Knitting sweaters for dead squirrels — LiveJournal
Dec. 10th, 2016
01:29 pm - Advent coffee days five to ten
Day five: La Secreta
Taste notes: Peach and green apple
From: Norte de Santander, Colombia
Grown at: 1860 m
Type: Castillo
This is nice. It has a good balance of sour and bitter and creamy. It is also slightly sweet.
Day six: El Talapo
Tasting notes: Date and Caramel
From: El Salvador
Grown at: 1430
Type: Bourbon
This is lovely. I don't have enough taste buds to say why it is, but it isn't bitter at all. It is sweet and a very little bit sour. I think it made me think of bananas but then, I often think of bananas.
Day seven: Filadelfia washed
Tasting notes: Dark cholate and orange
From: Guatemala
Grown at: 1600
Type: Bourbon, Caturra
This is pleasant enough, but nothing special. It seems to lack body, somehow; maybe a tad watery. This seems to be associated with tasting notes indicating orange, for me, incidentally. The strongest chocolatey flavour is when you smell it just after opening the packet. This is reminiscent of the sort of coffee you get when somewhere advertises themself as selling 'Illy' coffee, only a little less bitter. It's a sort of afternoon coffee.
Day eight: El Sapote
Taste: Cherry and Blackberry
Grown: Honduras
Grown at: 1700 m
Type: Red Catui, Pacas
I *think* I could smell the cherry in this when I opened the pack - a sour, astringent, fruity note like a dialled-down haribo sweet - but I am not sure that I can taste it in the coffee itself.
This is a very bitter coffee (it might be the way I made it today; perhaps the water was too hot) but it's growing on me as I drink it and the sourness starts to balance the bitterness.
I have no idea where they get the blackberry part from, though.
Day nine: la Girita
Taste notes: Brown Sugar and Lime
From: Columbia
Type: Tipica
Grown at: 1630 m
Honestly, I don't know where the taster gets his fertile imagination from. This tastes like coffee. Coffee, dammit.
I have a slight cold (again, world?) and so I am either hyper sensitive to taste or I'm the opposite. The bitterness is there but not as acrid as bitterness can be, and it's all fine. It's not got the full-on creamy mouth feel of my favourite coffees, but it's still damn fine coffee.
Day ten: Sertao natural
Tasting notes: Dark chocolate, cherry and almond
Origin: Brazil
Type: Yellow bourbon
Grown at: 1400 m
This actually smells of dark chocolate, cherry and almond. I opened the packet and had a good sniff before looking it up on the tasting notes, and I did actually think dark chocolate, cherry and almond. I would like to note that this is one of the coffees that Pact carries more often than not, and I may have grown to register this as dark chocolate, cherry and almond by repeated exposure.
Anyway, it's one of my favourite coffees, with a full mouth feel. I think it tastes like coffee.
Dec. 4th, 2016
12:49 pm - Advent coffee Days two - four
Coffee Advent day two
Fahem Lima Washed
Tasting Notes: Cherry and Blossom
Grown at: 1855 - 1958 m
From: Ethiopia
This is noticeably less bitter and more astringent than yesterday - the aftertaste is sour, rather than bitter. I think it's typical of the East African coffees I remember from when I was young. I do like this a lot
Coffee Advent day three (even though it is really day four).
Villaure
Tasting notes: Plum Tart
From: Guatemala
Grown at 1415 - 1850
Type: Bourbon, Caturra, Pacamara (mix)
This is actually very pleasant. It doesn't have the astringent edge of yesterday, but neither is it as bitter as the first coffee. It's sort of ... biscuity.
Coffee Advent day four
El Aguacate
Tasting notes: Grapefruit and Black cherry
From: Honduras
Grown at: 1700 m
Type: Red Catuai, caturra
This looked much lighter in the bag and is much lighter in the pot (I should probably take pictures). I can actually taste the grapefruit - it has a bitterness extremely analogous to that. It also has an astringency a little bit like day two; I guess that that must be what is meant by 'black cherry'. It also has a watery or 'juicy' mouth feel. I'm not so fond of this; I don't like the grapefruit bitterness without any compensatory creaminess. It's still very good coffee.
Dec. 1st, 2016
09:27 pm - Advent coffee Day One:
El Cabildo
From Norte de Santander, Colombia, grown at 1460 m, it's supposed to taste of Orange blossom.
I think it's good coffee, but then I would say that. It does have a juicy feel to it (some might say 'watery') and there is a bitter aftertaste. It smells slightly of caramel. Maybe it's a tad too bitter.
Aug. 10th, 2011
09:27 pm - "We're getting our tax back"
I really do think that too much has been written about the cause of the riots, and I am absolutely sure that, living in a city that hasn't had any riots, bar a drunken gathering on a green space by the canal and a couple of pubs on one of the nights, not having rioted myself, being far older than most of those who appear to be 'rioting', and not particularly interested in engaging in rioting myself, I am not a spokesperson who could explain with any degree of authority, pretendy or not, why 'the yoof' is rioting, or 'opportunistically looting with violence while the police are otherwise engaged' (which is a better description of what's been happening for the last few nights).
There are a number of middle class, middle aged people on various blog forums and in the press who have decided that they'll explain to the rest of us (who are, apparently, less enlightened) as to why the 'riots' happened.
Yeah. You go, you middle class people who make a living, or at least, get attention, out of "shock! horror!" column inches.
Me, I'm more convinced by listening to those who have rioted. Phrases like "We're getting our tax back", while on the surface fairly incoherent sound bites, are actually really pretty enlightening.
