

** How many boxes in the "wacky headline" checklist does the linked article tick?
Mister Softee's Kosher Kin Gets Warm Welcome
Feeling Peckish? London's Kosher Snack Mobile Minds the Gaps Between Meals

It's not unusual to find strange international products in London shops, but what about strange international versions of familiar products? I must admit I'm an occasional consumer of Coca-Cola products, and quite often our local shops stock an import version rather than the readily-available British products. I quite frequently find bottles from Poland, which does make some sense as there have been loads and loads of new Polish shops opening around London. But more curious are the bottles from Georgia (not the US state), all written in that distinctive Georgian script, except for a UK import sticker. It's amazing to consider that someone could profit from transporting a product thousands of miles to sell it in the UK when that same product is readily available here already (thoughts of ice cubes and Eskimos come to mind).

I'm by no means the first person to notice this; see the following posts from Anders Jacobsen a couple years back: 1; 2. But it's still quite unclear to me how this could work. Perhaps the answer's out there already; it's just quite hard to sort out anything relevant from the masses of information about Coca-Cola and (US state) Georgia.

Dear friends

It is our pleasure to announce the normalisation of our place in this fine country. On Friday the 19th of May at 11:30am we will publicly affirm our allegiance to the Queen and take our place among you as upstanding British citizens.

Then a week later on Saturday the 27th May at 8pm we would like to invite you to our home to demonstrate that we can still party like hooligan immigrants. We will be serving a couple of fine real ales from the Milton Brewery (Sparta and Nero) and some nibbles, please bring anything else you would like. If you don't already know our address please drop me a line (EMAIL).

There's been another temporary outage at Confederacy of a Dunce, this time because we took a long weekend in Washington DC. I figured I'd be able to write a little bit while we were there, but you know how that goes. We chose to spend a few extra quid to take Virgin Atlantic in order to take advantage of their impressive in-flight entertainment. You might laugh, but despite our desperate viewing from start to finish of both flights, we didn't even come close to watching everything that interested us. We did manage to get through Syriana, Junebug, The Constant Gardener and Murderball (three of which were disappointing), plus highlights of the Japanese program "Masquerade" (perhaps best known for the "Matrix Ping-pong" video clip that circulated widely a while back), a Chinese action game show "Challenge 321". Mrs. Dunce also saw Transamerica while I chose lowbrow comedy (Green Wing, Arrested Development, the American version of The Office). Of course this meant we didn't sleep on the return flight; thanks to that yesterday was a complete blur, and our 8:30 bedtime took forever to arrive.

We were graciously hosted by Mrs. Dunce's oldest friend who took time out of her busy schedule at the Peace Corps (especially busy as she has some responsibilities for East Timor) to hang out with us. And her boyfriend (although I heard her use the F-word on one occasion) who drives their apartment's only blog. Our main purpose for attending was the wedding of another of Mrs. Dunce's old friends, but we also managed to cruise through an impressive assortment of activities in our short visit.

I have to start with food, mainly because I'm a serial eater. Bring on those American-sized portions, that's my cry. We started on the eve of Cinco de Mayo at a Mexican restaurant; even though we now have a decent option in London, good Mexican is our first choice elsewhere as well. Mrs. Dunce and I are so closely tuned to each other that we ordered exactly the same thing, gigantic crab enchilada and a margarita (rocks, salt). Um about those American-sized portions, maybe not such a great idea for someone who's just eaten an airplane breakfast. The next morning we got in the car and headed for Bethesda, where Matuba Sushi awaited us. They offer a lunch special: all the sushi you can eat for a mere $11.95. From the "only rotary sushi bar in the DC metro area". Needless to say this was problematic for anyone lacking in willpower (that's me); the only solution was an afternoon nap. After which we headed out to the home of another of Mrs. Dunce's old friends (the capital area seems to be crawling with them) where we somehow managed to eat yet again.

It's starting to sound like our visit was only about eating, but we did some museuming as well. Like the new National Museum of the American Indian. I liked the approach of their displays, taking a central theme (e.g. history, cosmology, contemporary identity) and putting together parallel displays on that theme from different tribes from different parts of the Americas. And, (whoops, here I go back to food again) the museum restaurant was truly amazing. Our hosts had already mentioned how good it was, but I had no idea. The cafe is called Mitsitam, which means "Let's eat" in a local Indian language, and features a whole range of indigenous foods, grouped geographically (Northern Woodlands, South American, Meso America, the Great Plains, and the Northwest Coast and Columbia Plateau). I had an excellent black bean tamale; Mrs. Dunce a crab salad sandwich. Other choices included buffalo, venison, salmon, plus a whole variety of side dishes also generally representing the various locales (here are a couple of reviews).

Well, I've come to the end of my allotted time today, and I haven't even mentioned baseball or street numbering/naming conventions. I guess I need to threaten another DC entry next time.

Regular readers will no doubt be dismayed to discover that, of all the various recurring themes (that) I've suggested (that) will appear here, I've decided to revisit the junk that's appeared through our mail slot (previous entry HERE if you are masochistic). It's been two weeks since that entry, and a mountain of junk has made its way into our entryway (thanks to the good weather and the holiday period, no doubt).

Clearly springtime has brought with it a boom in home improvement services which again were the most common (12 pieces). The highlight in this category was a fairly high-quality corrugated cardboard "SOLD" sign (about A5 size, 6.5" x 8") by an estate agency clearly desperate to grab business away from Winkworth. This category also yielded our first expenditure as a direct result of letterbox spamming, to which I'll return later. The next most popular category was taxi services (6 pieces), although there was massive duplication in this category: three cards each from two different car services (one card for each member of the household including the cat). Restaurants were surprisingly low (6 pieces), and mostly from establishments that have already donated excess paper to us in the past month. Only a couple of election-related items made it through (one Labour, one Conservative) despite the approaching local elections. I guess it's true: they don't want us to vote. One more dodgy clothing collection company, "Island of Hope Ltd", although the fact that they are a commercial enterprise rather than a charity is mentioned much more prominently than the previously-mentioned "Silverwall Ltd.". They also include reference to a website (HERE) which does not entirely allay my suspicions. We also got five miscellaneous ads from shops that I don't have the energy to describe any further.

I think my favorite this time around is the two self-improvement ads from "Professor" Uossof who claims to be "one of the best International Marabouts in Spiritual Healer and Advisor", helping you "solve all your problems regarding Black Magic, Sexual, Exam, Love, Voodoo, Transactions in Business and Self Spirits, Unwanted Union or to bring Lover back from Dark to Bright way". He did at least have the (no doubt psychic) insight to leave us two ads, one for me and one for the lady of the house.

We did make one purchase in this period based on letterbox spam, but this is an unusual circumstance. Our local authority is part of the government's recycling initiative called WRAP (it's unclear what the acronym represents), and is encouraging home composting by offering cut-price home composting bins (details of the program HERE, but we learned about it from the flyer through our postbox). We were one of "nearly 200" households in our area who jumped on the offer of a large compost bin at the knockdown price of £6. So now we will be collecting foul household waste in the back garden for a few weeks before we grow tired of the process and ask the Landlord to take it away and get rid of the smell.

Score for the past two weeks:
14 days, 34 pieces of advertising (2.4/day)

Score so far:
35 days, 64 pieces of advertising (1.8/day)
Total amount spent by the Dunces based on letterbox advertising: £6 (17 pence/day)

A few weeks ago I started keeping the various pieces of junk/advertising that have been shoved through our mail slot (first post here), and now that two more weeks of junk have built up, it's time to see what it looks like again. Last time the mail slot was dominated by restaurants' delivery menus, but in the past two weeks we only received four more menus (three for pizza places [one of which featured kebabs on equal billing], one for miscellaneous Oriental). None of which look remotely good (although I was amused at all the spelling errors on the "Basil Pizza" menu. Fata cheese, read onion and vagetable lasagne indeed. You'd think they'd check the spelling given all the money they're spending on their menus).

This time the most prolific category was in home services. I count the three cards from the same taxi service as three items, therefore giving a total of 11 home service offerings. These included satellite TV, a "local & reliable window cleaner", a company offering to cut our utility bills by a lot, a telephone company, a catalog from a DIY shop, a freight/courier company ("we offer our services very efficiently and courteously that 99% of our customers keep coming back with the same testimony", and "the Quality of our services endears us to ALL." although I am not sure how these are quantified. Their flyer advertises rates to Nigeria, Ghana, and Others on request), and an estate agent who seems to have our street wrapped up. But the big winner in the "selling through fear" sweepstakes is the London Gate Company of Chigwell whose flyer shrieks (not literally, but just about) "WHY WAIT TO BE BURGLED?" (obvious follow-up "...WHEN YOU CAN BE ROBBED STRAIGHT AWAY?").

There were three items of political content (local elections are coming soon). In addition to "The Londoner", a monthly newspaper (20 pages this month) from the beloved Red Ken, Mayor of London, the Conservatives have been out on foot in the neighborhood, (perhaps) vainly trying to shake loose the entrenched Labour council. In a genteel and measured manner, of course ("It's a two-horse race, and Labour is the Donkey!" and so on). I'm sure we'll see more of these in the next month; we'll just have to see who does the most footwork.

Only a few pieces of self-improvement junk post this time. Two were very brightly colored and of a religious nature, advertising the Joyous Hour of Worship at the Redeemed Christian Church of God at the Lord's Sanctuary (opposite Argos Stores). Heavily Nigerian judging from the names (and perhaps the fact that they offer services in Yoruba. On the other hand they also feature Portuguese; I'm not quite sure where that fits in). But the last was an especially good one: a high-quality multi-color flyer from a home learning college. Prominently featuring the phrase I'm looking for when making my educational choices, "AS SEEN ON TV". It also features a statement that all successful students are referred to a (particular) recruitment agency. All I can say is, sign me up!

Score so far: 21 days, 30 pieces of advertising.
Total amount spent by the Dunces based on letterbox advertising: £0.

On Wednesday Mrs. Dunce and I went to the nearby London Drinker beer festival. Our visits to other London beer festivals in recent history (Great British Beer Festival last summer, Battersea Beer Festival in February) have been somewhat less than ideal as we chose to attend the Friday evening session, along with thousands of other like-minded souls who had no doubt been working for the weekend. Both previous festivals seemed impressively overcrowded (I might point out here that I do suffer from a teeny bit of anxiety among crowds of people), and even worse, the selection of drink was seriously reduced by the time Friday rolled around (I think both of these festivals started on Wednesday). At the Battersea festival we were reduced to mopping up various liquids on the floor and wringing the mop into our glasses (or at least, reduced to drinking FOREIGN beer because all the British ales, ciders and perries were long gone). So we decided that our visit to the London Drinker would be on Wednesday, the first night rather than the last.

