It’s not every night you see a drag queen bowling in three inch stilettos, or a group of semi-nude strangers dancing in a hot tub, but such were the bizarre sights I saw in the small hours of Saturday night. It felt a bit like a Fellini film, which was ironic, as Amarcord was showing on the screens above the bowling lanes. (Which reminded me that I’ve never actually sat down and watched Amarcord before.) Unfortunately we didn’t get any photos of the drag queen or the hot tub, so you’ll have to shut your eyes and imagine it for yourselves. To be honest, it wasn’t nearly as fabulous as it sounds, but, well, it really isn’t every night you see that kind of thing, so I thought it was worth noting. And I did manage to get into the party without having to pay anything (much to Annie’s chagrin, because she was the one who’d invited me and she’d had to pay!), so that was cool.

It wasn’t quite how I expected my evening to end, either, as it had started quite normally, in a nice pub in a Victoria back street, for the Comics Reunited meet-up, with some old comics people. When I say “old” I mean people who were involved with the comics scene a while ago, back in the eighties and nineties. I suppose in some way that makes them old in age, too — I was certainly one of the youngest people there (although Cassandra had me beaten in youth by many years). In fact, most of the people were from before my time, because I never made it to any of the UKCAC events, but there were a few people I’d met before, so it was was good to catch up with them, and to make plans for seeing them more often (although the guy who’d invited me was a no-show — what happened, Ronnie?)

The Phoenix was a good choice of venue, too, as it hit all the right points of what I look for in a nice pub. They have a decent selection of beer (including good guest ales), good food (slightly pricey but cooked to perfection), friendly staff and a great location — it’s only a few minutes from Victoria station, but seems like it would usually be pretty quiet at the weekends. Well, at the weekends that it’s not filled with hordes of people having a reunion. One to remember, I think.

Speaking of UKCAC, a google brings up Jeremy’s comic strip about UKCAC — click through for the whole six pages. It’s a pretty accurate account of every comics convention I’ve been to, actually.

So, watcha bin doon? Me, I’ve been quite social lately. I went up to Birmingham, using a last minute decision to attend BICS as an excuse to catch up with old friends who live in the city. It was fantastic to see them, but I must confess that BICS was disappointing this year. I don’t think it was just me who felt a bit disappointed, judging from what other people have said, but I do think that’s a pity, and not just because the event is organised by two of my friends and I want it to be successful for their sakes.

In terms of enjoyment of the con, it probably didn’t help that I missed all of the panels I had any interest in attending, due to travel and seeing friends. Seeing those people was actually the highlight of my weekend, so I didn’t really mind missing the panels, but it did mean that paying £16 for a weekend pass was a steep price to pay just to go into a couple of rooms and look at some comics on some tables (especially as one of the BICS organisers told me I could have got a free pass if he’d known I was going — not that he reimbursed me, mind you). It was also the first time that I’ve ever come home without having bought a single comic at all. There was nothing which screamed that I must buy it right now, and that was pretty disappointing. Maybe I’ve just got higher standards than I used to have — in some ways, I’d like to think so, given that I’ve been to about 25 comics conventions in the last eight years, and have bought an awful lot of dross in that time. That’s a more cheery thought than the notion that comics are all shit right now — and I really don’t think that’s true! Eesh, I hope not, anyway.

My highlight of the weekend was nothing to do with BICS or comics at all. I always like going to these events to see the people, anyway, and it was fantastic to catch up with friends I hadn’t seen for ages. I hadn’t seen Pete for about a year, and it was even longer since I’d seen Olulabelle and Mix, and it was lovely to meet their two boys for the first time, as well.

We had brunch at the Kitchen Garden Cafe (the food took a bloody long time to reach us, but it was yummy, and they did knock half the items off the bill to make up for the slow service), and then we went to look at piles of rice in an old warehouse in the jewellery district.