It seems to me to be a pretty reasonable assumption that if a whole bunch of people who don't have very much are told that the little access they have to money will be questioned, and probably removed, and they then see that a second bunch of people, the people who are telling them that they will have this money removed give a third bunch of people, all people who resemble the second bunch of people in appearance and social background, the opportunities to take as much money as they want from the system that was originally paying the first bunch of people the little money that they have, then the first bunch of people might just decide to take for themselves what they want, and that this is especially likely to be the course of action that the first bunch of people take if the second bunch of people have decided also to remove money from a fourth bunch of people who were previously paid to impose the rules and conventions needed to keep society functioning.
I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that that's what's going on, especially when the first bunch of people tell you that that's what's happening, albeit in an incoherent way.
A lot of commentators have asked why the first bunch of people don't have any morals or commitment to society; why they can so easily attack the infrastructure of the community they live in. These commentators could as easily ask the same of the third bunch of people, the money and tax stealing friends of the second bunch of people.
If the first bunch of people see the third bunch of people getting away with stealing money from their communities and countries with the help of the second bunch of people, then right there, they're getting the message that it's OK to steal things; that it's OK to put your wants first and not think about the community, or the country. Phrases like "We're all in this together" aren't really going to work when all of the bunches of people palpably aren't in this together.
I'm not a rioter, though, so I wouldn't know what's really going on except by listening to those who are rioting. When somebody who doesn't even pay any tax, probably, says "We're getting our tax back," where do you think he's getting the impression that that's a reasonable justification for his actions? All I'm doing is listening.
Here's another point that somebody entirely different made on one of the many social forums where people are trying to figure this out: The people who are 'selfishly' rioting weren't born 'selfish' rioters. Somewhere they got taught that it's OK to think of their own consumer needs above the needs of the community that they live in. How did they get taught that?
Harrumph.
Jul. 2nd, 2008
10:17 pm - The Three Stags
After 
nja left me I went back to the pub. The night was dark and stormy and flashes illuminated the three heads of class cervidae thrown high on the rough hewn wall: 
Later, much later, I was to find out that many people consider this pub the best pub in the Peak district. I would have liked to have gone back to have checked the next day, or the day after, but it was closed, both times. Close, desolate and deserted. Did we really see it? Did I really have a pint of Absolution there? I cannot tell.
I knocked on the door, and the red-head, slightly drunk, opened it again.
"Can I have a drink?" I asked.
"Come in, come in," she said, waving her arm over half the room. Literally, half the room. There were five people seated and a spare space in the corner and two pumps, one serving Absolution and the other labelled "House own - Black Lurcher." I went for Absolution, as I always do, and sat in the spare space.
The two small grey lurchers in the room jumped on the table, which was made out of planks, and sniffed at my drink. "Good Doggies," I said, nervously. They looked at each other and then jumped down to the floor to reset their rest against the landlady's legs, staring at the punters sat drinking. Two more strangers walked in. No room to sit; they stood at the bar.
"We'll have the house beer," they said.
"It's off," said the Landlord, rising from the seat by his wife by the door.
"Oh," said the strangers, and left. The lurchers bared their teeth, risibly. I may have heard a cackle, but I am not sure. Dogs don't cackle, afer all. "This metric stuff is rubbish," said the old man in the corner.
"Aar, it be that" said the young man, dark haird, muscled, wearing a beany.
"You can't do your sums in metric," said the old man.
I cleared my throat. They all looked at me.
"Actually," I said, "You know how all of those robots keep crashing on Mars?" The old man nodded once. The young man looked confused.
"Well," I said. "The American engineers were working in imperial and the European engineers in metric. And they never bothered to check." 23
"Ar. Hahar!" said the old man. "And it's bloody strange," he said. "Imperial. You'd think they'd have given that up."
"Yeah, well," said another, and they were off.
I finished my pint. "They're clearing Africa in order to grow biodiesel, you know," said the man sat by the bar. I listened intently. He repeated himself. "Of course," I said, "Of course. Yes." I nodded. "Great pub," I said to the landlady. "Can I come back?"
"Of course," she said.
"I went to a brilliant pub last night," I said to Alex and Steve the next day, as we tried to cook bacon and eggs.
"The Three Stags?" asked Steve. "Some people say that's the best pub in the Peaks. If they let you in."
"I certainly think so," I said.
"Let's go tonight," said Alex.
But it was closed that night, and the night after.
23Yes, I'm sure I've got the details wrong. No need to tell me.
Apr. 6th, 2008
01:16 pm - Tidying up
About to do a bit of an flist prune, mostly people who haven't posted for ages. If I take you off and you would like to be added back on, please shout underneath.
Feb. 22nd, 2006
10:28 am
For various reasons, this journal has had to go friends only. Please comment if you want to be added, below, although I will probably limit myself to adding friends of friends, iyswim.
Mar. 22nd, 2005
09:49 pm - Crashing cars
I was in my first car crash when I was, um, seven.
( blood and guts over the steering wheelCollapse )
( goats and rolling over and overCollapse )
The next accident was the one that I spoke of in this post.
( The Love and Joy driving schoolCollapse )
( just testing the brakes out, ma'amCollapse )
( The worst oneCollapse )
( The rats get out aliveCollapse )
Six out of nine lives, then.
On edit: Erk. I've been told that this reads rather heavily; sorry. It is not significant in any way at all; nothng I write ever is. I started writing about the Love and Joy driving school, and then remembered the crashes. That is all.
Jan. 29th, 2005
11:48 pm - Kiswahili and motorbikes
Of all the languages I've almost learnt, Kiswahili remains my favourite. Kiswahili, as it properly should be named.
( place, names, and languageCollapse )
So, I can't really rant about Kiswahili. I can rant about why I was, once, able to learn language, though. And I have.