What I've been up to lately

[undyingking]

Busyness, but also lots of nice things, so here's a brief rundown:

• Saw Howl's Moving Castle, which we'd managed to miss first time out. Visually beautiful, made radical simplifications ot the plot which was fair enough, also introduced a load of bizarre new stuff most of which was fun, but why change Michael's name to "Markle"? -- is that a Japanese tongue thing? And why keep clumsily avoiding naming Sophie's home town (Market Chipping) when Kingsbury and Porthaven were named? Anyway, good stuff as I'm sure you all already know by now. I want Howl's bedroom.
• We've been watching Bleak House on TV, which I think is a really good adaptation -- of necessity it's simplified from the book, but unless it was going to last all year, I don't see how it could have been done much better. Lots of terrific acting from the 'colour' characters and also from Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock, who makes a good job of a pretty thankless part I think.
• Met up and caught up with various LJ luminaries along the lines of pmcray and the_elyan, which was lovely and made up for being rather stuck here recently thanks to T's excessive work hours.
• The Dove's winter beer festival's just finished -- 60+ porters, stouts, winter ales etc, plus a couple of Liefman's fruit lambics on draught -- our local pub's third beer festival of the year. This pub is so excellent, and we so lazy and alcoholic, that being 20 rather than 5 minutes' walk away from it is a significant factor counting against a house we're thinking about moving to. They're planning to open until 2 on Friday and Saturday, but not admit anyone new after 10.45. Although the landlord said to us "If you're working late or whatever and can't make it down for then, just give us a call and we'll let you in." Dangerously accomodating!
• We've got some nice bottled beer from Sainsbury's at the moment -- Schneider und Sohn's Aventinus, which is a wheat beer but dark and rather sweet and malty. Close to my ideal beer!
• Went to see Eliza Carthy and the Ratcatchers at the St Nicholas Centre -- first time we'd been to this newly-converted church venue, and kind of a weird place for a gig we thought. And indeed it turned out to be (a) seated, (b) impossible to see the stage from the aisle seats, and (c) very cold. Support were an Essex folk band called Malkin, who were OK but a bit hmm background music-y. I've seen Eliza Carthy a few times now and think her a terrific performer, and she did a great job of trying to bring it to life -- a mix of ballads and dancing music, and the usual crop of fair damsels and maidens leavened by some contemporary songs. Recommended, if you can catch the tour somewhere that lets you stand up and dance!
• Off to India in a week's time with the family, and that has bred any amount of chaos. Looking forward to getting a bit of sun though!

Comments

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Glad you're enjoying a dark wheat beer, it's one of my favourite sorts, too. I think the Aventinus would be too sweet for me, though, I prefer this one and it's been produced with organic ingredients since '89.

I was at my first year at uni when they introduced their organic range and we were just about to enter a maths lecture when a fellow student came running around the corner, bottler of beer in his hand "They're giving out free beer in front of the mensa!". Maths was forgotten as everyone hurried over and true enough, there was a big truck and Lammsbräu representatives handing out brochures and a free bottle each. Of course, there were a couple of cheeky buggers who queued several times. Needless to say, very few people got much out of the following lectures that day but what a great marketing idea.

My favourite beer however is the St. Georgen Kellerbier (English site). Yum yum.

Have fun in India!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Thanks! -- and thanks for the beer tips!

[rotwang.livejournal.com]

Curiously enough I was in The Devonshire Cat in Sheffield just last night (a Fat Cat pub with an excellent range of beer), lamenting that I couldn't get dark wheat beer in England. They then produced some Erdinger Dunkel from the fridge and I was most happy.

Slightly less happy trying to stay awake in meetings today though ;-)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's alive. :o)
Damn, I had a bottle of Kellerbier for muskrat_john but as he announced he couldn't make Dragonmeet, I drank it myself. You'd most likely enjoy it.