Nick Jordan

I’ve not long got home from Towersey Village Festival, a very enjoyable folk festival indeed. The highlight, for me, was the Spooky Men’s Chorale, a 15-piece choir from the Blue Mountains in Australia. Not only are they extremely funny but they’re great singers, too. The harmonies are spot-on and the timing’s damn near perfect. If you get a chance to see them live, grab it.

Just a quick moan. If the authorities are going to close a main road, which I understand is sometimes necessary, it would be really helpful if they’d set up diversion signs. Riding aimlessly around London is not my idea of a fun way to start the day.

This morning I took the bike to South Woodford for its MOT test. I’d been quite worried because I suspected that it would fail and that I’d need to spend a fortune I don’t have on getting it fixed. In the event, however, it passed. I was, as I’m sure you can imagine, very surprised and pleased, especially since the road tax is due at the end of the month and a valid MOT certificate is required in order to get a new tax disc. I feel a lot more cheerful now than I did earlier.

I watched a really interesting programme on Channel 4 last night called ‘Interviewing the Interviewers’, in which veteran Labour politician Tony Benn interviewed four leading TV journalists about their jobs. I liked the fact that he asked pretty much the same questions of each of them, and found their answers fascinating, if a little predictable at times. Jeremy Paxman, in particular, I thought came over rather well - good humoured and honest.

I find that the older I get, the more interested I become in politics and in the society in which I live. When I was in my twenties (way, way back in the mists of time) I took only be vaguest notice of what was going on around me, being far more interested in music, fantasy and science fiction and technology. Yes, I know, a typical geek. But as I become more decrepit I find that I care more and more about ‘real life’. I always cared about certain things, such as the environment, but I find that my concerns are far broader now. I suspect that this is normal and that I’m far from alone, but it’s still a bit of a surprise to me to realise how much I’ve changed. I wonder what I’ll be like if I’m still here in another forty years.

Sharpest Manmade Thing. This has to be one of the coolest images I’ve seen in a long while. The tip of a tungsten needle, showing individual atoms, some of which appear smeared because they moved during the imaging process.

Terror fears in Walthamstow. Quite a nice, balanced little article from the BBC in reaction to the recent arrests, and in particular that of a young man from Walthamstow, on terrorism charges. I live in Walthamstow and I agree that people in the area generally seem to get on very well. I’ve detected no unpleasant atmosphere, no tension at all. It’s nice here and I like it.

I don’t pretend to know anything about the government’s intelligence, but given the recent appalling errors, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out that at least some of the people arrested on Thursday are entirely innocent. Having said that, I don’t know and I can’t judge. That’s what the courts are for, and I hope they’ll be allowed to do their job fairly and impartially, and in possession of all the facts.

Last Thursday I went to the Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court. While there I bought a copy of 300 Beers To Try Before You Die by Roger Protz. The book provides space for tasting notes and has an index with checkboxes so that you can mark off all the beers you’ve tasted.

My extremely unoriginal plan is to try and get through as many of the beers listed in the book as I can. Some of them are likely to be a bit of a challenge as they’re not all widely available, but I shall do my best. Naturally, I shall write some brief notes on this site as I go along. I may even write about beers I try that aren’t in the book but are worthy of a mention. I shall also, for the purposes of writing about them, assume that I haven’t yet sampled any of them at all, even though in reality, of course, I have.

Incidentally, I don’t think that my love of beer indicates any kind of latent (or otherwise) alcoholism. I rarely drink to excess and I tend to prefer beers that aren’t over strong. Indeed, one of may favourites is Manns Brown Ale, which is only 2.8% alcohol and thus barely qualifies in some people’s books as an alcoholic beverage at all. For me it’s all about the wonderful complex flavours of proper beer (as opposed to the nasty, flavourless, gassy ‘lagers’ that many of the big brewers churn out in vast quantities). I think it’s a great shame that many restaurants, especially those with pretensions to excellence, don’t serve real ales alongside the decent wines and fancy foreign lagers.