That was actually way more interesting than it sounds, and not just because Birmingham’s jewellery district is a really interesting place historically and visually. The piles of rice formed an exhibition called Of All The People In All The World, aka thericeshow. You might not think that seeing piles of rice would be interesting, but each pile represented a fascinating statistic, many of which challenged our preconceptions and prejudices in a way that really got us thinking and talking. Some of them were very poignant, some filled me with disgust, some were admirable, and some were just plain silly. We were encouraged to take photos, so you can see some of the more interesting statistics in this photoset.

One in particular made us laugh, the one about John William Gott being the last man in the UK to be jailed for blasphemy after comparing Jesus to a clown. Not that this is intrinsically funny in itself (although it is ironic that his surname means “god” in German — God thought Jesus was a clown!), but because earlier, outside the warehouse, we’d spotted a figure stencilled on a wall, with a face on its chest, and we couldn’t work out if the face was supposed to be Jesus or Charles Manson (which is quite a difference, I think you’ll agree!). Maybe Charles Manson was really just a stand-up comic. He’s certainly as self-obsessed as most stand-up comedians.

The exhibition is worth checking out if you get a chance. It’s moving to Barcelona, and then continues to tour the world, so it might show up in your hometown eventually.

http://s.andwi.ch - Bookmark your favourite sandwiches! This is one of mine. Unfortunately there's no archive yet — there so should be!

I’m cleaning up my bookmarks and closing some tabs; here’s some stuff you might enjoy:

Really elegant paper tableware
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What’s next for muxtape.
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The Spaces In Between — one of the better stories from Elephant Words of late, a lovely poetic musing on the ghosts of America’s railroad.
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Ronald Searle Cover collection — it’s worth checking out the other links, and the comments as well, because they turn up a couple of interesting facts. It’s also worth checking out the documentary Searle’s Progress if you ever get a chance. Some screencaps here.

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There are some gorgeous vintage British Rail adverts on this site, really great, simple, iconic design. I love the colours that were popular in design from the 1950s and early 1960s; bright, but not garish. It’s really interesting to compare them to the use of colour in the 1970s and 1980s (I wish the images were bigger, though). [via]

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Designerama! at the V&A.
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“Patina is incredibly hard to fake. Which is why so much Steampunk stuff looks like Hallmark have started a new line of decorations called Christmas With A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” Great post from Russell Davies.

After visiting the Steiner House, I wandered off to church, All Saints Margaret Street. Having been disappointed by the lack of expected craziness at St Martin’s Gospel Oak the day before, All Saints proved to be exactly what I was after in a “crazy” Victorian church. Even starting from the gothic exterior, with its dramatic spire and pretty red-and-black patterned brickwork, nothing really prepares you for the visual feast that awaits you inside. Every inch of space is covered in decoration and colour, from the almost Moorish design of the baptistry, to the enormous tile murals on the lower walls, to the intricately painted patterns high over the arches, to the brightly painted parade of saints over the altar — even the floor is brightly patterned.

It’s beautiful, and easy to see why John Betjeman loved it so much, and why Ian Nairn compared it to an orgasm in his book, Nairn’s London (cover image), because it could “only be understood in terms of compelling, overwhelming passion.” Unfortunately, it’s also very dark inside, due to a combination of dark walls and dim lights, so it took a long time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and for me to figure out the best settings on my camera to get any pictures at all. You’d really need a tripod to get anything good, though. Maybe I should go back with one. More photos here.

My final Open House visit of this year was to Wilton’s Music Hall, and although it was a bit of a trek to get there, it was worth it. It’s famously shabby and rundown — in fact, parts of the building are still derelict and off-limits, but I liked the bits I got to see, even if the walls were peeling paint and the stairs were uneven. Actually, that was what I liked about it, and I suspect most of the other people felt the same way, judging by how crowded the cafe was. There’s something funny about seeing so many people quite happily sitting down to tea and cake in a place that they would usually find rather abhorrent — how many people do you know whose idea of fun is to take tea in a semi-derelict slum building?