Unfortunately even on a Wednesday it was quite crowded (exacerbated by the number of wise souls who clustered at the serving areas to enjoy their drinks, rather than moving along so that others could be served). Worse, it seemed like the festival organizers had adopted a slow-release approach to the drinks on offer; it seemed like half (or less) of the beers listed in the guide (LIST link) were actually available. Good for visitors later in the week, not so good for us (Mrs. Dunce was particularly sad that the Damson Porter (official link, one review) by Burton Bridge was not on offer). We did, however, come across quite a few beers that we really enjoyed. It seemed like there were a lot more dark beers than lighter ones, and a real boom in milds on offer (mild has seen quite a renaissance recently. Here's a general description and some examples).

Our vote for the winner was one of the milds:Pig on the Wall Mild although I also enjoyed the Malt Shovel Mild quite a bit. My real favorite was from the FOREIGN department (maybe I shouldn't admit this while my application for British nationality is being considered): a German smoked beer, Schlenkerla Bock Rauchbier. There were quite a few rauchbiers on offer, which I take as an enouraging development.

We left fairly early -- it was just too crowded. But we can hardly take the less-crowded alternative (the festivals are usually also open for lunchtime/afternoon sessions) as our employers may not appreciate this sort of behavior.

Just about every day, some sort of advertising material gets stuffed through our mail slot. It's mostly adverts for restaurants that deliver to the area, but all sorts of other things appear as well. The only way to deliver this sort of advertising material is on foot, and I wondered just how much of it we're getting, and how effective it is at targeting the Dunce household as customers. Starting last week, I began saving these adverts and keeping track of them. It's been a cold week, temperatures hovering not far above freezing, so I expected a lower yield than usual. After the first week, here's how it looks.

As expected, the majority (6) were for restaurants offering home delivery. Three Indian restaurants, two pizza places (including the home of the BLT pizza, "No. 1 in USA"), and one Chinese. One of the Indian restaurant menus went into the "food drawer" for consideration on the rare occasions we order food at home, as we still haven't come across any places that deliver to our house and are any good at all.

Of the others, two fall into the "self-help" category, offering the kind of help that isn't really appreciated by the Dunces who are both gainfully employed and have no big ideas about starting a business ("Whether you want to set up as a fashion designer, recording studio or market stall trader [company name] can HELP YOU!" and "We can help you develop the skills and confidence to find employment""). And the last is one of those quasi-charitable-but-actually-commercial clothing collection "services", Silverwall Ltd., "a collection company who provide people in third world countries with clothes for their families they can afford". Yes, they collect clothes so they can sell them in third world countries. Interestingly, a google search for this company name yielded one lonely result: a person whose efforts at cataloguing "letterbox spam" puts my first week to shame (link).

Score so far: 7 days, 9 pieces of advertising.
Total amount spent by the Dunces based on letterbox advertising: £0.

There's a new cola beverage being advertised in these parts lately. As the Pepsi website puts it, this product is an answer to a dilemma that I am sure is not being faced by millions of Brits daily: "Most difficult question of the day--cola or coffee?". The solution to this frequently-nonexperienced dilemma is now available thanks to Pepsi: Pepsi Max Cino, "The UK's first ever coffee-flavoured cola". As an open-minded fan of beverages of all sorts, I had to try one as soon as I saw it on sale. Wow. I've not had such an unpleasant beverage experience since my run-in with brussels sprout flavored Thanksgiving soda from Jones. The Pepsi Max Cino had a sickly-sweet flavor (it's sugar-free, but has far too much artificial sweetners), and the coffee and cola flavors did not exactly get along together. It tasted highly medicinal, and I wasn't able to drink much more than the optimistically large mouthful I eventually managed to choke down. Next time I have to face the aforementioned most difficult question of the day and am unable to come to a decision, I think I'll do any coffee/cola mixing myself.

Come to think of it, maybe I didn't like it just because I often drink flavored coffee. Maybe they just need to add another flavor: my suggestion would be Pepsi Max Cino + Hazelnut.

Well, a few posts ago (HERE, in fact) I raved enthusiastically about El Panzon, and called it the best Mexican food in London. Well, since then there has been even more raving, and two more visits (including last night, when we convinced a third party to come along). If anything, we are even more enthusiastic now, despite ambience that is, shall we say, severely lacking. We've ordered a variety of things on the menu by now, and I have to say nothing has been any worse than "good". It's true, due to our eating habits we haven't ventured onto the "flesh" section of the menu, but last night our carnivorous friend took care of that. Now he too has been added to the enthusiastic raving club. I believe his words were "I've waited 11 years for good Mexican food in London. Now I can live here forever".

And due to some very unfortunate confusion about which Thursday we were planning to visit, it looks like we will have to go there again next Thursday. I suspect there will be a few more converts this time next week.

One of the great things about living in London is all the unusual international food that's available here. Quite often we see something unusual and can't resist having a try. This week was fruit week, as Mrs. Dunce came across a "honey pomelo" at our local Turkish shop. Neither of us had heard of a pomelo before, so we had no idea what to expect. It was fairly round and of a light orange color. And it was very large, about the size of my head (and not just any hat will fit me). We figured it must be some sort of melon, and chopped it open to reveal... well it was not a melon at all. Instead it's definitely a citrus fruit, perhaps intended for a giant (gigantic segments, with very thick, heavy pith [or whatever you call the icky inedible stuff between segments of citrus fruits). It smelled a lot like a grapefruit, and tasted like one too (slightly less tart, but gradually increasing as we ate more of it, even with a sprinkling of brown sugar). For more information we turned to my favorite food-related book by far, McGee on Food and Cooking¹. McGee didn't list "pomelo" but we came across "pummelo" in the Citrus section. Pomelo/pummelo, botanically known as citrus maxima originally comes from southeast Asia. It's in fact the ancestor of the grapefruit (which developed in Barbados in the 18th century, apparently the product of spontaneous miscegenation between pomelo and orange.). We're still not sure what it was doing in our local Turkish shop.

¹You can get a good idea about why I like McGee on Food so much from Amazon's "Statistically Improbable Phrases" (SIPs) that are listed for it. Among them are "savory amino acids", "collagen into gelatin", "buttery diacetyl", "browning enzymes", "noncrystalline candies", "chlorinated flour", "aroma molecules", "gelatin molecules", "continuous meshwork", "antioxidant phenolic compounds", "wood decomposers". Yes, it's a highly scientific treatment of food, but with plenty of historical and practical information provided as well.

Good Mexican food is something that has been inexplicably lacking in London for a long time, but things seem to be gradually changing for the better (in particular, "El Panzon" in the Hobgoblin pub in Brixon, and "Mestizo" on the Hampstead Road near Euston. More on those two in a future entry when I have time to give them proper credit). And Mexican food is much beloved in the Dunce household. So I was quite excited to notice that a new Mexican restaurant had recently opened in our general vicinity, and last night we finally managed to pay them a visit.

And gosh, it's a bad start because I can't even remember the name! Fortunately some determined Googling led me to the answer: El C.Panchos (ELC Panchos? ELC Pancho's? El C. Pancho's?), 21-23 Green Lanes (just off Newington Green). We arrived around 9:00 on a Sunday evening to find it open, but entirely deserted. Perhaps Sunday is an especially quite night, but more likely nobody knows about it (its location isn't ideal for passing trade, and who knows whether they've had any publicity). They do serve a fine margarita (and have a two-for-one happy hour M-Th until 8pm), but the big question was the food. The first step, chips and salsa, didn't answer any questions: the chips came from a bag, and the salsa wasn't anything special. We were a little concerned about what the "real" food might be like, especially as they hedged their bets with a number of "American grill" menu options (burgers, onion rings, catfish). Such diversification often spells trouble for the Mexican side of the menu, and indeed Mrs. Dunce was drawn to the dark side. Being a Southern girl at heart, she couldn't resist ordering the blackened catfish, served "hillbilly style" with cheese and jalapeño peppers. Not very blackened, and somewhat overwhelmed by the sauce. But as this has nothing in particular to do with Mexican food, I'll let it pass. My choice, on the other hand, was a cactus chimichanga (served with Mexican rice on the side). Very tasty indeed and nicely done. Finally, our dining companion (a gentleman with some Southwestern dining experience under his belt) had a chicken burrito which he found "decent but nothing special". I'll have to give it a rating of "Promising" for now; one good dish is not enough to warrant a full recommendation. Perhaps we'll make another visit to make a fully-informed decision. In the meantime, though, we need to pay another visit to the Hobgoblin. Just writing about it is making me hungry.

Last night we decided to set out for parts unknown, in order to pay a visit to the very recently opened Pembury Tavern. Publicity for the Pembury is very limited at the moment: of the 63 main results of a Google search, only a single one (from beerintheevening) actually indicates that the Pembury is actually open for business. Even the small pubco running the show seem to be keeping it secret; their website only says "The Pembury Tavern is not yet open; we hope to open in September 2005." (some construction photos are cleverly hidden here). Nonetheless, we decided to pay it a visit on the strength of the promised "up to 16 real ales", as well as its accessibility from our home (short [free] train ride, or not-so-long bus ride, both essentially door-to-door). It's been closed for some time, and the upper floors have been converted into flats. First impressions were that it didn't look so much like a pub from the outside; frosted windows did read "Pembury Tavern", but the doors looked very un-pub-like. The side doors were also locked; perhaps making it unclear to unknowing passersby that the pub was actually open for business. Inside, it's absolutely huge, and its size was further magnified by the light-colored walls, overly-bright lights, and lack of customers (only one small group was there when we arrived, and there were never more than 10 customers at any time, including the 3 or 4 at our table). It's furnished with (giant) wood-top tables and your typical collection of chairs varying in shape and size. It was also incredibly quiet (not only because of the few customers, but also there was no music, no TV, at times no sound whatsoever). It's also non-smoking throughout, which meant a NYC-style temporary exit for certain members of our party at regular intervals.

As promised, however, the beer selection was impressive. I believe all 16 handpumps were in service, each dispensing a different real ale product. An assortment from the Milton brewery (including my favorite, Sparta), but also a goodly number from other brewers. One real cider on hand (Weston's Old Rosie, I believe, but I didn't taste it as I prefer a dry cider). Budvar is also available for those who absolutely require a lager fix, and there were an assortment of bottled products I didn't inspect at all. We stayed until the call of "last orders" (which actually wasn't much of a call, but more of a mutter as we were the only remaining customers), then hopped on the bus for home.¹. It was a very enjoyable evening even though the pub was empty, and I'm sure we'll be back in the future for more. I just hope there is a little more publicity in the very near future.

