Meanwhile, elsewhere…
I was asked to write a piece for this week’s Press Gazette which you can see on the Press Gazette blog (one of whose contributors is the estimable Martin Stabe) or here’s a PDF version of the page. The article is a comment piece in which I try very hard to be nice about newspaper blogs. Go and have a look and then come back and rip me to bits.
As I say in the piece, I’ve also been invited to write for the Guardian’s new über-blog, Comment is Free. With 200 contributors (199 better known than me) it remains to be seen how prominent my guff will be, but hopefully I’ll be in there somewhere.
I don’t have any details on when the blog actually launches other than it’s very soon. I haven’t seen the site yet either but will give the heads up as soon as I can.
Right, I’m off Up North for the weekend to have a decent pint and one of my Dad’s fry-ups. Back Monday.
Posted on March 9th, 2006 at 7:44 am
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Well done Justin.
Hope that you don’t mind, i sent your blog details over to the editori of the Sunday Times News Review: she was asking me for recommendations of good writers so I sent her here.
A technical point: northern beer is generally bland, foamy and weak. Southern beer - such as Harveys Best - does not need to dazzle drinkers with a kind of faux white head, which looks a bit like aerosol squirty cream. It is hoppy, just lively enough and altogether much better.
Agreed with anonymous - Harvey’s is a delight. And you should be able to get it in your neck of the woods and all, it’s only brewed about 10-15 miles from you. Their Tom Paine is one of the finest of the fine and all.
(Oh, and well done and stuff…)
Thanks very much, Rachel. I must add however that it will be your funeral when the editor decides you’re a mentalist.
As to the beer question, it seems we have an apologist for crimes against brewing in the house.
While Harveys couldn’t fail to shine alongside the cat dialysis produced by the Fullers brewery, compared to noble brews such as those produced by the Jennings family of Cockermouth, with their light, caramel heads and complex flavours, it is measured and found wanting.
Boddingtons you can keep. I used to go out with a girl who drank it because she thought “it was like lager”.
Bbbbbbut Rachel, you mean you didn’t recommend me?
Boo Hoo!
Well done there BTW Justin.
Well done young man. Enjoy your break, you’ve obviously earned it.
I’m off up North myself this weekend to introduce t’babby to his granny. Other side of country to yerself of course. And so will be enjoying the odd pint of Old Peculier and/or Black Sheep, neither of which could conceivably be tagged with an apologetic-sounding ‘compliment’ like ‘just lively enough’.
Just fancy, they brew beer in Lancashire and Brighton now. What an age we live in.
Jennings? Meh…
Agreed on Fuller’s (shite), but you have gone down considerably in my estimation for your lack of appreciation of Harveys. You’ve obviously never tried their Christmas Ale or the aforementioned Tom Paine - or the Armada, Bonfire Boy or other seasonal ones. Beautiful, truly beautiful. I grew up on that stuff. Made me the man I am today. *ahem*
Then there’s Badger, there’s a beer… Exmoor Gold, Skinner’s, St Austell. The Westcountry’s got a load of good’uns.
You’re not a proper Northerner anyway - you don’t even own a whippet, and I’ve never seen you in a flat cap - so stop pretending…
Go on then. Harveys Best is great and is the one I drink when I’m in town. Just shoring up my Northern credentials, is all.
Gales’ HSB and Butser are rather good as well but the brewery’s just been bought out by the aforementioned and dreaded Fullers so it remains to be seen whether the quality (or even the beers) will be maintained. What that’ll mean for one of Brighton’ best pubs, The Basketmakers, I dare not countenance.
Since you’ll now be working for the MSM, does this mean you’ll now have to be nice about them?
Apologies for bringing the conversation back from beer.
Since you’ll now be working for the MSM, does this mean you’ll now have to be nice about them?
Like hell…
I thought you all drank pints of fizzy dahn sarf, or Babycham most likely.
*doffs flat cap*
Only 198 of them are better known than you; I’m in.
I am disappointed that you have not addressed the crucial question of what is the best way to strangle a vole.
If anyone wants to join me discussing this crucial topic, please joing me at:
http://thevolestrangler.blogspot.com/
Do you know how jealous I am?
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Congratulations Justin. If there’s any justice, this will just be one step in your rise to MSM stardom. I want to see you presenting Newsnight before the decade’s out.
The blogger that I’d really like to see the Guardian use on this project (which, much as I’m prone to Scott Burgess-like foaming outrage to that paper’s content, looks like a brave and innovative move) is Chris Dillow of Stumbling & Mumbling.
I didn’t really understand what “Comment is Free” was, until I found this explanatory quote from Emily Bell:
“This is where commentary is refining itself. You have to think ‘where is this competitive landscape going?’ - and it is already there. Unless you take your writers there you are already dead.”
Ok, got it.
Anyway, congratulations!
Congrats Justin.
Are you getting any dosh for this?
As for the beer, I have drunk in all but five English counties. There is good beer and bad beer up North and down South.