Unfortunately, it was yet another place that was extremely dimly-lit, which made for a wonderfully evocative atmosphere, but yet more mostly awful photos. I got some nice ones of the walls outside, though, which are in a beautiful state of decay — a wonderful contrast of colours and textures. If you like that sort of thing, which I obviously do! More Wilton’s photos here.

All of this year’s Open House photos can be seen here. The whole set of photos from 2005-2008 can be seen here.

As usual, there were loads of places that I wanted to see and didn’t manage to get to, and although I tell myself I’ll make the effort to ensure I do get to them next year, I know I probably won’t. But that’s the great thing about Open House: there’s so much to see that it doesn’t really matter too much if you miss something. There’s always something else. Which is worth reminding yourself of in other situations, too, isn’t it?

After the visiting The Royal Institution, it was on down to Piccadilly to see the offices of the Linnean Society at Burlington House. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any samples from their archives of 200 year old plants or anything nifty like that, but there was a pretty awesome Victorian chair which had been upholstered in a still-unidentified animal skin. We were told that they knew it was a species of crocodile (which is pretty obvious even to a zoological ignoramus like myself), but they didn’t know which kind of crocodile it was, and were not sure how to find out.

Final stop of Saturday’s Opeb House visits was the spire at St. Anne’s Soho, which is pretty much the only bit of the original church that’s left after it was bombed in WW2. The staircases to reach the top are both incredibly narrow and steep, and unfortunately there’s no view from the top, but we could see the full workings of the clock which was pretty cool, and there was an interesting slideshow on view, from the Museum of Soho (some of which you can see here). More of my St. Anne’s photos are here.

On Sunday I’d planned to go start at Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City, but it was too late to get there by the time I’d left the house because it closed early, so I wandered westwards instead, and went to the Rudolph Steiner House, instead, which meant, rather ironically, that I swapped Judaism for Steinerism just like my great-grandmother, Maude.

It’s a lovely building, which has often caught my eye as I passed by on the bus. Described as the only Expressionist building in London, it looks like a cross between Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and is quite reminiscent of Antoni Gaudi’s architecture, although a lot less exuberant or visually OTT. As I understand it, from what one of the Open House volunteers told me, Steiner took inspiration from plants and natural forms and rejected square lines, preferring to convert them into curves wherever possible. However, it’s clear that he didn’t reject them completely, because it’s not very practical to build a useable urban structure without them. It’s these inescapable straight lines combined with the desired curves that gives the building its elegance, especially inside. It’s a beautifully strong form, with clean and decisive lines, which is kind of ironic, because so much of the artwork that comes out of Steinerism is awfully wishy-washy.

In fact, it was a lovely place to visit, until I wandered into the newly-built cafe, where a woman behind the counter accosted me as I was taking photos and I asked if I was an architect. Why do I have to be an architect to appreciate architecture? On finding that I wasn’t, she insisted on making it her mission to inform me about biodynamic food, refusing to let me leave until I’d taken a leaflet. Annoying woman. It’s people like that who give things like Steinerism a bad name. But don’t let that put you off having a look at the building if you get a chance. It’s rather special, especially the central staircase. More pictures here.

Brown Now!: Steve Murray interviews Chester Brown - The Ampersand - Chip Zdarsky talks to Chester Brown about going from anarchism to libertarianism. I remember the shitstorm that kicked off a few years ago when people found out that Paul Pope leans towards libertarianism, but Brown's explanation of his own reasons make some sense. (I don't entirely agree with them, because I like the principle of the NHS and safe roads, but I see why people might be attracted to libertarianism).

(btw, I still don't know why Chip goes by "Steve" (presumably his given name) in some places and "Chip" everywhere else? Anyone else know why?)

I didn’t really plan for Open House properly this year (although I did much better than last year), which as just as well, because the transport was so screwy last weekend that I would never have made it in time to half the things I’d planned to see. Instead, I picked a list of things that were only open on Saturday and a list of things that were only open on Sunday, and planned around that. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t up to the low-light conditions of most of the places I visited, and all of my photos came out horribly noisy, overexposing the white areas and underexposing everything else, which means that I don’t have any decent photos to show of most of the places I visited (I mean, compositionally they’re mostly good, but the image quality is awful, which is bloody annoying).

