An unusual Homecoming

Its not often I'm moved to email a complete stranger in another country; well, I never have been if I'm honest. But reading about the crowning of the Homecoming King and Queen at Patrick Henry High School in San Diego and watching the video of the announcement (below); and then, of course, the inevitable backlash of hate mail the school has received, I simply had to show my support.

What was so unusual? The homecoming King and Queen are a lesbian couple!

You can hear in the video clip the support the students showed them, what a shame that so many adults had to try and spoil it. If these young people are representative of the youth of America then there's hope for the country yet!

Vanity!

'Nuff said.

Cropredy 2011

Another Cropredy has come and gone, after all the build up and excitement it's amazing how fast it goes by.

For those who dont know, Cropredy is a folk/rock festival held in a picturesque  Oxfordshire village and hosted by veteran folk rockers Fairport Convention. It now lasts for 3 days and attracts 20,000 music fans of all ages and tastes although folk is still the mainstay of the event. It claims to be Britain's friendliest festival and certainly lives up to it.

Its unusual in that there is only one stage and you can bring your own chairs, food and drink. There is a large Wadsworth run bar which is used by both audience and performers so you could find yourself drinking next to someone famous if you can stomach the £3.70 a pint! There are plenty of food stalls providing a wide variety of meals and a selection of stalls selling everything form silly festival hats to expensive instruments.

In the village the two pubs, the Brasenose and Red Lion provide a free fringe for the festival if you fancy a change and various places provide breakfasts each morning.

The event finishes after Fairports marathon 3 hour set on the Saturday night with the traditional singing of "Meet on the Ledge".

A few of my favorites from this years line up-

Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts

Blair Dunlop

Home service

Hayseed Dixie

Seasick Steve

More Photo's on my Flickr Page.

Poncho Tarp

After last years rather wet Cropredy Festival I thought it would be a good idea to get a poncho. They are ideal for festivals, especially ones like cropredy were you can take your own chair as they can drape over the back of it to keep your seat dry.


As I had a good excuse I went for a Golite Poncho Tarp as it didn't cost much more than a normal one. I've been after one for a while as I would love to try tarp camping. This is a great compromise as it combines rain gear and shelter into something weighing about 250g! Even adding a bivvy bag in case of extreme weather it still lightens my pack weight by 1300g!

It pitches quickly as a half pyramid as in the photo above and can be pitched as an A frame or flying diamond depending on the conditions and topography. Of course you look really stylish in it as you can see from the photo below. Form an orderly queue ladies!

I'm itching to get out on Exmoor and give it a try for  a night of two, but this may have to wait for a week or two as I am off to Cropredy next week.

Breaking the Rules

It's amazing how many things we believe without checking for ourselves (No, this isn't going to be an atheist rant, although parallels could be drawn)

In cooking, for example, people are still convinced that sealing meat will keep in the juices. In fact the opposite is true. People still waste time sifting flour to 'trap air in' and still salt their aubergines, even TV cooks now say this is unnecessary.

Brewing is another area, there are all kinds of do's and dont's you hear parroted without anyone actually checking for themselves. Luckily, partly through laziness, I've always been a little sloppy in my brewing techniques and haven't yet produced a bad brew. With only one exception, when my pale malt had been hanging around too long and the resulting beer was rather soapy tasting, I have never produced a beer that wasn't as good as something I've been served in a pub and enjoyed.

My most recent 'happy accident' was when I found I had no yeast left and resorted to a sachet of Tesco bread yeast. It fermented well, as expected, and once cleared it produced a very nice beer. No 'doughy' taste that some suggest would result from it. It had quite a dry taste to it, similar to other beers I have tried. I think the amount of hops I use may have helped the flavor.

My only issues I had with it was that the yeast didn't form a very dense layer in the bottle and stirred up easily when poured, something that is true to other commercial ale yeasts, and it got rather lively in the bottle, priming was certainly unnecessary!

I liked it so much, not least the economy, that I have used some that I collected from the secondary fermenter to start my next brew. This time I will put it in a barrel for a while to clear before bottling and maybe skip the priming. This one will be going with me to Cropredy Festival next month so fingers crossed it will be a good one.

A few projects.

I have been working on a couple of little projects lately.
First up, a bureau PC case. The bureau was off Ebay, £26, bargain! The PC itself is in the middle drawer. I had to cut a hole for the fan and another to feed all the leads through.


I built a small box to fit one of the pigeon holes and covered it with leather, into this I fitted the DVD drive, card reader, USB hub and 'on' button. It still needs a bit of tidying up, maybe some thin brass rod around the edge of the box to make it look a bit neater, but overall I'm pleased with the result.


Elaine had been on about a padded headboard for a while. When some CD printing kit was delivered to work the other week it was packed in some foam rubber and looked perfect for the job. I cut a piece of board to size, attached the foam rubber and stapled over a piece of cloth that Elaine chose. Not bad for under £20 and 30minutes work and best of all Elaine's happy!

Finally an idea for a cloche I saw on someones allotment . The frame is made form pressure treated wood, the top is a couple of canes, tied to the frame and the netting is draped over. Different sized canes can be attached to change the length according to what I need and it keeps the sparrows and butterflies off my crops!

Eleanor Rigby ukulele

A simple instrumental version of Eleanor Rigby. Unfortunately my webcams microphone sucks!