¹The bus ride home was very odd. Mainly because of the antics of the driver. Most notably, for the last few stops before our exit, he was engaged in a spirited arm-wrestling match with a very young girl (who had her arm through the cash window). He was at a disavantage because he was arm-wrestling left-handed, but also because he was trying to drive the bus at the same time. I was quite happy (and somewhat surprised) when we managed to get off the bus without incident.

Last night Mrs. Dunce and I made yet another visit to our Local, one of the things I seem to blog about most often (Local-themed posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). It was fairly early on a Sunday evening, but the place was deserted even for that time of day. Only a handful of regulars were gathered around the bar watching one of the FA Cup David v. Goliath matches (Burton Albion 0, Manchester United 0). It's always distressing to see a favorite business establishment so empty, but mitigating factors may have played a role (for example, the detox regimen adopted by so many people for the first week or two after the new year).

One such factor may be the very recent opening of the Pembury Tavern in Hackney, formerly one of the many examples of dead pubs in London. After a lengthy refurbishment, it seems to have re-opened this past weekend with practically no publicity; the only mentions I've seen so far are a very recent entry on beerintheevening.com ("[a] completely non-smoking environment in which to enjoy up to sixteen real ales"), and a couple of recent blog updates from Steve ("timeplease") who (it seems) has been putting in loads of work to getting it ready). But this minimal publicity is quite enough for me; we will definitely be making a visit in the very near future.

The Dunces had a nice Christmas at home this year, featuring lots of cooking considering there were just two of us (not counting the cat who did not partake of any of our holiday cookery).

We started with a sweet breakfast of sticky rolls. These were cinnamon rolls, made from a slightly sweet dough, then loaded with a maple syrup and pecan sauce, and baked until a lot of the sugary sauce escaped from the springform pan (whoops!) and filled the house with the smell of burning sugar (and loads of smoke for a short time). Fortunately the rolls didn't suffer, and the self-cleaning oven did its job on the charred mess.

We coasted through the day on additional sticky rolls and assorted snacks before the main Christmas dinner, which contained exactly zero items I would have even considered tasting at a younger age (but which turned out to be fantastic):

Strudel thingys: For this dish we boiled and mashed a couple of sweet potatoes (choosing carefully to get orange sweet potatoes instead of various incredibly-starchy white-fleshed root vegetables that are also called "sweet potatoes" around here). To this we added some sliced leeks (cooked in butter), roasted red peppers (from a jar; we did not roast them. This time) and chopped feta cheese and pecans (one of two ingredients in the whole meal a younger Dunce would have considered eating). After mixing these, we rolled them up in sheets of filo dough (they looked a lot like burritos at this stage), topped them with poppy seeds, then popped them in the freezer to solidify. After a couple hours of freezing we baked them. Mmmmmmmmm.

We also had some roasted vegetables: parsnips and butternut squash, cut into longish strips. A little bit of oil, some sea salt, and a bunch of thyme, and a long while in the oven made them roastily delicious.

And then it was the brussels sprouts. I'd eaten these guys only once or twice before, and I think I had a perfect record of retching to date (each instance of brussels sprout eating also included at least one instance of retching). So I may have been a little bit hesitant, but Opal Dunce was somewhat insistent upon this British Christmas standard. Imagine my surprise when they were really wonderful (pan-browned in butter with slices of garlic and pine nuts).

And for dessert, we had a HOME-MADE cheesecake (topped with raspberries, the other ingredient a younger me would have eaten). This was Opal's first home-made cheesecake (although I helped with the mixing, Opal should be given full credit for this one), and perhaps brought us some stress as the process was not entirely smooth. It was meant to be baked at 180 (C), and we are sure that the oven was set to 180 at least at the beginning of the first baking phase. But somehow (perhaps by an accidental brushing against the temperature dial, perhaps by a ghost, perhaps kitty-sabotage) the cooking commenced at 130 instead. So it really didn't solidify until we rectified the error (after two baking cycles had been completed). As it turns out, cooking a cheesecake at 130 for the designated time, followed by 180 for (nearly) the designated time, was a reasonable success. So after a shortened cooling period (supposed to be 8 hours, but we didn't want to stay up until 4am waiting for dessert), we tucked in. Yum, yum.

Today, Boxing Day, will safely be a day of leftovers. But tasty, tasty leftovers. And of course the servants can have their holiday as well now.

I guess the BLT pizza. while not showing many signs of actually being the "#1 pizza in USA", is still reasonably well-known at least in certain parts of the USA. For some reason my attention has repeatedly returned to various different and unusual pizzas and pizza toppings. For example, it struck me as very unusual that sweetcorn (just "corn" to US readers) is such a popular pizza topping here in the UK. I was also very confused by one vendor's "Indiana" pizza (primary ingredient: tandoori chicken); as a Hoosier born and raised in Indiana, I couldn't figure out what tandoori chicken has to do with Indiana. As it turns out, my Indiana bias led me to ignore the general properties of pizza name formation in the Italian tradition: "Indian + a" (I leave it to the reader to speculate on a pizza topping that accurately reflects Indiana [sweetcorn, perhaps?]). And some of our recent family holiday conversation turned around my brother's German experience of Pizza mit Polyp. Sounds disgusting indeed until you realize that "Polyp" is simply Tintenfisch aka octopus (Well, I suppose some people may find an octopus pizza just as disgusting as a polyp pizza).

With my perhaps excessive interest in pizzas, my attention naturally turns to northeast England, in particular Stockton-on-Tees, town where the friction match was invented, and home of the least prototypical pizzas that I have personally experienced (i.e., "been in the same room with"; not necessarily "eaten"). I will start with the Tropicana which starts with an ordinary pizza (mozzarella, tomato sauce, mushrooms, ham, and perhaps slices of onion if I recall correctly), and then takes the Hawaiian experience that much further by including not only pineapple but also tender slices of banana. It's sort of like dinner and dessert all in one, and why not -- it's all heading to the same place. I didn't try any, although I guess I could have picked off the ham (and maybe the bananas too).

Next on the menu is the Doner Pizza, of which I also claim personal experience despite not consuming any of it,¹ as several pieces were threateningly brandished in my direction. The doner pizza is essentially an attempt to project the three-dimensional doner kebab onto a two-dimensional surface. The typical ingredients of a doner kebab are not all represented in doner pizza. Included are lamb sliced from a massive meat cylinder which one hopes has been kept at a suitably high temperature; spicy chili (or "chilli") sauce, and some variant of tzatziki sauce both of which are poured generously onto the giant heap of meat (by the way, the "heap" ruins the mathematical purity of the doner pizza as a 2-d projection). Which in turn rests on an ordinary pizza crust (taking the place of the traditional pita). Not included on the doner pizza are any members of the vegetable family. The doner pizza is a great improvement upon the ordinary doner kebab as, erm, well, hmmmmm. Let me get back to you on that one.

But next up is the true wonder of the pizza world. The London Pizza is an amazing step toward making the ordinary pizza into a complete meal on its own. How often have you ordered a pizza and a portion of chips (a.k.a. "french fries" or "deep fried potatoes") and wished you could eat them at the same time? Well, the London Pizza allows you to do just that. It starts with an ordinary cheese pizza (mozzarella, tomato sauce) upon which is heaped a giant portion of chips fresh out of the fryer. On top of the chips, if you're lucky, some sauce (either chili/chilli sauce [as above] or creamy garlic sauce). If you're unlucky, just try and choke them down "dry" (not really dry, as they will have retained some portion of the frying oil that has not soaked into the crust, and then into the box, and then into whatever the box is sitting on). I've experienced the London Pizza twice (the first time, doubly-sauced [the pizza, not me]; the second, dry as a bone), and I can say that if you ever face the decision of "sauce or no sauce" on your own London Pizza, please choose whatever sauce is at hand. Oddly, I have not yet been able to find a "London Pizza" in London proper, but I guess they'd just call it "pizza" here.


¹Feel free to attempt a less awkward and more grammatically correct syntactic rendering of this ugly modifying clause with its nasty dual co-referential "of"s and their unpleasant pronominal partners "which" and "it".

We get a lot of flyers for fast food delivery through our mail slot. Sadly, most of them are incredibly underwhelming and, if anything, make me dream of the nutrient capsules we will be eating instead of food in the future. But once in a while there will be a gem. Maybe not a gem of the "good food" sort, but a gem nonetheless.

Today's gem is a piece of information concerning American pizza preferences, brought to you by "Top Pizza" of Stamford Hill ("Top Pizza Special": beef, pepperoni, onion, mushroom, green peppers, ham & sweetcorn). What do you think is the "No. 1 in USA" pizza? Before seeing the definitive information provided by the authorities at Top Pizza, my guesses would have been something like this:

1. Pepperoni
2. Sausage
3. Cheese

And misinformation provided by pizzaware.com seems to confirm my guesses to some extent: "Pepperoni is by far America's favorite topping, (36% of all pizza orders). Approximately 251,770,000 pounds of pepperoni are consumed on pizzas annually. Other popular pizza toppings are mushrooms, extra cheese, sausage, green pepper and onions.". Fortunately this kind of misguided thinking has been debunked by Top Pizza who clearly describe one particular pizza as "No. 1 in USA"). That pizza is (drum roll please.....)











Of course it is .... the BLT. Bacon, lettuce & fresh tomatoes. Nothing we Americans like better than the BLT pizza. A Google search reveals only 737 hits for "BLT Pizza", but I assume most of the vendors have given it a zingier name for advertising purposes (or to integrate it more completely into their line of less popular pizza products). I am not sure whether the crust is made of lettuce (you know, to catch all those Atkins stragglers who haven't heard yet), or whether it contains mayonnaise (an additional requirement of the BLT despite its uncredited appearance). And I'm not sure how well the BLT translates into Britain where bacon is of a decidedly different nature (thick and soft rather than thin and crispy). Nonetheless, BLT enthusiasts rejoice; your pizza is No. 1 in USA!!!

Last night Opal Dunce and I had the opportunity to travel to west London to see a gig¹ at one of our favorite venues: Bush Hall (venue site)². One of the added benefits to visiting the area is an excellent restaurant, Abu Zaad. It's a Syrian restaurant, apparently the only one in London. Back in 2002 when the "Axis of Evil" was extended to also include Cuba, Syria and Libya (BBC article), we saw a report on Channel Four News in which a reporter visited "the only Syrian restaurant in London" to get comments from the newly-appointed ambassadors of Evil. We were interested, not only in brazenly benefiting the spread of evil through capitalism, but also in eating the delicious meals that fill the tummies of evil people. When we finally went, we didn't see much evil, just quite a few local people (plus your occasional table of BBC employees) and our own table full of, well I am getting ahead of myself.