My first stop was St. Martin’s Gospel Oak, which I chose because I thought I’d start local — I can also see its steeple from my kitchen window — and because I was intrigued by its description as “the craziest Victorian church in London.” I was expecting it to have a colourful interior or really way out architectural features, but it doesn’t. In fact, it’s pretty dull from the outside and, although it does have a few pretty mosaics, it’s not very colourful inside. It does have a nice vaulted ceiling, which is quite unusual in style, but is not particularly “crazy” so I was a bit disappointed. There was an old man with his old dog, which was quite nice to see, because most churches don’t seem that dog-friendly.

Second stop was the Alexandra & Ainsworth Estate, off Abbey Road, a concrete housing estate built in the late seventies. It’s a famous estate, and usually represented in brutalist style, but that’s not really what it’s like, or what the architect, Neave Brown intended. It’s a surprisingly pretty place, despite the grey concrete, with a Mediterranean atmosphere that was enhanced by the gorgeous blue skies and warm sunshine of that particular day.

Every flat has its own balcony, built to a generous size to make it an extra room, and most of the balconies were dripping with green leaves and bright flowers, making a potentially grim and grey place very pleasant (of course, it’s probably not quite so nice on a cold grey winter’s day when all the plants have shed their leaves and flowers). On top of that, there are communal areas to sit outdoors, and I passed one family having a picnic in the sun. The original design features of the flats were quite nifty, too, with sliding walls to enlarge spaces, and in-wall heating rather than radiators. It’s no wonder that flats there are highly sought-after these days.

And then onto Mayfair and the Royal Institution, open to the public for the first time since its refurbishment. Its location, along with the creamy-white porticoes and the Union Jack flying over the door, suggest that its interior will be staid and conservative, but it’s bursting with bright colour inside. There’s a pretty staircase which greets you as you enter, with a bright blue ceiling and a chandelier and a wrought iron bannister, and rooms off to the side with loudly checkered floors and purple walls. Next to the toilets there’s an enormous reproduction of the £20 note with Michael Faraday’s face on it, which was a bit unexpected when I turned the corner.

Upstairs there are library rooms and book-lined corridors with strange artefacts on display, and there’s a museum in the basement with even stranger artefacts to look at (which I intend to go back to when I have more time). And then there’s the lecture theatre, with its steep banks of purple seats and pretty art deco lights. Not to mention a small cafe, and a rather fabulous looking restaurant and bar, which straddles the fine line between classy tastefulness and outright tackiness with some aplomb. I can’t wait to go there for cocktails.

Last weekend there was a Festival of Food on the South Bank, in celebration of slow food, which was quite cool. I happened across it on Friday afternoon, in time to watch a soup cooking demonstration which ended with cups of soup being handed out to the audience. I am “the Queen of Free Soup” on the South Bank, apparently, because it was the second time in the space of a week that I’d been given free soup cooked by a professional chef. It was quite tasty, though I must admit it wasn’t terribly appetising to look at. There were other interesting things to look at, though, like DIY mushroom-growing kits, and pretty cupcakes.

My favourite bit of the festival were the recipe posters which were being drawn alongside the demonstrations. I only took pictures of two of them, both for demonstrations that I’d missed, but I really like the way the posters look (click through the one below to see both of them full-size).

They’re a bit rough and ready, because of trying to capture all the information in time, but I think it’s a nifty idea for a cookbook.

This gave me an idea. I thought it could be a fun project to get some comics creators to create a one-page comic strip of their favourite recipes, and stick them all in a book. I know there are creators who’ve already done comic strips with recipes (Ariel Bordeaux and Jill Thompson spring immediately to mind), but has a whole book of comic strip recipes ever been done before?

