Lee's Ramblings

I've discovered Wordles so I've made a couple.  Click on them to reveal their contents!

I'm a bit late, aren't I?  Well, I've been doing stuff, ok?

Many people make resolutions at the beginning of a year, but I generally don't as I don't really see why you should wait till a certain day of the year to decide to do something - just get on and do it.

This year though, I've trying to do something and that's waste food.  We don't tend to waste that much food anyway, but we do throw stuff out and that is wrong.  So, after hearing something on the radio (I think it might have been from lovefoodhatewaste.com) I decided that we ought to cut down.  It

So - nearly three weeks into the year and out of the food we've bought this year, all we've thrown away is a few slices of mouldy bread and a two green, sprouting potatoes.

A good way to use up bits and bobs of things is by making soup.  You don't need a recipe - just chuck your left over veg (cooked or raw) into a pan and pour in some stock (I use either Knorr Chicken Stock powder or Marigold Bouillon.  Give it 15 or 20 minutes cooking time or until the veg are done and then whizz.  When it's whizzed, you might need to add some water or a bit more salt and pepper and it's done.   Simple.  The last one I made?  Bacon, celery and spinach - and it was delicious!

I do some strange things.  This was one of the better ones.

Last year, I saw an advert in 't Brugs Beertje for the Bruges Beer Festival and thought nothing more as I wasn't available at that weekend.  Earlier this year, I saw their website and it quite appealed.  I mentioned it to Jerry and he seemed keen to.  Then the catch - they were after volunteers.  One quick email to the organisers and we'd booked our places working there!

So, on the day before the festival, Jerry and myself, along with a few other CAMRA members travelled to Brugge for the festival.  On the way, we called at 't Zevende Hemel in Beernem, partly for the 2-for-1 offer they run (or did...) and secondly to visit somewhere with 'beer' in it's name. 

After checking in at the hotel, it wasn't long before we visited 't Brugs Beertje, grabbed some food and then on to Poatersgat and Erasmus. 

Saturday morning dawned, and after breakfast, Jerry and myself ambled down to the main square for opening time at the festival.  As we'd not been to a Belgian beer festival before, we wanted to have an hour or so there before working.

For readers who are used to the British beer festival format, this one was a bit different.  Apart from the trappist and gueuze beers, each brewery had it's own stand - a bit like an exhibition - and they served their own beers using their own staff.  Beer is paid for in plastic tokens which the breweries then cashed in at the end of the day.  The trappist and gueuze beer stands were run by BAB (Brugse Autonome Bierproevers - Bruges Independent Beer Tasters) volunteers.

After signing in, I was posted to the trappist beer stand and Jerry to the BAB beer stand, although he ended up running the cloakroom!  The trappist stand was busy all day, with most imbibers plumping for the rare Westvleteren beers.  Normally, this cannot be bought except from the brewery itself, but as the festival is non profit making and they give some of the proceeds to charity, the monks decided they could sell some.  I did see some of the Doncaster CAMRA lot, but as we were so busy, there wasn't much time to natter!

Four hours later and our stint was done so it was time to relax with a beer or two.  At kicking out time, we decided to continue and went to hunt down Kelk.  Unfortunately it was closed (hopefully not for good) so we headed back to Stokershuis - a good old, down to earth Belgian 'brown cafe'.  Now I am not a fan of smoking at all, but to ban smoking in a place like this would be disastrous!  Anyway, bedtime soon beckoned so we headed back to the hotel.  Via 'Charlie Rockets'.

Sunday morning saw us rise bright and early (yeah, right) and after breakfast ambled down to the festival once again, to sample a few beers before serving - this time me on the BAB stall and Jerry on the trappist stand.  During my stint, the chap I was serving with had visits from his wife, kids, mum and dad - a true family affair!  Sunday was a little quieter, and I had to chance to chat to a few folk while serving, both in English and French.  French is frowned upon in Bruges, but there were a number of visitors from Wallonia and on numerous occasions, I was congratulated on how good my French was!  I tend to pick up foreign languages quite easy (often just a few words though!) and during the weekend, I served in English, Flemish, French, Polish, Japanese, Hungarian, German, Spanish and probably a few more I've forgotten.

After we'd finished working, we stopped at the festival on Sunday evening until finishing time, after which we retired to the staff accommodation and sampled a bottle of several year old Westvleteren 12.  Mmm.  A number of stalls were still serving so we stopped till it was time to go back to the hotel.

We didn't arise particularly early on Monday, and after breakfast wandered over to Roeselare to sample Rodenbach in its hometime before heading onto Kortrijk.  Unfortunately, an old favourite - De Klokke - has been taken over by Rodenbach and they've cut their beer list from an exciting 70 or so to a rather dull dozen.  We made our way back to Brussels to call at the supermarket to get a picnic for the train.

Would I go again?  It's already booked!