Abu Zaad is especially well-reviewed on london-eating.co.uk (9/10 on food, 8/10 on service, 8/10 on atmosphere, 8.8/10 on value). I would also include a link to a Time Out review but they only give a teaser for free: "A local restaurant for local people, and in Shepherd’s Bush that means Sudanese, Levantines, more Sudanese, westerners... and they all seem to be on first-name terms with the staff. Abu Zaad...". To read more you must sign up for a "free trial promotion" ("When you sign up during a free trial promotion you will be asked to supply your credit card details, however your credit card will not be charged until the free trial period has expired." How irritating). Anyway, we've now visited there going on ten times (I'd say) so now I feel quite ready to write about it myself. The mains on the menu are quite meat-heavy; there are a couple of veggie and fish options, but we have never bothered as the starter options are so great. We've found ourselves in a bit of a routine where we order (exactly) six of the starters (each priced at £2-3), which is plenty of food and a lot of variety as well. It's always a bit of a difficult decision which of the choices will make up our six. It always includes cheese sambouseks, batata harra (spicy potatoes with peppers), [ummm, I can't remember the name, but it includes pasta, lentils, fried onions, fried bread, mmmmm]. Sometimes also including spinach fatayer (a sort of squishy filled bready product, ready to be drizzled with lemon juice and mmmmm), hummus, falafel, stuffed vine leaves, baba ghanoush, and an assortment of others. All washed down with a nice glass of mint tea. Did I say mmmmm? And it always comes to less than £20 (we also seem to gobble our food like mad, so we don't spend very long there either. When it comes down to it, the food is quite similar to other eastern Mediterranean locales, and I have to say not evil at all. I can't wait till the next show at Bush Hall or Shepherds Bush Empire brings us back to Abu Zaad (it may be a while. Nothing good on the horizon, I'm not interested in seeing, say, Jethro Tull [and besides, they aren't playing until March]).




¹ We saw South San Gabriel (band site), a fantastic band I'd never seen live before (although I have heard some recordings of their live material. I felt compelled to attend and buy merchandise not only because I liked what I heard, but because they are one of those groups who don't seem to mind people recording their shows and sharing them online for free). On this tour they were performing the songs from their new CD "The Carlton Chronicles: Not Until The Operation’s Through". Perhaps a rock opera, definitely a concept album as it is the story of a cat, told from the cat's perspective (I will ruin the ending by telling you all "the cat survives"). Once they finished with the cat business (apparently this was the last show on the "cat tour" of Europe) they did play some other songs not of a feline persuasion. I am rubbish at writing about music but I will say this: the sound was very layered: multiple guitars (acoustic, electric, pedal steel), keyboards and a few effects. What I could catch of the lyrics... very interesting and seemed to be on the intelligent side (I should note that I have a lot of trouble hearing and/or paying attention to lyrics in general). All in all a really good show. A friend of ours who also goes to lots of gigs (her personal site) called it her gig of the year. As far as I am concerned, it didn't quite top Sufjan Stevens, Curtis Eller, Swearing At Motorists, but it was definitely in the top ten (gosh, I haven't even mentioned M Ward, Broken Family Band, Drive By Truckers, Rufus Wainwright, Danny Barnes, or the Rosinators. Fortunately I haven't had to actually decide upon a top ten).

²An excellent venue indeed. According to the venue's website (info here) it was built "in 1904, [when] a publisher called William C. Hurndall presented a gift in the form of a dance hall to each of his three daughters: Lillian, Eugenie and Olive." It's quite an ornate room (and has served previously as a bingo hall and snooker parlor); general consensus around our table was that it would make a great location for a bingo/disco party. Here is what it takes to hire the place for your own special occasion.

Last Friday the Dunces (and a special guest) had the opportunity to enjoy various pleasures of Eritrea at north London's Zigni House restaurant (Time Out review here, and my own glowing review from a previous visit is here¹). The invitation described it as "...a cultural event, capturing the essence of Eritrean food, drink and cultural traditions in hopes of adding to the already rich and diverse community of Islington Borough." With that sort of description, how could we say no? My brother-in-law The Noblesvillain was in town for the evening at the end of a tour promoting international peace and harmony (or at least high-tech solutions for all aspects of biomedical testing), so he got to come as well.

We got to the restaurant and took our seats, and hung around chatting for a while as the place filled up. All the while people were circulating with home-made Eritrean drinks. A couple different kinds of home-made beer (one of which is "suwa", made from roasted grain), both of which were tasty, quite reminiscent of cider (more so than beer), a honey wine ("mies"), not exactly my preferred flavor but quite well regarded by Mrs. Dunce, and some sort of thick fruit drink tasting of pumpkin or squash, and perhaps celery? It was a strange flavor and we were a little concerned about the Noblevillain, given his history with unfamiliar fruits (a terrible allergic reaction to lychees when he came over for our wedding). Fortunately he was spared on this occasion.

Following a very lengthy settling-in period (and some running around by restaurant staff trying to get a PA system working), the distinguished guests arrived, including the mayor and mayoress of Islington, the Eritrean ambassador, and various religious and media dignitaries. After a couple of speeches by the proprietors, the events began. It started with some sort of food demonstration in the front of the restaurant (ingredients, preparation methods, etc.), for which the guests were divided into three groups. First, the dignitaries got to see the food demonstration while the rest of the guests continued to chat, sip drinks and so on. Then the dignitaries went to a downstairs area for a cooking demonstration and a musical performance (some sort of Eritrean lounge band, as best as I can describe it), while the second group went to the food demonstration. The third group (our group), hung around and waited for a while. And then a while longer. It was not exactly organized and I was beginning to panic a little bit about getting to eat something.

Fortunately all was not lost, as we were entertained by a couple doing some traditional Eritrean dances. Many of the dances seemed to focus upon abrupt head, neck and upper body movements which made the dancers' beaded necklaces jump around (the movements reminded me a lot of popping and locking). After each dance, a quick costume change and another dance. Here's a picture of the dancers: you can just see the male dancer in the background, wearing a very pimp-like costume. This particular dance was especially suggestive with lots of pelvic thrusting and "attempted groping" (and the Mayor's face showed a suitable level of disapproval, if only for a few moments).


When the dancers finished, it was finally our turn to get up from our seats, although the food demonstration had seemingly finished by then. But never mind the demonstration as a buffet full of real food was in place, so we filled up our plates and began to gorge ourselves. As in our previous visit to Zigni House, the food was fantastic (and somehow I managed not to eat myself into a state of foundering or illness). I won't go into specifics about the food as it's quite the same story as before (link). As we finished, the dignitaries came upstairs for their food, so we took the opportunity to see what was going on down there for ourselves. At first, not much (the band was taking a break), but eventually they took the stage again (electronic keyboard with drum machine, electric krar [a sort of lyre], and electric bass) and played a few electric/lounge versions of classic Eritrean songs (hard to say much about this as none of us had the linguistic background to understand the lyrics). The Eritrean cooking continued, and occasionally someone would come around with one dish or another to sample (too bad we had already eaten our fill).

Finally we came back upstairs for another dance performance and a coffee ceremony. Although, due to the large number of guests the coffee ceremony was not so ceremonial. Ordinarily the green coffee beans are washed, then roasted and the aroma wafted under the noses of the awaiting coffee drinkers, only after which are the beans ground and added to boiling water. The coffee is quite strong and is served with a bit of sugar (and popcorn / roasted nuts and grain). Although I didn't know it at the time, proper coffee ceremony behavior is to have a minimum of three cups, complimenting the taste after each (and it is rude to leave beforehand!). Mrs. Dunce and I only had one (the first round is called "awol"), and the Noblesvillain was marginally less rude, having a second ("kale eyti"). None of us had a third ("bereka") and definitely not a fourth ("derdja"). I think our (ignorant) rudeness was not noted, however, as the coffee was being served to so many people at once. Besides, so much strong coffee so late in the evening? It would have been a jittery, insomniac disaster.

Noblesvillain (left) and Dunce, ready for coffee:


The event definitely had the intended impact on us. We're definitely going back, sooner rather than later, and are doing all we can to encourage other people to visit Zigni House as well. Mmmmmmmmmm!

¹ My previous review of the restaurant appears to be the reason we were invited in the first place. Not many reviews of Zigni House appear online, and mine was especially enthusiastic. Plus the (email) invitation matched up with a visitor who had made his/her way to my blog via Google a few minutes beforehand. Although I'm not looking for payola, I sure don't mind this kind of benefit of blogging. Don't worry, you won't see a sudden boom in restaurant reviews as I don't plan to start trolling for free food and drink.

When we first moved to our new neighborhood we were quite pleased to be in close proximity to the Oakdale Arms, which we quickly settled upon as our local. I've previously been quite pleased at their online presence, particularly the ability to check an up-to-date list of the beers they have in stock (see my eager post here). And how can I complain about their beer festival practically on our doorstep? (Well I suppose I could have complained about the Umbel Magna which smelled like urine and tasted like tincture according to Mrs. Dunce, but it was her drink and not mine.) But crisis arrived in the form of a planning application, under which the pub would be demolished. The committee report after the first meeting sounded quite grim (casually dismissing most of the reasons given by people opposing the plans), but there was some hope as the decision was deferred pending a visit by the committee. I guess that visit happened, and something must have gone well because now I see a user comment on beerintheevening which reads as follows:

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S ! ! !

The planning application for the Oakdale's demolition appears to have been defeated on 31/10/2005 - await formal confirmation. If this is confirmed, this is the great news we have all been waiting for.

If this is true, this is excellent news indeed. And what better way to celebrate it than the next Oakdale Beer Festival (15-22 Nov, about 40 different beers, plus cider and perry). We'll have to fit in a visit before we jet off for our Thanksgiving holiday.

