2002-08-29T22:43:00.000Z

In Nigeria a younq woman has been sentenced to death by stoning. To join the campaign to stop this,go to this site, read the info and sign the letter http://www.mertonai.org/amina/

2002-08-29T09:31:00.000Z

It has been a very long time since I posted and there are no excuses. I got wet in the Czech Republic and saw the future of rock .this summer.

2002-05-26T10:49:00.000Z

I don't think that this is working

2002-03-09T02:17:00.000Z

Damnation, I just wrote a long piece and lost it.

I'll try and start again from memory ( it's not as if anyone reads this anyway - contact me at albatross@europe.com if I'm wrong.)

"What became of the monkey, monkey, monkey? Alphabet Zoo."

I am ambivalent about zoos but this one is fine by me!

Actually, for a while I was very against locking up the animals but now in my state of pacific pessimism I think - well at least they're not being hunted and many will be gone in the wild soon anyway.

In all the years since I was at school and first got worked up about disappearing species and endangered forests exactly nothing seems to have improved.
There's widespread awareness of the problem but the loggers keep on logging and the reserves keep on shrinking. I doubt there will be tigers, pandas, gorillas and chimps left in the wild even if civilisation carries for a generation or two yet.

So we might as well sit down and have a beer.

Here are a few of my favourite brews:-

First up, Caley 80/ - a decent pint of heavy.

Golden Promise from the same brewery. I began drinking this way back when they first made it and it now seems that the claim it was the worlds first organic beer. I reckon though that there must have been at least a good few centuries of chemical free brewing going on before that. The mead was G.M.O. free too, no freaky bees with advanced social organisation defying the laws of gravity in the olden days, oh no.

Tennent's Special - a reminder of things past; warm cans outside chip shops and furry mouths in the drizzle. Hard to believe but I couldn't find a site for this. I thought there would be loads especially now that it's only available in bowling clubs and village sub-post offices. It tasted of bitter, gassy caramel but that was the taste of my homeland.

Martiner (10 for breakfast, 12 thereafter) from not so old old times but just as many furry mouths. In Slovakia the bottles were fresh, unpasteurised so no laying down for weddings and graduations. I once took a slug from a bottle without looking and wondered why only a trickle came out. I peered in to see a plug of green mould and a "Pintglass" moment ensued. many young people in Slovakia would only drink from either the brown or the green bottles, for no rational reason at all. it is good to have some direction to your drinking though.

Ah, Jenlain. Ma petit choufleur, je t'aime. I was so happy to find this, a beer with a proper champagne style cork, wrapped in wire. A wine sized bottle too, a great bier de garde ideal accompaniment to a meal of bread.

Pinkus was the second organic beer I tried, though it doesn't seem to come in the wee, overpriced bottles from the supermarket anymore. I had a proper sized bottle with a peanut butter sandwich and bombay mix a moment ago. Mmmm, balanced diets.

Finally, there are many fine Czech beers but I still reckon that Gambrinus 12 is the best. It tastes fantastic but it's also the St. Pauli of beers.

There are of course many, many fine beers out there, some of which are no doubt better but I urge you to try those above. Perhaps all in one session. Especially if you live in Utah or Saudi Arabia or a re going for a skiing medal.

I also like water.

2002-02-23T01:15:00.000Z

Can I write html?

2002-02-23T01:00:00.000Z

I'm really not sure how to go about making this look good - especially how to get the cool sidebars.
Another problem is that I hope to have a stab at posting something in Slovak (I'll explain later) and even if I'm feeling mentally frisky, or just plain frisky, in Russian.

Is this possible???

Can it work???

let's see.... "Èas, èas, ide o èas, èas úteká, súdruhovia, a dobre zbytoèné."

2002-02-23T00:39:00.000Z

So, I have started after all. I hummed and hawed for quite a while about the purposelessness and vanity of blogging but after a while when blogs have been strangely (or perhaps not) in the media an awful lot I finally decided to go ahead.
This is because; firstly, in the great scheme of things, it isn't really important, secondly it might feel good to get some things off my chest and thirdly and most importantly because I have been drawn again and again to a number of really impressive efforts by others.
In particular, this.

nerozumiem