The moving finger rants

My preferred serve at the moment is—no really, trust me on this—whisky and cream soda. Get yourself a nice smoky Islay blend (Black Bottle is good, plus the purchase of it pisses off Donald Trump; Islay Mist is far superior if you can find it), pack an old-fashioned glass with plenty of ice, and add cream soda. Since I am a posh New Town bastard these days, none of the supermarkets round here sell cream soda. I have to walk for twenty minutes before I can get to the grotty kind of store that has a proper shelf full of Barr's products. It is worth the walk.

There is a commonly held belief that one shouldn't add mixers to single malts. This view is incorrect. You still shouldn't, ever, add mixer to single malts, unless you have a really good reason, which I often do. In defiance of this naive view, I have tried the same pour with Smokehead. Smokehead is a single malt (Scuttlebutt has it that it's a seven-year-old vatted Ardbeg with a dash of 10yo), but it still doesn't work as well in this serve as Islay Mist, which is a bloody fantastic drop for a blend, and cheap too, if you can find it.

Limited Edition, single cask, Ximenez finish cask strength 1996 Ben Riach: bloody marvellous. This is the bottle I was saving for when Maggie died, and now I finally have something for which I should thank the horrendous old bitch. Worth waiting for. Not a lot of point in my reviewing this, since most of you will never get to drink any. I have bottle no. 112 of 310, and this one's not coming round again. But nonetheless: bloody marvellous. Tart apple, hint of stewed raisins, and strong acetone on the nose; incredibly sticky mouthfeel, with a touch of burnt golden syrup on the palate; lighter notes and the sherry and oak all come out when you add a drop of water. The concentrated essence of apfelstrudel in a glass. Bloody beautiful. Thanks, Mags. Please feel free to die again any time you like.

Now, who's up for clubbing together to buy a cask of something nice, so that we may drink it when Gideon Osborne is finally deservingly assassinated?

I had a whisky recently that tasted exactly like Scarlett Johansson. I'm not kidding, that's what it tasted like. Or possibly it tasted like how she looks. Unfortunately I can't remember anything else about it, not even the whisky's name, or how it could possibly taste like that, or how I would know. Must have been a good one.

Many of you will know of my fondness for Lidl's finest Ben Bracken single malt. Lovely fresh vanilla cream notes, hint of lemon sherrrrbert, and it's about eighteen quid a bottle. Scuttlebutt has it that it's the last expression from the mothballed Tamnavulin distillery, but if that's true then I'm not sure where they're still getting the stuff from, since Tamnavulin reopened in 2007.

Vaguely related, today's find has been Aldi's finest, Glen Marnoch 12yo Highland single malt. There's no such place as Glen Marnoch and Internet is suspiciously silent on where this stuff came from. It's spent some time in a sherry cask, without question. Dry white pepper and old wizened cinnamon sticks on the nose. Packed full of fresh fruits—watermelon, guava, tropical fruit salad—citrus, and a warm welcoming sherry length to it. Nice long smoky finish with a little ethanol kick at the end. And the whole thing comes in at under twenty quid.

I'm starting to like Aldi. Their weinerschnitzel is good too.

Shitty day, followed by meeting up with stormsearch in a hurry so we can rush to the boot shop before they close and they can refuse to replace the stupid shitty boots they sold her instead of the awesome rockin boots they promised her in the shop the last time. I've had enough. I am in a mood that only spicèd chicken and tequila slammers will shift. Thus, 'twas off to the Mexican restaurant around the corner.

I may have still been in a mood during the ordering process. I was going to ask for some hotter hot sauces. I brush my teeth with that stuff. To his credit, the waiter brought me a bottle of hotter sauce: to my dismay, it was Tabasco. I revised my earlier boast. I brush my teeth with that stuff. The previous stuff is mouthwash. (I own a bottle of it, for stormsearch to use. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Food was okay, although they fucked up the fajitas, which they also fucked up (differently) the last time we were in: my non-fajita item was amazing, however. And there were margaritas. First there were two individual margaritas, because a jug might be too much: then there was a jug as well. In the process, there was a chilli margarita, which was a nice idea poorly executed. A sprinkle of chilli flakes in the glass. Slight hint of warming edge on the finish. Insufficient, I say.