ADDED:
According to the planning permission site, permission has indeed been refused. But the listed reasons for refusal do not include anything to do with the pub itself, but seem to have more to do with the imposing nature of the proposed building. So it may be only a reprieve while the owners revise their plans. Anyway, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Hallowe'en in London is a strange sort of holiday, as it's taken on certain elements of US Halloween (trick-or-treating, casual vandalism), merged with elements of Guy Fawkes Night ("penny for the guy", fireworks). Despite Halloween-themed displays in all sorts of shops, plenty of pumpkins for sale, etc. it doesn't seem to have caught on so well (I've certainly not seen many jack-o-lanterns, for example.). As far as I can see, it's celebrated only by:

1. A very small number of parents of very small children, who take them on the London version of trick-or-treating (for comparison, my brother's account of the Young Bee's first Halloween can be found HERE). Unlike the typical US home on Halloween, no one is equipped with bags of candy for such visitors, so they have to make do with the modern version of the "penny for the guy" (minus the effigy, plus a 2000%+ markup as to give only a penny would be an insult). And due to the unwillingness of city dwellers to open their doors to strangers at nights (and also perhaps to maximize the reward:effort ratio), they tend to visit public locations such as shopping centres, train stations and pubs. Mrs. Dunce and I saw two such trick-or-treaters at the Local last night (where I appear to have earned the nickname "Spartan" due to my preference for Milton's Sparta, a very tasty [hoppy] beer in the Ancient Cities series). They looked to be in the under-eight age group and were wearing costumes (well, masks at least) and wandered around the regulars at the front of the pub, shaking them down for cold hard cash. I prepared to make our own donation (20p each) but they didn't make it back to our section. They may have been thrown out of the pub (after all, children shouldn't be in a pub at that hour), they may have gathered too much money to be able to carry any more, or they may have been children of another regular (and thus only administered the trick-or-treat shakedown to known individuals).

Halloween:
+ Wear costumes
+ Say "trick or treat"
- Collect money not candy
- Unlikely to "trick" if treats are not given
- Not scary

Guy Fawkes:
+ "Penny for the guy"
- No fire
- No effigy
- No explosives

2. Feral teenagers, who also participate in a trick-or-treat-like activity. In this instance they dispense with the costumes (or rather, they wear the year-round costume of hooded sweatshirts), but they do go door-to-door, shouting "Trick or treat" and demanding "treats". But more like "Give us 20 quid" than leaving it to the trick-or-treat-ee's discretion. Failure to give them the money? Who knows, it's better not to risk answering the door, although the door/entry/front garden may suffer somewhat. Other activities include throwing fireworks at cycles, cars, trains, basically anything that moves; burning things that will burn (and trying to burn things that will not); drinking alcohol; loitering. Pretty much like any other day, then, with slightly more door-to-door activity.

Halloween:
+ Say "trick or treat"
+ If you don't give a "treat" you may be "tricked"
+ Scary
- They collect money not candy
- Really too old to be trick-or-treating
- No costumes

Guy Fawkes:
+ Demand money
+ May use fire
+ May use explosives
+ Teenagers are thought by many to be plotting the downfall of society
- No effigy

3. University students, who wear costumes to participate in fancy-dress activities such as drunken pub crawls, drunken club nights, drunken scavenger hunts, and drunken drinking. The amount of effort made on male costumes seems to be in direct proportion to the quantity of science-fiction/fantasy material consumed on a regular basis, with a few specific exceptions: Any male may dress in drag regardless of s-f/fantasy tendencies. In such circumstances "comedy drag" (i.e. giant balloon breasts, extreme makeup, etc.) may be employed to prevent passersby from drawing mistaken (?) conclusions about the wearer's sexuality. Also, only members of the royal family (or outlaw bikers, or goths, or Nazis) should wear Nazi regalia. As far as female costumes, the guide from the Onion (2001) still holds: (jpg image)

. Halloween:
+ Full costumes
- No trick-or-treating of any kind
- No vandalism
- Not very scary

Guy Fawkes:
- Spend money not collect it
- No effigy (unless it's a particularly impressive and unusual costume)
- No fire
- No explosives

All in all, I think the feral teenagers are the closest to the (midwestern) spirit of Halloween, AND to the legacy of Guy Fawkes at the same time. Well done to the yoof.

This weekend the Dunces were guests at the wedding of our friends (two lovely people who met at our wedding reception) at the historic and scenic Trafalgar Tavern (famous for its whitebait suppers and apparently the setting for the wedding breakfast in Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens).


Although we were suffering from some undetermined illness (sore throat, light-headedness, coughing and runny noses) so were unable to fully enjoy the event, we still had a really good time. The food was good (unfortunately it did not include whitebait, possibly at the bride's request) and we met a lot of interesting people, as well as catching up with some old friends and the usual gang.

Here are a few photos; please forgive their low quality which should all be blamed upon the photographer. How could I not start with a photo of the couple themselves just after the ceremony. We are in the process of being received by them and I am blocking the receiving line in order to take a picture.


The happy couple then wandered outside for some family photos along the Thames. In this one they are posing with Uncle Horatio (I'm not sure which side of the family he comes from, but he was rather standoffish and didn't say a word to anyone the whole day).


Here are the Dunces in our wedding finery. I am sorry to say we got no pictures that show more detail of Mrs. Dunce's outfit (mine is nothing special as I wear it for every single court appearance and other similar occasion).


Mrs. Dunce and one of her oldest London friends, a Mr. R_______. When I say "oldest" I am not referring to the number of years Mr. R_______ has spent on this earth (although recently he has rather impressively cast off the shackles of 35 and joined many of us in the freedom that 36 can offer) but the duration of friendship (uninterrupted, I should also note):


The wedding was not without its intrusion by paparazzi trying to capture the moment and then cynically sell it off to the highest bidder. Fortunately equipment malfunctions prevented this particular pap from capturing any unauthorized images.



As far as the location, the review on Fancyapint.com says "Anybody who's ever been to Greenwich knows the Trafalgar. It's a huge, handsome pub, well in keeping with its grand and historic surroundings. It's right on the river with views to the north and as a result, is incredibly popular. We usually visit this pub when we're meeting people who are new to the area and then we have to move on. It's not the pub's fault, but the tourist crowds, seemingly packed floor to ceiling, cause us to repair to other establishments, should we require quiet conversation - you'd do the same same in any tourist haunt in any city."

Comments on beerintheevening.com are largely negative (the pub itself earns a passable 5.2/10 rating), but mainly related to the crowds of tourists and the poor state of the toilets. As far as the former goes, hard to say from our perspective as the wedding party had the entire upstairs area (including a small bar, a large dining room/dance floor, and another room which served mainly as the location for the gift table). The toilets, however, were not the best I've seen (nor even "average for a pub"). Quotes from beerintheevening give a good indication of the situation. "There is no excuse for the state they are often in." "The toilets are the filthiest I have seen in a pub for ages." "Never have I been to a pub where the toilets are consistently in such a disgusting state." and so on. My own toilet experience at the Trafalgar Tavern went beyond mere filth; I found myself in what can only be described as my own Fortunato moment. I went into one of the stalls and shut the door. Although it had no latch it seemed to close fairly securely, so I went about my business prepared to shout out if someone else started to enter. Fortunately no such interruption occurred so once my needs had been seen to, I prepared to make my exit (and grand return to the wedding party). But the lack of a latch which had led to my own dismay at the possibility of being interrupted now caused equal dismay as there seemed to be no surface on which my fingers could gain purchase to open the door. For hours I waited for someone else to enter, all the time working at the door, shredding my fingertips to the bone, breaking my spectacles and twisting them into a hook, sharpening my belt buckle on the floor tiles in order to dig out the hinges, then eventually writing messages to loved ones in the filth on the wall before expiring. Or else I opened the door by gaining purchase on its underside with my fingers (despite the caked filth which I spent the next few minutes feverishly washing off my hands).

Um, perhaps this is a bad way to make the transition into giving the bride and groom all my best wishes for the future. But now I have no choice. "To the bride and groom: Best wishes for the future, and may your marriage be like a clean toilet cubicle whose door opens and closes as it is meant to do." Errrr, maybe these wishes should not be thematically related to my own toilet experience. "To the bride and groom: Best wishes for the future; never mind the toilet comments."

Last night I went to a small, low-key bachelor party for a friend of mine who's getting married tomorrow. And all manner of hilarity ensued. Here are just a few of the things that happened.*

... The bride and her friends dressed up like prostitutes in order to spy on the groom, but accidentally found themselves in a room full of Japanese businessmen, with predictable consequences.

... A donkey died from a drug overdose. What's funnier than that?

... A naked man fell out of a hotel window and fell through the roof of a car, right between a couple who were just about to kiss. Whoops!

... Someone with a gun was trying to shoot the guests.

... The groom ended up fighting with the bride's ex in a movie theater. But as the film was being shown in 3d, the audience thought it was just part of the show.

... A nerd fell in love with a transvestite; much hilarity ensued when he discovered the secret.

*When I say "happened", I mean "happened in the 1984 film "Bachelor Party" (starring Tom Hanks, Tawny Kitaen and, errr, Adrian Zmed)", and not in last night's bachelor party which would surely not make a rollicking, good-time movie that stands the test of time. It is a travesty that "Amadeus" received the 1984 Best Picture Oscar, and that "Bachelor Party" was not even nominated. Did "Killing Fields" have any donkey overdoses? Did "A Passage to India" have any fights in movie theaters?! Did "A Soldier's Story" have any characters named "Nick the Dick"? And don't even get me started about "Places in the Heart" and its lack of comedy scenes involving prostitution.

The Dunce household received a couple of letters concerning the fate of our local, the Oakdale Arms, which is under threat of closure and demolition:

Location: Oakdale Arms 283 Hermitage Road N4 1NP

Proposal: Demolition of existing building and erection of a three storey building comprising 4 x 1 bed, 2 x 2 bed, 2 x 3 bed and 1 x 4 bed self contained flats and parking at basement level.

Having expressed a view to the Planning and Environmental Control Service on this matter, you may be interested to know that on 10/10/2005 the planning application on this site will be considered by the Planning Applications Sub-Committee.

The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. and is held at the Civic Centre, High Road, Wood Green, London N22.

The meeting is open to the public to attend and you, or a representative on your behalf, may speak to the Committee with the Chair's prior approval. If there are a number of people wishing to speak regarding a particular application it is normal practice for one representative from the group of people to address the meeting.

If your wish to address the meeting I would suggest that you arrive about thirty minutes before the meeting and complete a form, which is available immediately outside the Council Chamber, indicating your desire to speak.

