In Blogging, Living in London on February 21, 2010 by Michael Tagged: beer, bloggers, lbm, London, Meeting bloggers, pub
One of the things I love about being here in UK is the hand pumped beers or cask ales as they are also called. These are unfiltered and unpasteurised beer that are not drawn from the kegs or containers by carbon dioxide but instead by hand pump or gravity. In UK you just have to look for the Cask Marque sign and you know the pub serves some good, traditional cask ale.
If you go to the north of England you will get your pint like the one on the left, smooth and creamy. If you ask for a pint in the south you will get one like the one on the right, clean and crisp. The two pints shown are the same beer but poured in two different ways that produces slight differences in taste. There is more of an explanation here.
Thursday Ann and I went to the February edition of London Bloggers Meetup. The meeting was sponsored by Greene King brewery who wanted to show of their new beer engine that could produce both Northern and Southern style pints. The head brewer John Bexon was there with another guy to tell about the beers and explained how to taste a beer.
I enjoyed speaking to other bloggers and having a night out. The beer was very good I enjoyed both versions – and it was free which makes it even better. We had a great evening where we got away with goody bags filled with interesting beers from the brewery and tickets for a rugby game but more on that some other time.
In Living in London on February 14, 2010 by Michael Tagged: barbican, comedy, live, show, theater
It’s been a while since we have really taken advantage of living in this cultural hub but now we are getting into a stream of events again and hopefully I’ll get around to blog about them.
This weekend started off with a visit to a black box. Not just any box however it was Miroslaw Balka’s Box of Darkness at Tate Modern. A huge steel box that as you entered it completely covered you in darkness. It is 30 meters deep and as you walk in you can’t see anything – until you hit the back wall. A quite eerie sensation produced by simple means.
Last night we went to a sold out Pit at the Barbican to see Ursula Martinez. If that name doesn’t ring a bell you might remember the video of her doing a magic striptease trick that made it’s rounds on the interweb around 2006. She never intended for her act to be film but it did and eventually ended up online which caused a torrent of attention and fan mail.
Now she has turned this unsought celebrity status into a new show called My Stories, Your Emails which we saw last night and it was hilarious. First part was her telling embarrassing and funny stories from her life unrelated to the video. Then she showed the infamous clip and second part was her reading emails she received as response to the video. She did this while showing pictures sent along by the emailers and she impersonated the different accents of the people who have written her. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and so did Ann and who knows when I can watch striptease with her again without complaints ;)
We didn’t really know anything about the show before we went but it has been interesting to read up on the reviews and criticism of the ethics – or lack thereof of the show.