Suitably replete with spicèd chicken and other items, headed home, modulo a brief stop off at the supermarket for ice cubes, because the ice machine isn't working (I may have mentioned that I was having a bad day). For reasons it would be otiose, at best, to rehearse, I have a full bottle and a half of tequila. It is time to infuse dried Arbol chillies into the half bottle.

Based on previous schnappsfabrefaction experience, I was expecting the process to take a couple of days, maybe a week. Just to be sure, I tasted it after two hours and HOLY SHIT yeah okay, that's ready. (I may have been somewhat generous with the chillies.) Hence or otherwise:

Genius Chilli Margarita

• Half a lime, rolled hard and squeezed, and drop the hull into the shaker
• Shot + pony shot Fearsome Chilli Tequila
• Shot + pony shot triple sec
• Top up with ice
• Shake like a bastard
• Double-strain into chilled salt-rimmed margarita glass, or a martini glass if you're slumming it.

Immediately upon tasting it I ran through to stormsearch, who was inconveniently in the bathroom at the time, and demanded BUILD A STATUE TO ME RIGHT NOW. It is simply that good.

Next time: scotch bonnets. The flavour will work brilliantly with the tequila I'm using. I also have plans for a chilli-tequila Vesper, which may yet be utter genius, but I fear it might be the kind of thing that one tries just once.

(While I'm at it: Mexican food for Burns' Nicht. O wee sleekit tim'rous Speedy. Cohiba.)

(ETA: The chilli-tequila Vesper, thus sampled (I ran out of limes for the margaritas), is a work of absolute unadulterated genius. Next time: chilli gin, and half a dash of Peychauds.)

The scene: stormsearch is watching the Top Gear Bond Cars Special. I am eating chicken. stormsearch has observed that the Top Gear Bond Cars Special is basically just showing all of the good bits from Skyfall, and is wondering how they can afford it.

Yr. corresp.: Never underestimate the power of the BBC. You know why they just closed down Television Centre? It was so they could move into their hollowed-out volcano.
stormsearch: Please twit that.
Yr. corresp.: No.

On Skyfall: as with any Bond film, I suspect I will have to watch it another four times before I have any clue what's going on, and GODDAMMIT THEY PROMISED ME A SUBMARINE BASE. But with any luck I should be able to stop calling Naomie Harris not Thandie Newton by about rewatching #3.

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!

"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

"Eh?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.

"To-day?" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day."

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!"

"Hallo!" returned the boy.

"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the corner?" Scrooge inquired.

"I should hope I did," replied the lad.

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there -- Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?"

"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck."

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.

"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."

"Walk-er!" exclaimed the boy.

The shop's closed, ya senile old bastard, chirrupped the boy, returning to his daily business, and plunging Scrooge into a deep despair from which he never fully recovered.

~ FIN ~

This post brought to you by Charles John Huffam Dickens and the fact that the bakery didn't bother telling us that they weren't delivering this morning. Cthulhu eat us first, every one.

The other day I'm sitting in Illegal Jack's eating quesadillas with stormsearch, when my phone goes. Beep beep. It's Bixby Snyder.

The lascivious host of popular televisual entertainment It's Not My Problem expressed to me his readiness to purchase something for up to, but presumably not exceeding, the value of US$1.00. Exactly what it is that he would so purchase was not readily apparent. It took me a few minutes to work it out:

1. The previous evening I had saved a link to an article about the new Robocop film;
2. The following day the autoblogger had pushed that out to my linkdump;
3. Twitterfeed had pushed a snippet of text from the linkdump out to the Twitters;
4. Somebody on the Twitters has a bot that responds to any mention of the word Robocop with Bixby's immortal catchphrase;
5. Seesmic running in the background on my phone had picked up the twit addressed to me, and sent me a notification;
6. My phone vibrates on my belt while I'm trying to get creative with the application of hot sauces to pulled pork.

(I'd given the Masonic handshake and asked for the super-secret special hot sauces from the back. Ended up rather disappointed. It was just the Cholula range, which I already own, and none of them were particularly hot.)

At no stage in this convoluted chain of events had a human being been involved since about 24 hours beforehand, when I'd saved the original link to Delicious. The rest was an automatic, inevitable process, mediated solely by Internet herself. The next day I get a text from a non-existent TV star.

I love this century.

~

Vaguely related: the day before I was walking past a hairdressers which was showing the Gangnam Style video on the TV in the back. I saw about two seconds of it from a great distance as I walked past. And I could swear that I was watching Bixby. There is a certain similarity, no?