It seems like such an obvious idea that it must have been, but I can’t think of any examples. More to the point, would anyone be interested in doing something like that? Maybe for charity or something? I like the idea of doing a cocktail book along the same lines, too, which might have more appeal, given how much comics people like a tipple. Anyone interested?

"How do you feel about big furry animals?" - Dubious, to be honest.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me over the weekend. Thanks to your appreciation of my artistic talent (or, more likely, my bribing you all with free fruity drinks), my photo was picked as the winner of the “best bunting” category. This means I now get a crate of twelve one-litre cartons delivered to me once a month for twelve months, which is nice. However, I don’t think I’m going to be able to store twelve cartons of freshly-made smoothies in my tiny fridge, so some of the surplus will indeed find its way into friends’ hands and down their gullets. Arrangements to be made later, but let me know if you would like to be considered.

The Online Photographer: The Amazing Gift of Woo Lai Wah - This is such a great story. (Dare I use the word "feelgood"?)

Tweet Clouds - funny to see things that come up together:
"bloody+boiler" brings back bad memories of no hot water for 3mths earlier this year.
"going+home" is a nice pairing.
"london+looking+looks+lost" "listening+makes+man"
"epic+everyone+fail" (oh dear)
"watching+wondering" (could be my motto)
"everyone getting head" (snerk)
"time+today+tomorrow+tonight+totally" (new t-shirt slogan?)
Quite good fun — works better than Wordle did with my Flickr tags…

Ooh, goodies! We like goodies over here at Mondo Towers. We like good news, too, and this particular bit of news is rather nice. Apparently, one of my photos has been shortlisted in a competition to win a whole year’s supply of smoothies from the Innocent drinks company.

This is a good thing on two fronts. Like I said, I like goodies, and what could be nicer than a whole year’s supply of them? Plus, it’s pretty cool to actually have been one of the few people shortlisted out of the 1500 images that were submitted. I’ve been a big fan of the Innocent smoothies for years (though I have yet to try the new veg pots), and it’s always nice when something you like also likes you in turn, isn’t it?

Although I do have to take minor issue in the way that they told me I was shortlisted, which is to say that they didn’t. At all. I only found out because Billy texted me to let me know, after he’d spotted it on Twitter. Annie Mole also got shortlisted, as did a couple of other people that I know. Thankfully, none of them were shortlisted in the same category as me, so I can tell you to go and vote for them all as well as voting for me!

This is the picture in question, shortlisted for the “best bunting” category:

You can place your votes over here; voting closes on Sunday night. In a fit of outright bribery, I will happily share the winnings with anyone who votes for me, so you’ll get some goodies out of it, too. Who doesn’t like goodies?

snaptrip - neat tagging app from Paul. Unfortunately, I haven't actually taken any trips actually listed on Dopplr yet so I can't test it out on my own stuff, but it works in the same way as Darren's simplrfy tagging app at http://simplrfy.boncey.org (which is bloody brilliant)

cowfish » Toast - Billy outlines the pros and cons of printing on bread products. I still think printing the news would just end in cold toast and unreadable headlines, but the porntoast idea is quite good.

Edit to add: the comments over on his LJ are worth a read, too.

This weekend just gone was the annual Thames Festival, which seems to get bigger and bigger every year. On Saturday, there was also the second Feast on the Bridge, where Southwark Bridge is closed off to traffic and turned into a banqueting area, with tables and chairs stretching the length of the bridge. There were teapots filled with flowers on all of the tables, which were covered with lovely hand-printed tablecloths, featuring food stories from Londoners.

There were food stalls at the south end, featuring many of the usual suspects from nearby Borough Market, and a music stage at the north end. This year there were also piles of hay bales that slowly got destroyed in giant hay fights, with loose piles of hay covering about a third of the bridge, and giving off a lovely sweet smell. This smell was evocative enough to carry me off to childhood summers spent running around fields, sleeping in tents, sitting by campfires — an existence about as far removed from the City of London, and all it signifies, as one could get. The sense of dissonance was increased when I wandered past a stand where there was something cooking in cast iron cauldrons over an open embers, and again my nose was tantalised by smells which took me back to those childhood summers spent running around fields, sleeping in tents, sitting by campfires, to the days when we ate food that had been cooked over those campfires. It’s a very old-fashioned smell, not in a twee nostalgic kind of way, but in the sense that for thousands of years, people cooked food in cast iron pots, over open fires. It’s not a smell that’s easily replicated by modern cooking devices, but it’s a smell that always makes me hungry.