The committee report may be viewed on the Council's website - haringey.gov.uk


So that's a plan for next Monday, then. It's a little unclear to me how the representation by one person works, related to the question "How is 'group' defined?". If it is defined as "all individuals sharing a common broad view about whether permission should be granted or not", then the representative should surely be someone more closely associated with the pub than mere occasional locals. On the other hand, members of the Dunce household are part of a very small clique nearly entirely separate from other users of the pub; our standoffish nature may then qualify us as a group worthy of representation before the Committee. But if so, one of us (whoever "us" may be) should prepare to be heard by the Committee. I have never spoken before a public body like this but I envision a terrible scene: one side of the Committee chamber packed to the rafters with hordes of well-dressed, well-heeled sorts supporting the Property Developers in their efforts to bring "NICE HOUSES" to an area soiled by its industrial past (and more recently, 50 Cent and company), the other side with a few degenerates, idlers and bad eggs who have nothing better to do than support all the social ills that a neighborhood public house can bring. The blustering Committee Representative motions for me to speak, then upon hearing my coarse American accent shouts "SILENCE!!" as I am dragged from the hall, beheaded and dismembered, and my head and limbs placed on posts around Haringey as a reminder to Colonials who try and impose their puritanic views upon English neighborhood culture. The pub is demolished and the flats are put on the market, to be sold only to individuals who work in The Media. So maybe I should just go to the meeting and not plan on speaking.

I guess I should not have been so clear about our travel plans, as an overzealous blog reader took advantage of the inside information that we would be away for a certain designated period, and took the opportunity for a quick unguided tour of our house. OK maybe it was not a blog reader, but in a very unpleasant turn of events our house was broken into while we were in Belgium. A friend of ours is currently staying in the spare room (don't worry, the Landlord is fully aware of our propensity to take in Lodgers, first the cat and now a human), so she was there to see the carnage first-hand.

Note: italicized sections have now been edited to disguise our "most valuable" items.

It seems that under cover of darkness, someone took a crowbar to one of the front windows, jerking it upward hard enough to break the lock. He went straight upstairs (right past the Mona Lisa/hyperbaric chamber/gold-plated easy chair) and emptied the contents of our bedside tables and Mrs. Dunce's jewelry box in search of valuables. The most attractive items (Betamax, "Get Out of Jail Card, Compliments of Michael Dukakis", assorted baubles) were placed on the bed, and the crook apparently found the most interesting item to be our LCD monitor, as he picked it up and carried it into The Lodger's room. Where, unfortunately for the Lodger, he found a more desirable item: her laptop. So he left the monitor on her bed (I guess "bed" is a staging area) and high-tailed it out, laptop in hand (or case, as he took the case with him too. But not the shoulder strap [????]). Fortunately the entire contents of the laptop had been backed up very recently, but unfortunately her laptop is now gone, and only the cat saw anything (and she's not talking).

Lodger's Boy was first on the scene and found that the intruder had put the chain on the door (I guess to give advance warning if someone came home). He came through the (open) window and saw immediately that there had been a break-in. The police were called and then us (3am Belgium time). We thought of various items that could have been missing (our collection of fine wines, medieval paintings, my diamond dentures, mink stoles, ruby slippers and other fancy items of various kinds; it's amazing how many possibly-valuable things you can think of while lying awake in a hotel bed at 4am, knowing that your home has just been burgled), but as it turned out the one and only item to be stolen was the laptop (OK, there were other items missing. The outdoor sensor for our indoor-outdoor thermometer, and a US$1 bill in Mrs. Dunce's jewelry box). Although I am pleased that no other items were taken, I am curiously insulted that I would have nothing worth stealing (OK, the burglar missed lots of goodies, including $30 or so in US$ in a hiding place, and other valuables I won't mention in case the burglar is actually a blog reader). Except books, and what sort of idiot would steal books? It's also probably a good thing that we were traveling, as we had various valuable things in hand (instead of in the house).

The police dusted the place for prints (Dear Heloise, Do you have any suggestions for removing fingerprint dust from household surfaces?), but apparently the intruder(s) wore gloves. There have apparently been a few very similar instances in the past month on our street. Quite likely a local (perhaps young, as the valuable item from an adult perspective wasn't taken), who has probably been watching the place for a while to get a sense of our routine. I'm definitely watching passersby from our window with a more jaded eye these days; it's a very nerve-racking experience to go through.

The window isn't really broken, but the lock is. So in the next day or two, the Landlord and I will embark on a security mission that will make Fort Knox look like an Absorbubble (TM). Or at least, improving the security of our front windows so that the situation will not be repeated any time soon.

Can you blame me for not writing the last Tallinn entry? Or an entry about our trip to Belgium (memo to all potential conference organizers: do not schedule a free beer reception on the first night of the conference. Especially when the local beer is very strong. Attendance at the second day may suffer)? Anyway I'm back, and I will be at home all day, every day, for the forseeable future (in case you're thinking of visiting my house with a crowbar, don't bother. I've got a small cat and I'm not afraid to use her against intruders).

Once again I've ended up following the fad. Last time it was the novel Trilby, and now I've joined up with the Blackberry users. I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. Kind of like this....

On Saturday morning I went to our local fruit and veg establishment to pick up a few chili peppers (and perhaps an impulse purchase of some locally-produced snacks of some kind). Having obtained the peppers (hot as blazes, by the way) and aforementioned locally-produced snacks (Japanese-style peanut crackers), I proceeded to the till where I saw another opportunity for impulse purchasing: plastic punnets of blackberries. Why not, I thought to myself, and asked for the price. "One pound" was the answer. A little steep, perhaps, but they looked really tasty, so I started to take one. "No, one pound for all of them." The carton of punnets was full and contained perhaps a dozen of them, each punnet perhaps 250g of the largest blackberries I'd ever seen, perhaps very near their sell-by date but how could I resist several pounds of blackberries for a pound? We sorted them out into "perfect" (say 30% of them), "fine for cooking" (squishy, but fine; perhaps another 60%), and "icky" (moldy or completely squished, the remaining 10%). A sudden influx of ready-to-go-bad fruit calls for desperate measures; fortunately we have several cookbooks by our near-neighbor Nigel Slater who is clearly obsessed with the summer fruits and has published a good number of recipes for the disposal of such. Here's where they went (aside from the sizable proportion that were eaten on their own):

"Perfect" berries went into a little fruit salad with some sliced-up green melon somewhere between a cantaloupe and a honeydew (which by coincidence we had already prepared).

Some of the less-than-perfect berries made their way into corn muffins (made by Mrs. Dunce), modified from a cherry and orange corn muffin recipe (instead of orange juice we used a tropical juice blend which did just fine). I had to chop the blackberries into quarters or sixths (or eighths for the largest of the blackberry gang) but they didn't disintegrate (surprisingly). Mmmmmmmmm.

And finally for Sunday breakfast I prepared a blackberry crumble without the crumble: put the rest of the berries into the bottom of a shallow pan, covered them completely with Greek-style plain yogurt (one of the staple ingredients in our home), then covered the top with a few tablespoons sugar. Popped the whole thing in the oven under a grill set as hot as it would go, and waited for a bit of carmelization. Can I say again, mmmmmmmmmmmm.

And just like that, they were gone (except for the muffins which we are carefully rationing out at a rate of one per person per day). I understand the craze although I couldn't figure out how to check my email (my fingers turned purple trying to compose a message, and I gave up).

Friday evening Mrs. Dunce and I took a little trip to lovely Kensington Olympia for this year's Great British Beer Festival (the largest beer festival in the UK). Friday night is perhaps the worst time to attend such a large festival as it was mobbed (and I mean mobbed) with after-work punters. The queue for entry stretched down the block -- I don't know exactly how far as we swanned in the CAMRA members' entrance¹. The festival is set up geographically (but not properly corresponding to British geography), with beers from different regions grouped together (exceptions: "big brewers" were set up right at the front; bottled real ale was available at a separate bar; foreign beers in another; cider and perry in their own section as well [well, all the perry was sold out by the time we got there, as the festival had been going on since Tuesday]. Oh yeah, there was also a separate Wetherspoon bar.). I was rather impressed by the large number of mild ales on offer. It's difficult to get a handle on the hundreds of beers on offer; the question is always where to start. Mrs. Dunce chose to start with the award winners, while I followed a simpler path (targeting beers with "hoppy" in the flavor descriptions, for the most part, or else because the pump clip had a picture of a cute kitty on it²). As I've left our tasting notes at home, I'll save the beer ratings for another entry.

As I mentioned before, Friday night is the worst time to attend as it was unpleasantly crowded, and there were some tendencies for obnoxious people to shove their way to the front of the beer queues (beer is served by a relatively small number of volunteers, not all of whom have an experienced bartender's eye for "who's next"). There were, however, many individuals of the female persuasion present, far more than previous festivals we have attended (the Dunces' first festival as a couple featured what seemed like fewer than ten (10) women and a whole mess of men). Presumably this is a good thing for real ale which is fighting against a bit of a stereotype (beards, sandals, beer bellies): a couple years ago it was all the news that Madonna was a fan of real ale, but additional endorsements from famous women have not exactly been pouring in.

We forgot about the CAMRA members' lounge which offers the opportunity for card-carrying CAMRA members to quaff in the relatively uncrowded company of other sandal-wearing beardies with bellies, which would have allowed us to be a little less distressed by the crowds. There was no shortage of merchandise for sale, but we limited ourselves to a book on pub architecture (and were pleased to note that the Salisbury, the site of our wedding reception, featured quite prominently). OK we also donated a few pounds to the tombola (supporting historic pubs) but won a couple of glasses, a 2003 Good Beer Guide and a couple of badges for our trouble. After a few different beers we decided to leave before the very end (a little after 10pm) and joined a crowded train full of post-festival revelers, heading for home.

¹Beer festivals do have a certain importance in the Dunce household. Our first proper date was the Pig's Ear beer festival, and our membership card for the Campaign for Real Ale was the first official document to bear Mrs. Dunce's married name.

²OK, I did pick one beer with a cute kitty on the pump clip, but I had already decided upon it on the basis of its description.

This weekend the Dunces took an excursion to Pitzhanger Manor House, after seeing a brief mention in this week's Time Out.

Pitzhanger Manor House

It was designed as a country home by architect John Soane, whose London house (Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields) is perhaps my favorite museum at the moment. The latter is a fascinating combination of architectural design features (Soane was not afraid to knock down and rebuild in his preferred style) and an impressive collection shoehorned into every conceivable space. The preservation of its appearance, contents and general state (as well as its accessibility to the public) were preserved through an act of Parliament negotiated by Soane before his death. Pitzhanger Manor, on the other hand, was not similarly preserved. Soane bought it in 1800 and completed his renovations (tear down most everything and rebuild it entirely) in 1804; for the next six years the family used it as a weekend country retreat before selling it on (from Ealing history site). Subsequent residents included the four spinster daughters of former Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (1843-?) before it was sold to the Ealing council in 1901 for use as a library (and doubtless renovated many, many times by its different residents). In 1985 the library moved to a new location and the council began restoration of the house to reflect its appearance in Soane's time. But because the collections have been moved to Soane's museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the focus here is more upon the architecture and design. It's an excellent companion to Soane's museum, which contains many similar architectural features but in which the focus is upon the items he collected, which are displayed on (under, against) every surface (and sometimes hidden behind other items). After seeing the clutter of the collection, it's fascinating to go to Pitzhanger and see the design features essentially on their own (rooms contain basic period furnishings but virtually none of Soane's collections or personal effects). Our next Soane-themed visit will have to be Moggerhanger House near Biggleswade, a house designed by Soane for the director of the Bank of England, which has only very recently reopened following extensive restoration work.