I just

1. listened to the proper version of a song, to clear my head of the shitty remix version they keep playing on Viva Top 40, and
2. abused the guy who made the shitty remix version on the Twitters

Goddamn, I love this century.

Srsly tho, as I believe the kids say these days. Compare and contrast. All he's done is move the pitch-bend slider slightly and set his Fischer-Price® ‘My First Drum Machine’™ onto auto-demo, and in the process has turned an awesome song into a deeply, deeply awful one. It's so rough you can hear the square waves. This is apparently Calvin Harris' full-time job.

(And yes, I'm aware that there isn't really a machine. It's more of a concept.)

When I got to work at seven o' clock this morning, there was a car alarm outside that had already been going off for at least an hour. One of those annoying ones that, in order to comply with legislation, doesn't sound for any longer than twenty seconds. Then it waits 2.5 seconds and then immediately goes off again. And again, and again. I remind you that this scenario is taking place at 7am. And the alarm is on a shitty 1980s Citroen that no one would ever want to steal.

By 8am everyone at work was going a little bit mental. And by "everyone", naturally, I mostly mean me. So I printed out this:

Tonight, a little bit of Ludwig Van, O my droogs. Specifically, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra perform the Choral Symphony at the Usher Hall with scotm and stormsearch. scotm didn't realize that the Choral Symphony was the same one as the Glorious Ninth until the interval. The look on his face reminded all present what the Ode to Joy is about. I should have charged him extra for the tickets.

Speaking of. This was the second time this week that I've spent money to be the youngest person in the room. The pleasant white-haired old gentleman in the seat next to me made indignant snorting noises when he heard me saying before the concert began, perhaps just a touch louder than conversationally, that the libretto to Ode to Joy was a load of old wank. The house lights dimmed before I was able to explain myself: if you don't speak German, then the Glorious Ninth appropriately remains music.

If you understand German, the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth is an excruciating exercise in George Lucas-level dialogue. Joy, sing the choir, joy is a good thing, we'd like more joy please, and less not-joy would be nice too, joy joy joy, joy is cool. Also: joy. Then there's something about shiny happy people holding hands and the whole thing degenerates into hippydom. I'm working from memory here.

Beethoven wasn't a poet. I'm fairly safe in making this assertion—he has many other sterling qualities—and, besides, and it's been said before. (“That ‘Ode to Joy’, talk about vulgarity! And the text! Completely puerile!”, said Leonhardt.) Schiller, who was a poet, and who wrote the original text that Beethoven adapted, frankly should have known better. It goes: joy (which is a good thing that we'd like more of) is like a joyful river of joyous joy, but it says it in German, and therefore it still sounds kinda cool.

We, who are privileged not to understand German, can listen to the Ode to Joy without engaging the semantic cortices, and thus we can listen to the human voice in a symphonic setting simply as another instrument. The voice is a flute as designed by David Cronenberg. It sounds fantastic when you put it in an orchestra. It sounds even better when you use a hundred of them. Just please don't think too hard about what the words actually mean.

What intrigued me about this particular performance of the Glorious Ninth was the second movement, which was among the best I've ever heard. The first movement of the Ninth is grand and regal and wonderful, and then there are the second and third movements, which... exist, and then the audience wake up again for the fourth movement and that glorious Ode. This orchestra took the second movement (molto vivace!) and made it their own. It was peppy; it zipped along. It was energetic and vigorous and it had zing. The tempo was such that I wondered if the conductor had some urgent appointment at the bar, and then the third movement was an appropriately reassuring, lugubrious, respite from all this orchestral fanfara that I forgot any such concerns. Usually I, like most of the audience, would be quite happy to sleep through the third movement, because it doesn't count. This third movement was a good one. It was, in a way I've never appreciated before, a welcome respite between the breathless gallopping rhythm of the scherzo and the relentless onslaught of that glorious fourth movement, which amazes all the senses through purely orchestral means and then, as if it was an encore, breaks out the choral section in order to make the perfeact more perfect. O that fourth movement. It gets no better.

The solo vocalists weren't quite top-rank and the percussion was a bit louder than it should be, and we were in terrible seats way up in the gods, but that's why we have live performances. The Glorious Ninth will never sound exactly like that again, and it was personal and intimate, and it was marvellous.