It turned out that it was pumpkin soup being cooked in the cauldrons, and that the cauldrons did indeed belong to a witch. She was doing a “deep soup ceremony” and I happened to be standing there when the ceremony started, to coincide with low tide at 18:53. Most people standing around were there like me, wondering what the heck a “deep soup ceremony” was, and whether there was any free food. The answer to the latter question was yes, as the distributing and sharing of soup was part of the ritual, which had been created to remind people of the cycle of life, and that food tastes better when it’s home-grown and home-cooked. The speechifying was a little hippy-dippy, even by the standards of someone like me, who’d just been evoked into remembering childhood summers spent running around fields at hippy festivals, but the soup was quite tasty, and I enjoyed the social aspects of sharing food with strangers.

After that, I wandered northwards to the other end of the bridge, and watched Carlos & the Bandidos, a fun rock’n'roll covers band dressed as caballeros. Lots of people were dancing, including the ever-present, no-London-festival-would-be-complete-without-them east end Elvises. There was also a big hay fight still in progress, but I managed to come away unscathed, with no hay clinging to my nice cashmere cardigan — not everyone did! In fact, I spotted patches of hay which made it as far as the bus stop right outside St. Paul’s, a good five minutes walk from Southwark Bridge.

Sunday’s festival was quieter, but still busy. There didn’t seem to be a lot going on as I wandered around, the bands had all obviously had a hard night on Saturday because they were all being quite sedate and a little too lacking in energy, in my opinion. Luckily, we found a fun band, Joe le Taxi & the Zydeco Band, way down near Tower Bridge, and they were putting on a rollicking good performance, with lots of people dancing and having fun. That made up for completely missing any sight at all of the carnival parade, which was totally obscured by the large numbers of people gridlocked around the parade route. Didn’t even stay for the fireworks this year.

Whisky¹ is a funny drink. I don’t mean funny ha-ha, more funny odd. And I don’t mean the taste of it (well, not entirely), but the attitude towards it. There’s this attitude towards good whisky which definitely makes it “a man’s drink” — especially if the whisky in question is a single malt, rather than a blended one. I’ve never met a single woman who gets obsessive about whisky the way some of the men I’ve met do. Actually, in my experience, women don’t usually care quite so much about what they’re drinking, whatever it is: as long as it tastes nice, they don’t tend to bother to such an extreme about its pedigree. I know that’s a bit of a generalisation but, in my experience, it’s true, women just don’t tend to get obsessive about where alcohol comes from, or how it’s made. Men, on the other hand, will get utterly obsessive about methods: how it’s brewed or distilled; how it’s stored and served. This kind of obsession covers most types of good quality alcohol, whether it’s wine, or real ale, or single malt whisky, but it’s definitely the last one which gets the most positive reaction if I ever order one in a pub. One of my male friends was once prompted to claim that, if I was “100% sexy” (his words) before he found out I liked single malt whiskies, then I was “150% sexier” (also his words — I guess that means he thinks I’m 250% sexy, which I think is pretty laughable, but sweet of him) after he found out.

I never used to be a whisky drinker, though, and certainly never a single malt drinker. I just didn’t have a taste for any kind of whisky, until single malt aficionado Billy took it upon himself to meet the challenge of finding a single malt that a non-whisky drinker like myself might like to drink, and now I find that a nice single malt is a great alternative to a pint.

