Trojan Horses

Sometimes, something will simply float through your defences. You’re ready to go, you’re forewarned and thus forearmed, and you know what you’re about to experience. But just occasionally, something you think you have a pretty good handle on will sneak through your defences and blindside you. Take, for example, Watership Down. Ostensibly, it’s a bookContinue reading “Trojan Horses”

Emotional/Intellectual Divide

Beer, like so many things, is not an intellectual choice, but an emotional one. Now, the motivations may vary, but more often than not the choice to like a beer doesn’t necessarily come from the grey matter. The stories as to why a person likes a beer are always my favourite. “I love _x_ becauseContinue reading “Emotional/Intellectual Divide”

Scottie’s Soapbox 4: Live Free or Soap Hard

The Persistence of Memory                 Let me fly you, oh dearest reader, on wings of memory to the heady era of the early nineties. There was a time, oh my loves, and you may not believe it so, but please believe me that there was a time that sweet chilli sauce was bold, and new,Continue reading “Scottie’s Soapbox 4: Live Free or Soap Hard”

Scottie’s Soapbox 3: Soap Hard with a Vengeance

5 Treasures Beer or The 5 Great Delights of Beer:                 My good friend, Frankie Framing-Device asked me the other day why I like beer. What is it actually about beer that I enjoy? The obvious answer might be the taste, but I remember a young boy sitting with his mate chatting about beer andContinue reading “Scottie’s Soapbox 3: Soap Hard with a Vengeance”

Scottie’s Soapbox 2: Even Soapier

            They say that the sense most strongly associated with memory is smell. And I have experienced this – standing on the escalator at Parliament Station with the scent of burning train brake-pads in my nostrils, I had my consciousness slammed twenty years back into the previously murky recesses of my 6 year old self,Continue reading “Scottie’s Soapbox 2: Even Soapier”