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Cocktail of the week: The Sazerac

This week's cocktail is one I was introduced to last week (thanks Mark) but is one of the oldest cocktails in the book. It dates to 1859 when John Schiller christened it in his bar the Sazerac Coffee House. It's named after a Cognac popular then in New Orleans mixed with Peychaud bitters. There are three variations based on Cognac, Whiskey or as in this recipe from Dale deGroff a mix of the two.

If you haven't got any Peychaud bitters then get yourself given a present of the Bitter Truth Travel Pack and use the Creole Bitters.
http://www.gerrys.uk.com/CatalogueAndCartOct07.aspx

Get two rocks glasses and put one in the freezer. In the other, splash of Absinthe, Pernod or Pastis; swirl and then pour away. Then assemble in the glass:-
Ice cubes
25ml Cognac
25ml Rye Whiskey
12ml Simple Syrup
2 dashes Peychaud (or Creole)
2 dashes Angostura (or Aromatic)
Stir with the ice cubes to dilute and chill to taste
Retrieve the other rocks glass from the freezer and strain the cocktail into it.
Garnish with a flamed lemon peel.

The finished cocktail should be clear, faintly pink and have no ice. Its for sipping. It's only really a double shot and a bit of liquid so the serving glass can be quite a small tumbler. It's got lots of old fashioned and complex flavours and makes a great change from the usual sweet and sour or spirit and vermouth.
Gerry's Wines & Spirits - At Gerry's You Can Buy Almost Any Drink Under The Sun!! »
Prices and product availability may vary in store. Home | Contact | info@gerrys.uk.com · Website terms & conditions | Website privacy policy © 2008 - 2012 Gerrys - Wines & Spirits Website by S...

[from: Google+ Posts]




Counting down the time till the Mayan calendar rolls over into a new Aeon.
http://countdowntoapocalypse.com/ 34 days to go.

And here's some appropriately retro-futurist music from 1972 Neu! to go with it. NEU! - Hallogallo
Countdown To Apocalypse - CountdownToApocalypse.com »
When will the World End? You can find the answer here.

[from: Google+ Posts]

Another Google Plus to Atom/RSS service has turned up.
http://pluss.aiiane.com/

Discovered on the Google Issue tracker request
http://code.google.com/p/google-plus-platform/issues/detail?id=139

To go with my own PHP attempt.
A single file PHP script which serves public posts to a Google Plus account as an Atom feed. https://gist.github.com/3938374

Why, oh, why has Google still not provided this ?
pluss - Feed Proxy for Google+ »
pluss - Feed Proxy for Google+. Before pluss can proxy your Google+ public stream, you'll need to authenticate with Google. This process is done on Google's servers and does not reveal your Google aut...

[from: Google+ Posts]




This is genius. 10 minutes of BBC archive of people dancing set to two pieces of contrasting music to show the way the soundtrack alters our perceptions of the same images.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/11/while_the_band_played_on.html

Found via http://www.scoop.it/t/hauntology

ps. Bring Back Retro-Futurism!
BBC - Adam Curtis Blog: WHILE THE BAND PLAYED ON »
Online films, text and selected images from Adam Curtis, maker of The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, The Mayfair Set, Pandora's Box, The Trap and The Living Dead.

[from: Google+ Posts]




Vote for Peace: And nobody gets hurt. 
Peace News »
Welcome to Peace News, the newspaper for the UK grassroots peace and justice movement. We seek to oppose all forms of violence, and to create positive change based on cooperation and responsibility. S...

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This is. Interesting.


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Woah, Nelly. This is why I love SciFi. Because it''s practitioners ask questions like "Realistically. What do we think the world will look like in 500 years." Not 5 minutes, 500 years. 
2512 - Charlie's Diary »
Parameters: I'm going to assume no alien invasions or total collapses of technological civilization or significant asteroid impacts, because all three of these are rare in the historical record. I'm a...

[from: Google+ Posts]




So was the US election a net win for the world's economies?
[from: Google+ Posts]




My fellow Americans[1]. Vote early and vote often. And remember that John Dillinger died for your sins.