One of the things that I’ve discovered I like about drinking single malts (aside from the fact that drinking them seems to make a woman automatically “sexier” to the male population) is that, unlike yer bog-standard pub-average whisky blend (which I don’t like), single malts have widely varying flavours, depending on where and when they are made. Some of these are still too much of an acquired taste, even for me, being too peaty and strong for my palate, but there are a lot of different single malt flavours to choose from which I do like. And, as it happens, I’m even acquiring a taste for the peaty, savoury ones, as long as I know what to expect. There are some that taste just like a sea breeze, with seaweedy undertones, which are great if that’s what you’re after, but can be an unpleasant shock if you’re expecting something a bit more conventional.

The good thing about being friends with these men who are so obsessive about their single malt whisky is that it occasionally gives me the opportunity to drink very select malts in very select surroundings, namely the members’ tasting rooms of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. On Friday night Billy invited me as his guest to the London tasting rooms, upstairs from the Bleeding Heart. I’d already been to both of the tasting rooms in Edinburgh, so it was nice to finally see the London ones. They’re teeny compared to the palatial spaces of the Scottish rooms, but still comfortable, and a pleasant alternative to the noise of a pub on a Friday night.

One of the best aspects of visiting the SMWS tasting rooms are the actual tasting notes themselves, because they are always entertaining. Sometimes the descriptions seem a little over the top, with perfume notes and flavours listed that make no sense to the casual reader, but which make perfect sense once you actually apply them to the smell and taste of what you’re drinking. I was after something with citrus notes and freshness, rather than a more mature one tasting of rich fruitcake or cigars, and I found a good one from Elgin², which smelt of citrus fruit and Thai curry, until I reduced it (added water), when it smelled very strongly, but not unpleasantly of American cream soda. Reducing single malts is another reason I enjoy them, because sometimes the addition of the tiniest amount of water can dramatically change not just the smell of it, but also the flavour (try it with a Dalwhinnie, which just needs the teeniest dribble of water to really open up the flavour).

The second whisky I had was another sweet one, because I couldn’t decide, and more-or-less just picked a random page and pointed. The notes stated that it had a strong bubblegum smell, especially when water was added, which also gave it peppery undertones that were very distinct. It was sweet enough to give it a a rum-like flavour that was very nice, with smooth oily mouth-feel (an oily mouth-feel is a good thing in a single malt) that made it go down nicely.

Although the London tasting rooms are too small to have their own kitchen (unlike the Scottish ones), they do get food sent up from the Bleeding Heart, which is downstairs. I’d heard nothing but favourable reviews of the place, so I was quite excited about being able to try some of their food, but I have to say I was disappointed. My first choice (fish pie) was only available on the lunchtime menu, so in the end I opted for beef sausages with Colcannon mash and caramelised onions. Unfortunately, the mash was completely bland and tasteless, lacking both the cabbages and onions that the recipe requires for it to be justifiably called Colcannon mash. The caramelised onions were very tasty, but the sausages were quite heavy and could have done with some gravy. The egg custard with brown bread ice cream that I had for dessert was equally disappointing; the ice cream was more like a breadcrumb sorbet, which made for an interesting texture, but, like the mash, it had very little flavour. The egg custard was delicious, but the pastry was soggy and offered no contrast to the texture of the egg custard, which made a potentially fantastic dessert slightly unpleasant. So, disappointing on both counts. I don’t think I’ll be rushing to book a table at the Bleeding Heart any time soon, I’ll just save the money to drink whisky upstairs, instead.

¹That’s Scottish whisky, no letter e, not to be confused with Irish or American whiskey, note the letter e. I don’t know why they’re spelled differently, I just know I’m petty enough to get annoyed when people get it wrong — always have been, even before I started drinking whisky!

²SMWS bottles are named by a cryptic cask numbering, not by distillery, so it takes some detective work to discover exactly which distillery your favourite came from, and what the whisky itself is actually called. Whether there are any more bottles available is always another matter, as they usually come from very limited bottlings.

Competition rules < Photo Competition 2008 < Get involved < The Mayor's Thames Festival 2008 - might take part in this