Closing thought:  the Belgians like beer.  They don't drink to get drunk and cause trouble.  It was estimated around 10000 people attended the festival over the two days and there wasn't a single bit of trouble.  Folk just pop into cafes with their mates for a couple of beers then move on.

Photos at http://www.ieatcurry.co.uk/brugesbeerfestival09 and   http://www.brugsbierfestival.be/nl/fotoreportage_3°_bf-423.html

Another techy type post to remind me what to do if I need to set this up again...

I use Google Calendar.  I used to synchronise the calendar with my Nokia E71 using the GooSync service.  Unfortunately, GooSync have now started to charge for their service.  Not really a problem, but not really worth it for the amount I reply on it.

Never fear, another solution is at hand!  Simply install the Mail for Exchange application and then follow the set up instructions.

A quick tip - when coming to synchronise the calendar, check the settings or you'll have duplicate entries of everything!  All in all though, a nice free alternative to Goosync.  It apparantly works for all Nokia phones running Symbian.

Spending this year for Halloween is expected to be around £235 million (BBC)

Spending this year for Guy Fawkes Night is expected to be around £100 million (Independent)

Christian Aid's total income for 2007/2008 was £86.5 million

Some things I've been thinking about over the last few days. 

I like real ale.  Normally, if I go to a pub that serves real ale then I will drink it.  If I go elsewhere then I'll drink whatever. Given the choice, why do some folk drink something different?  Is it because they don't like real ale?  Is lager seen as a trendy drink and that's why they drink it?

Why is lager dearer in general than beer?  The same basic ingredients go into both - water, malted barley, yeast, sugar and hops.  The lager will more than likely have been 'made' by someone pressing buttons at a computer console.  The real ale will more than likely have been made on a much smaller scale, by a man genuinely interested in what he's doing and producing.  So why's crap lager 50p or more dearer than beer?

Not on the beer scene, but I heard someone on the train say - "look at the lovely view."  What makes a lovely view?

Any answers on a postcard to... 

Yes - that's right - I like PC World!

Back in July, I needed a new router so I got a Belkin one.  It's not really been that good as every few days, it's lost the connection to the internet, and it needed a reboot to work again.  This would be fine at home, but if I was out and about, I couldn't reboot it.

In the end, after a couple of calls to Belkin tech support which were useless, I took the router back to PC World.  Not only did they take it back (complete with a chuckle for me buying Belkin in the first place!)

As I bought a replacement in advance, I got my even shinier new Linksys WRT160N cheper than from EBuyer -a whole two pee cheaper in fact.  Strangely, if I'd gone into the shop and not reserved it online, I'd have paid another 20 quid on top.

Anyhow, I had no hassle and friendly service.  Thanks PC World!

I've read quite a bit about North Korea (or Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea - DPRK to be more correct) and some of the reports that people have made about trips there.  Once recent one is by a guy in Austria who travelled by rail from Austria, to Moscow, across the rest of Russia and south into North Korea, missing out China (the usual rail route).  It took a good while but the trip makes an interesting read.

This has set me thinking.  I'd like to visit both Russia and China, and what better way than to be civilised and do it by rail.  While I'm out that neck of the woods, why not visit North Korea as well?  Now that would be exciting.  Ok, things might be not the best there for the locals but as a tourist, you don't get to see much of the locals anyway.

Really though, on second thoughts, do I want to go to a country that treats its own people the way it does?  You've only got to search on Google for something like 'North Korea' or 'North Korea gulag' to see the kind of atrocities that the 'authorities' get up to.  With the advent of satelite mapping and Googlemaps, the prison camps that people get sent to can be seen dotted around the country, including the 'Camp 22 reeducation camp' covering several hundred square kilometers.

Although the subject of human rights issues has been brought up in the House of Lords by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 30 November 2006, a lot of the articles that Google throws up seem to be from USA based websites, so I'm sure there's something political there, but why hasn't anything been done yet by the worldwide community.  Oil?  Or lack of it?

A lot was said about the allied forces not reacting quick enough to the use of concentration camps by the Nazis in World War 2.  These are not much better - perhaps worse.

So what now?  I think I'll stick with my next trip to the Czech Republic!

Last year, the Chancellor reduced VAT from 17.5% to 15% in an attempt to kick start the economy.  At the same time, he increased the duty on alcohol by the same price so that there was no reduction in price on beer.

Now, this rate cut was only ever a temporary thing and as such, on 1 January the rate will revert back to 17.5%.  Will beer duty be cut or will it stay at the higher rate?  I'll leave you to work that out...

I was reading a blog recently and he had a link to another blog 'Route1to499'.  This is about a guy who is travelling on all the bus routes in London and writing a bit about them.

Should I do the same thing in my home town of Doncaster?  Here's a map of all the FirstGroup routes here and some of the Stagecoach routes here.  I'm sure it wouldn't take as long as Doncaster.

Looking at the maps, there looks to be some really exciting features to write about.

Then again...