We applauded until our hands stang. On the way out, the pleasant white-haired old gentleman who'd been in the seat next me collared me and said: the words may be awful, but didn't they do them well? Not appropriately placed for a discussion about semantic cortices, I could only agree. And then, perhaps overheard on the way home, as we walk down the main road past the well-known Sauna:

Oh. So that's where all the cute strippers have gone.
I went to school with her.

A good day and an interesting one. I hope it remains so after I write it down.

Okay, so when Chekov and Captain Terrell beam down to investigate the planet for suitability for the Genesis Project, they think the planet is Ceti Alpha VI. Then, when Khan explains that THIS IS CETI ALPHA FIVE, he says that Ceti Alpha VI asploded—secretly!—fourteen-and-a-half years ago. This is stated as the reason why Ceti Alpha V looks a lot less hospitable than it did during TOS, and it's presumably the reason why the crew of the Reliant weren't capable of accurately counting to six.

Planetary systems are numbered from the inside out. Ceti Alpha Prime would be the planet nearest the star, Ceti Alpha II would be the next one out, then Ceti Alpha III, IV, and Ceti Alpha V would be inside the orbit of Ceti Alpha VI. So when the Reliant warps in on its planetary survey mission, they count planets Ceti Alpha one two three four five six... and beam down to the wrong one.

If Ceti Alpha IV had asploded, they might be forgiven for getting the name of Ceti Alpha V wrong. There would still be the pressing issue of a suspicious-looking additional asteroid belt that wasn't on the charts. But when Ceti Alpha VI asploded, six months after we were left here, the only planets that change their name are Ceti Alphas VII and onwards. The only way for Chekov and Terrell to end up on Ceti Alpha V in a system that, unknown to them, has the sixth planet missing, is if they were actually trying to beam down to Ceti Alpha VII and they still fucked that up.

This has bugged me for thirty years, and no amount of Ricardo Montalban's acting can change basic planetary physics. No, Ricardo, stop trying to distract me with your chest. This isn't even basic planetary physics, it's basic planetary arithmetic.

Also, did the star chart not have a big X marked on it, with Here be incredibly dangerous genetically engineered criminals from the 20th century? Did Kirk not actually tell anyone when he established a colony of psychopaths in a habitable system at the end of `Space Seed'? Carol Marcus does mention, only fifteen years afterwards, the galactic problems of population and food supply. Did Kirk hide a bunch of incredibly powerful, genetically-engineered lunatics on a valuable planet, and then try to act surprised when an innocent survey vessel caught hell for it later?

I used to own The Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek (unsurprisingly), and it went on at length about Kirk apparently forgetting to notify Starfleet about the nest of big-titted maniacs he left carelessly strewn about the galaxy. It didn't mention that Ceti Alpha V cannot be mistaken for Ceti Alpha VI. The guy who wrote the Nitpicker's Guide also failed to count accurately to six. This bugs the hell out of me.

I have to cancel the bwiefing. I can't even say bwiefing.

(ObLink: Awesome CJ is awesome.

Wasn't as bad as I thought, actually. Mouth full of blood and iodine. Not allowed any booze until tomorrow, but that's okay, because my entire mouth tastes like a rather interesting single Islay malt.

Now bring me the iced cream.

One of my colleagues, previously referenced in these annals as $MINION, will shortly be squeezing an entire person out of her body. Tough job. I couldn't do it. So naturally, conversation at work over the last few weeks has tended to revolve around notions of expectancy and parturience. Apparently, so $HOUSEKEEPING_SUPERVISOR claims, the more younglings you produce, the easier it becomes to pop 'em out.

Specific examples were provided. (I've learned that, once you get a mother talking about the human gestation period, it's difficult to get her to stop.) In particular, $HOUSEKEEPING_SUPERVISOR's fourth progeny, a (now) young lady by the name of Ella, was so eager to emerge into this world that she hurtled forth in the lift on the way up to the maternity ward.

Brief as the lightning in the collied night, I was. (As the bishop said to the actress.) Ere a man hath power to say behold!, I said: Is that why she's called Ella?... middle name Vator?

Tumbleweeds rolled through the scene. (That's okay, I have staff to clean the dining room these days.) Somewhere, a lone carrion bird cried out. Not even a titter ensued. I need better staff.

To be fair, $CHEF sniggered, but only after I'd said oh come on, that was funny. He's allowed to take an extra couple of seconds. He doesn't speak English.

In other news, I appear to be a manager now. People laugh at my jokes when they feel they have to. Not everyone, but it's still better than previously.