After visiting Pitzhanger House we had an excellent dinner at Taqueria, a new Mexican restaurant in west London which seems to go a long way toward answering concerns about the dire lack of authentic (and/or interesting) Mexican food in London (and we're not the only ones to complain). It's a different take on Mexican than I'm familiar with, more like tapas than anything else. I've already exceeded my allotted writing time so let me just say briefly, YUM.

As promised in a previous entry, it's time for a report of the recent beer festival at the Oakdale Arms. Friday night was just too hot and muggy to spend much time there, but we made up for it later in the weekend. Here are my tasting notes, in (approximate) order of consumption. The Dunce household uses an elaborate scoring system, summarized here (because I can't be bothered to search for suitable smiley images, and I don't want to set a precedent by using emoticons in this blog):

v = smiley face (most enjoyed)
/ = partial smiley (OK but not the best)
_ = neutral face (not good but not bad)
^ = frowny face (bad)

/ Burton Bridge - Moorish Mild. It's very light-drinking dark mild. Tasty but not exciting. One rating on ratebeer.com concurs. I would have added another but couldn't come up with 75 characters of comments (despite a nice bucket-of-words to help reviewers comment, including "Banana,Bubble gum", "Sulfur, Skunk", "Earth,Mold,Cobwebs", "Horse blanket, Barnyard, Leather", my palate is not sufficiently refined to taste any of these).

_ Nethergate - Dr John's Panacea. This was an unimpressive ale, not especially notable for any reason. Two reviewers seem to agree.

v Minchews - Stoke Red Cyder. This was a really tasty, strong (8.4% ABV) dry cider. My tastes run toward the driest of dry, and this was really refreshing with a strong bite. Mmmmmmm. My favorite from the cider/perry side of the menu.

/ Eccleshall - Slaters Shining Knight. Another one which is given an average rating by drinkers on ratebeer and I have to agree. I should note at this point that I favor a really hoppy beer, and this was not. Reminded me a lot of London Pride.

/ Orchards - Blended Perry (like cider, but made from pears). This was a fine drink, but compared to memories of Stoke Red Cyder, it just didn't stand up. It was dry but didn't have that bite of tartness which I prefer. It also didn't have much of the pear about it; overall just a little something missing. Not at all bad but nothing to write home about.

V Milton - Sparta. I was a little hesitant to go with a Milton beer as the Oakdale usually has a good number of Miltons, and to me a beer festival is an opportunity to taste things I wouldn't ordinarily find. But as it turns out, Sparta isn't so common after all -- it's not listed on Milton's website, nor on ratebeer.com. It's described as "A new beer in the ancient cities range", but that's about all I know (there is also apparently a Thebes which seems quite well-liked; I'm anxious to see more of the Ancient Cities in the future). Anyway, this was very hoppy and strong flavored with an excellent aftertaste, and the taste improved even more after a few sips (and no, this was not a product of intoxication). This is what I hope for when I drink a bitter. My pick of the festival

v Old Cannon - Gunners Daughter. This was another excellent pint, hoppy and tasty. Were it not for the pleasures of Sparta, this one would have been my top pick. Drinkers at ratebeer really seemed to like it as well, I guess that means my palate may be more refined than I thought.

/ Troggi - Siedr Penalt. And I finished it all up with another cider. Very much like the blended perry above, this was a decent, tasty drink. Rather dry, but very light in flavor. And again there was just a little something missing which made it only OK, not great.

All in all, a good festival. I didn't drink anything I didn't like (except for a taste of Mrs. Dunce's Umbel Magna [Nethergate] which had an unfortunate aroma of urine, and tasted like "tincture of something"). For the record, here are her drinks and ratings:

^ Nethergate - Umbel Magna
v Nethergate - Priory Mild
/ Pitfield - East Kent Goldings
v St. Austell - H.S.D.
_ Tipples - Longshore
/ Tipples - Redhead
v Wadworth - 6X

EDIT: fixed some of the ratebeer links; sorry I didn't check them all.

Mrs. Dunce's aunt and uncle are coming for dinner this evening, so we've been thinking a little about what to serve¹. Last night after another highly enjoyable trip to Asakusa (the restaurant, not the place, already reviewed here from our trip just last week [Really, we're not obsessed with it. It was someone else's suggestion, and she's leaving the country quite soon. {Of course we may have influenced her decision processes, but that's another story}]) we stopped by to pick up a few remaining groceries. We shouldn't have bothered, though. Another member of our household had already done the shopping. There was a lovely dead bird resting on the kitchen floor, Zosi's first ever contribution to our larder (I'll not say much about the feathers; fortunately nothing else was scattered around). Unfortunately Epicurious.com didn't offer much help (despite various different search terms [There's ROBIN in "Superfast vegetarian pizza" ?!?!?!]) so maybe we'll just serve a starter of dead bird sashimi. Or maybe we'll stick to our original plan.

¹Looks like Javanese roasted salmon with wilted spinach (recipe here [Mrs Dunce swears by Epicurious and for good reasons]) and wasabi mashed potatoes (this might be the right recipe, but there's really not much need for a recipe, just add some wasabi to mashed potatoes. Mmmm).

In a previous entry I wrote a little bit about our local pub and teased a future entry about the beer festival going on at the time. Well, the beer festival was excellent, perhaps a little too excellent as that promised entry never appeared. But now it's time for another beer festival there, and we definitely need to support our local pub as there is some chance it will be demolished, and flats built in its place ("Demolition of existing building and erection of a three storey building comprising 4 x 1 bed, 2 x 2 bed, 2 x 3 bed and 1 x 4 bed self contained flats and parking at basement level", from the Planning Application [EDIT: dynamic link removed]). So our plans to visit the beer festival (maybe even more than once) are a selfless act of community support rather than some sort of decadent debauch. The Oakdale's website clearly shows that the geeks are in charge (well done to the geeks!): the "drinks" link takes you to a quite up-to-date (20 minutes ago at this moment) listing of "what's on" generated from their stock control system. At the moment it's quite obvious that the beer festival stocks have arrived; all of the following are listed as being in stock:

Burton Bridge Bridge Bitter (4.2% ABV)
Burton Bridge Civvy Salvation (4.5% ABV)
Burton Bridge Golden Delicious (3.8% ABV)
Burton Bridge Moorish Mild (3.9% ABV)
Caledonian Deuchars IPA (3.8% ABV)
Eccleshall Slaters Bitter (3.6% ABV)
Eccleshall Slaters Premium (4.4% ABV)
Eccleshall Slaters Shining Knight (4.5% ABV)
Eccleshall Slaters Supreme (4.7% ABV)
Eccleshall Slaters Top Totty (4.0% ABV)
Harviestoun Dragon Fly (3.6% ABV)
Highgate Beezone Honey (3.8% ABV)
Milton Jupiter (3.5% ABV)
Milton Justinian (3.9% ABV)
Milton Neptune (3.8% ABV)
Milton Pegasus (4.1% ABV)
Milton Sparta (4.3% ABV)
Milton Vindolanda Umbra (5.5% ABV)
Nethergate Dr Johns Panacea (4.3% ABV)
Nethergate Priory Mild (3.5% ABV)
Nethergate Umbel (3.8% ABV)
Nethergate Umbel Magna (5.0% ABV)
Nottingham Bullion (4.7% ABV)
Nottingham Cock and Hoop (4.3% ABV)
Nottingham EPA (4.2% ABV)
Nottingham Rock Bitter (3.8% ABV)
Nottingham Rock Mild (3.8% ABV)
Nottingham Supreme (5.2% ABV)
Old Cannon Best Bitter (3.8% ABV)
Old Cannon Gunners Daughter (5.5% ABV)
Pitfield East Kent Goldings (4.2% ABV)
Pitfield Original Organic (3.7% ABV)
St. Austell HSD (5.0% ABV)
Thwaites Thoroughbred (4.0% ABV)
Timothy Taylor Landlord (4.3% ABV)
Tipples Longshore (3.6% ABV)
Tipples Redhead (4.2% ABV)
Wadworth 6X (4.3% ABV)
Wadworth JCB (4.7% ABV)

This is not even counting the ciders and bottled beers (also available on the same report). Hmmm, going to have to start thinking about where to begin. We'll be there on Friday for sure. Once again I'll promise a beer festival report; only time will tell whether I will deliver.

Well that didn't take long at all. In a remarkable parallel to the previous day we were back in the Lord John Russell and again ordering pints of Budvar all around. The big difference is that this time it was the elusive Budvar Dark Lager (winner of last years Great British Beer Festival "Imported Beer of the Festival" award). According to the last line of this article in the Publican, we're lucky enough to be in a test area. As for the much-awaited beer itself, it was tasty and much lighter than I expected. Good but not great in my opinion. As Mrs. Dunce is a bigger fan of dark beers (and more adept at verbal descriptions of sensory experience), and because I agree with her assessment, I'll just quote her here:
The Budvar Dark was good though not the taste thrill I hoped it would be. A nice quality dark beer with earthy notes but no lingering finish. Dragon Stout is still my choice for this class of beer. But then it would be, it has a much higher alcohol content.

There is a great deal of controversy concerning the Budvar (Budweiser) brand and the American product of the same name made by Anheuser-Busch (some articles about the battle around the world can be found here, here, here, here and here among many many others). Here is the official position of Budvar on the issue. At least in these parts it seems like Budvar is gaining an advantage; when it comes to matters of drink, I'll always side with the drinkable one if there's a choice. Another Budvar for me, thanks.

Once again I had a restaurant experience worth writing about, at Asakusa Japanese Restaurant, a place that would surely be in my list of top London restaurants (if I had such a list). After a quick drink at a pub near work¹ we jumped on the bus toward Mornington Crescent. Asakusa's reviews (1, 2) all seem to reflect its shabby (or worse) decor ("cramped", "scruffy", "dilapidated surroundings", "looked like it should have been condemned") but enthusiastically recommend the food (it's even on The Economist's list of London's "best bohemian joints"). It's an izakaya-style restaurant with a wide range on the menu (and posted on the walls, but only in Japanese). After the Budvar disappointment we quickly ordered a round of dark lager (Asahi Dark) which in my opinion is far tastier than the standard range of lagers. I have absolutely no chance of remembering everything we ate, but some of the highlights were hijiki, natto, salt mackerel (still my favorite dish of all the ones I've tried there), curry potato korroke (a close second), some very nicely done shrimp tempura. I also had a really tasty serving of sake (served cold in a masu (wooden box) and accompanied by a pinch of salt). We didn't even venture onto the sushi/sashimi menu this time (although we've had excellent sushi/sashimi there on previous visits). The bill came to about £18 each (including 10% service charge). I can't complain.... except that now all I want is to go back again, the sooner the better.

¹Pints of Budvar all around, thanks. Sadly it was only after our drinks had been served that Mrs. Dunce discovered that the pub had the extremely well-regarded and incredibly unavailable Budvar Dark Lager on tap. As we had to make our reservation time, we didn't manage to get a taste of the Dark (so we'll have to get back there in the very near future).

There's a new TV advert gracing our airwaves, featuring the one and only William Shatner. He's advertising Kellogg's All-Bran Flakes "Yoghurty" which appear to be simply a less-healthy version of Bran Flakes (including some yog(h)urt-covered ones). The advert seems to capitalize upon Shatner's perceived incompetence and general out-of-touch-ness, presenting a series of clips in which he fluffs his lines, stutters and stammers, and generally appears confused by the whole process (Great acting, I'm sure). I must take offense, however, with the punch line (as it were) in which Shatner is instructed to call the product "yoghurty" by an off-camera voice. He mispronounces it (saying it more like "yogurdy") and is corrected by the same voice, but mispronounces it again, showing a look of complete befuddlement. Despite my initial enthusiasm for anything ridiculing Mr. Shatner himself (although what could do more than Mr. Shatner's own work?) I have to lodge my disapproval. After all, the particular element which is being ridiculed in the "yoghurty"/"yogurdy" exchange features prominently in my own dialect of English as well (I pronounce "printer" more like "prinner"; "computer" more like "compuder", "ladder" and "latter" as near homonyms, etc.). Technically speaking this is an intervocalic flap: the conversion of /t/ (and some instances of /d/) into /ɾ/ (IPA). As a flapper myself, I am deeply offended by the notion that we flappers are speaking incorrectly. Especially when it's being used to sell breakfast cereal.

Although I think this is one of the coolest hats I have seen in a while, I hope the buyer does not intend it as a gift for me. Although its inside dimensions are not exactly clear from the item description, I suspect very strongly that it is not suitably sized for my own hat-wearing needs. I am sorry to say I go slightly beyond the high end of your standard hat-sizing scale, and my general experience in visiting western stores (in a vague search for a cowboy hat I probably wouldn't wear anyway) has borne this out (standard inventory does not usually suit my needs). I could ordinarily blame this on an unnaturally thick crop of hair but at the moment, my hair is extremely restrained. So I guess I have to live with being a size 8 (7 7/8 in the UK; 64 cm European). But please remember, if you're thinking of buying me a hat, not just any hat will do.

One real benefit of London life is the amazing range of restaurants of every possible sort. It can even be depressing, knowing there are too many good restaurants to have any chance of visiting them all. But even in the "low-priced" range¹, there are a lot of really good options. Last night we visited one such place: Zigni House, an Eritrean restaurant on the Essex Road. We arrived fairly early so had the place mostly to ourselves (to be frank, a little cavernous and painfully quiet at the early hour). Although we had the option to order from the menu, how could we avoid the buffet option (£8)? After all this allowed us to avoid the most difficult decisions.

A staple of Eritrean (and Ethiopian) food is injera, a spongy, bubbly, slightly sticky bread. Most of the dishes are stews, served on injera (which soaks up the liquids quite nicely); injera is also the eating utensil (scoop up food with pieces of injera). Meat dishes include various preparations of chicken, lamb and beef, but we targeted the veggie side of the buffet. Heavy on lentils and potatoes, but that's not a bad thing at all as they were served in a great variety of sauces/stews. Unfortunately I didn't note the names of the dishes so the best I can do is to say that my favorites were the orange-colored lentil dish (preferred over the yellow or brown ones), and a spicy potato stew (possibly a veggie zigni). An Eritrean beer (Asmara) was on the menu so I had to try it. A decent lager with a slightly honeyed taste, I wouldn't go out of my way to have it again but certainly cannot complain. Previous reviews have complained about the level of service, but as we went on a very quiet night (the day after a bank holiday Monday) and ate from the buffet, we had no reason to complain.

¹The concept of "low-priced", of course, is relative. London is awfully expensive (expensive enough that we found Tokyo restaurants unexpectedly reasonably-priced on our visit there), so my own notion of "low-priced" might not translate so well. When I say "low-priced", I'm thinking of a bill of about £10 per person (not counting drinks).

Rather than tread well-traveled ground with a listing of high-rated pubs, I thought I'd wander off in the other direction and give a sort of reckoning of the other end of the scale across north London. I'm sorry to say these may not be close enough to each other for a "pub crawl of misery" to be practical, although intrepid readers are welcome to try.

The measure of misery is taken from user ratings at Beer in the Evening, as are the comments (below). Reviews are excerpted from fancyapint. In order to qualify as "miserable" a pub must have an average rating of 2.0 or below (on a 0-10 scale) with a minumum of five raters. Areas covered are London postcodes beginning with "N" (hence, N and NW).

The pub crawl starts with some fairly innocuous pubs (at least according to visitor comments) and degenerates rapidly.

Miserable North London pub crawl

Pub name	Location	Rating	Comments [sic]	(Partial) Review
The George	Belsize Park	1.7	Dull, very dull.	Sorry, but there's really no reason to drink here....The George has the ambience, but not the prices, of a student union.
Belsize	Belsize Park	2.0	Turned a decent pub into something ghastly.	[FP disagrees]: Agreeable and vaguely old-fashioned boozer that does gastropub food without being unnecessarily pretentious.
The Lansdowne	Primrose Hill	1.6	I got so annoyed by this place that I started pissing up and down the walls of the toilet. This is something I should be ashamed of, but I don't.	Expensive, conceited and soulless. There are better in the area. In fact, they're all better.
Belushi's	Camden	0.6	this pub can gurantee a fight every friday/saturday night because of the youngsters drinking smirnoff ice and thinking they are better than others, best avoided	[not listed]
Blackstock	Finsbury Park	1.0	This is one nasty pub. Smells of cleaning fluid. Fortunately there are 2 doors so when you walk in you can continue straight ahead and walk out the otherside.	An often intimidating place packed with locals and drunks - give it a swerve.
White Lion Of Mortimer	Finsbury Park	1.8	On a busy night, drunken arguments frequently break out. If the participants are not too drunk to walk, these often spill outside providing street entertainment for the passerby's. Durning the day, reminisent of a funeral home where the corpses are still alive.	[not listed]
The Fox	Palmer's Green	1.0	full of kids who think they are gangsters. Horrible beer and a generally rough crowd.	A fixture on Green Lanes when all around was still fields, this one's been Breezer'd up to pull in a youngish clientele.
Green Man	Muswell Hill	1.6	My first 5 minutes inside there and there was a fight between 2 kids, someone was being sick in the toilet and the staff ignored me...	The place seems to fulfill a purpose as a pre-club hangout for the local nitespot behind the pub.

So there you have it. Start in Belsize Park where the pubs are badly rated because visitors feel they deserve better in that area, wander on down to the lowest rated pub in Camden, then a couple stops in the vicinity of Finsbury Park before making your way to the Fox, then the Green Man (before clubbing the night away in aforementioned "local nitespot", apparently Muswell Hill's own Enigma).

One important consideration upon moving to a new neighborhood is the new local. I refer in particular to the Oxford English Dictionary's sense B.2.h. "The public house in the immediate neighbourhood. colloq.(Usu. the local.)"

Our old neighborhood had a rather impressive range of dismally rated pubs, but eventually we settled upon the Faltering Fullback.  "Student union theme pub for middle-aged ex-students" ? Fair enough, but it ticked all the boxes

(x) walking distance
(x) decent beer selection
(x) reasonably priced food that didn't make us sick
(x) non-aggressive clientele

But now we've moved beyond walking distance and it's hard to call it our local when it's now 7 bus stops away. Fortunately we have an easy decision. Although the Woodbury Tavern is technically closer and (apparently) reasonably well-regarded, the Oakdale Arms is a clear winner.

As card-carrying members of the Campaign for Real Ale how could we not choose a pub that chooses to emphasize traditionally-brewed real beers? The pub itself, inconveniently located in a mostly-residential area, is nothing special, somewhat ramshackle, cavernous, and (still) a bit too brightly-lit. It's never very busy, but for a small cluster of the most regular of regulars (among whose numbers I cannot count myself). But it's the drinks that are the most convincing: a good range of real ales mostly from Milton's range (8 hand pumps on the bar), real cider, bottled Belgian and German beers. They may stock a run-of-the mill commercial lager or two like Stella Artois or Foster's, but if so they are well-hidden.

At the moment they are putting on a small Beer Festival, about which more later.

When we moved house a couple of weeks ago, like so many people we chose to travel into a lovely industrial estate and brave the crush of IKEA (on a weekend no less) in order to collect a few cheap pieces of furniture. At least we did try a range of second-hand shops first, but no dice. We ended up with a pleasant enough dresser and desk chair, and weren't sucked into purchasing too many fripperies. We were witness to only one instance of IKEA RAGE on this occasion (it's so charming to hear a fellow american shouting "How Dare You" at full volume in a crowded environment).

But now we thank our lucky stars we didn't wait until IKEA opened a store a little closer to home. Perhaps best described in IKEA's own press release, which begins

"At 00.42am on Thursday 10th February 2005, the new IKEA Edmonton store outside London in the United Kingdom closed after several people were tragically injured during the midnight opening event. The ongoing celebrations were cancelled, and the store will remain closed until further notice."

The Guardian article adds additional details including the brandishing of wooden mallets, while the SUN (sorry, this link has now expired) calls it the "Battle of Ikea" and includes DRAMATIC PHOTOS FROM THE SCENE (including one image (caption: "Terrified ... a toddler is lifted over people's heads to escape the crush") which reminded me a little too much of Michael Jackson dangling "Blanket" over the balcony.

All the fuss about the IKEA riot has totally distracted the press from the news of the upcoming marriage between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, which to date has received only a single mention in the press. I am pleased to see the UK press are finally over their obsession with the royals.