[1]In the sense that Americans are my fellows, rather than that I'm a fellow American.
[from: Google+ Posts]




No cigarettes for one year and one day[1]. Hooray! That's no cigarettes, no tobacco, no nicotine, no patches, no gum, no nothing. Feeling vaguely proud of myself for that.

If you're thinking of doing the same, you'll know when its time. And when it is, I recommend going cold turkey like this rather than trying to paper over the cracks with patches or any of the other non-smoking nicotine delivery systems. It will be hell for 3 days. Hard work for 6 weeks and then a life time of trying to forget all the habits you've built up. It gets easier.

[1] We need a name for a year and day. How about a Guinea-fowl?
[from: Google+ Posts]




Cocktail of the week: The Gin&It
Way back in the day, dry (french) Vermouth hadn't really made it to the USA, but the Gin was still pretty rough and needed covering up. So the earliest Martinez was a red vermouth and gin martini. Update this to the 21st century and what you have is a softer Manhatten[1].

40ml Gin (quality, tonight's is Sipsmith),
20ml Martini Rosso,
dash of orange bitters,
dash of Maraschino,
Shaken and poured into a cold martini glass
Fairly hefty orange twist, flamed if you can do it.

[1]Make a Manhatten as normal. Instead of the cherry, make it dirty by adding a healthy dollop of the brine water from a jar of olives and you've got "A Sandy". Boom-tish! Gotta love that Brit bad taste humour. If you're stuck in post-Sandy chaos, we feel for you, but hope you can still larf.
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Love the 1968 reference. "Under the datafeed, the beach!" Only 2 months till the omega point when the novelty curve goes vertical and the Mayan Calendar rolls over into the next aeon.
http://www.acceler8or.com/2012/10/dementing-augmented-reality-how-future-activists-will-break-people-out-of-their-digital-trances/

Recombinant Commentary[1], I haz it. Here's some more slogans from the 1968 Situationist International to toss over the wall like a mind grenade. 
http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/graffiti.htm
Ne travaillez jamais. Sous les pavés, la plage. La Lutte Continue. 
Never work. Under the paving stones, the beach. The struggle continues. 

[1]Trying to look superficially deep by quoting from old stuff, but just ending up being deeply superficial[2].
[2]As used in a Grauniad review of Banksy[3]
[3]Like me, he should lurk moar.

[from: Google+ Posts]




Oh, yes. A recently discovered physics paper that explains H.P.Lovecraft in terms of non-euclidean space-time geometries.
At last, science explains the physics in "Call of Cthulhu" >>
By Annalee Newitz Benjamin K. Tippett has a theory. The University of New Brunswick mathematician believes that he's figured out what, exactly, those insane sailors saw that night in 1928 when they......

[from: Google+ Posts]




If you like Can's "Soon Over Babaluma", very early Massive Attack and perhaps K&D, you're going to love this. "The very definition of a hidden gem".

I love that music from 20 years ago can bubble up out of the aether after all this time.
The Quietus | Features | A Quietus Interview | "If I Hit You, You'd Feel It": Leslie Winer, Trip Hop's Forgotten Pioneer >>
Some say that Leslie Winer aka © invented trip hop in 1990 with her album, Witch. Now she's back with a retrospective compilation and Wyndham Wallace meets the reclusive former supermodel. Main pictu...

[from: Google+ Posts]





Genius. One of my favourite critics interviewing one of my favourite critics. "Sharp Suits And Sparkle: Jonathan Meades On Acid, Space And Place" (by John Doran at The Quietus)
The Quietus | Features | Ten Songs | Sharp Suits And Sparkle: Jonathan Meades On Acid, Space And Place >>
John Doran plays ten songs to author, broadcaster and architectural critic Jonathan Meades in order to closer examine his unique perspective on life. All photographs courtesy of Martha Wailer

[from: Google+ Posts]

While vaguely listening to some radio news, a sound byte stuck out for me about "tightening controls". Now it really doesn't matter exactly what controls, rules or regulations were being tightened or if somebody was calling for tighter controls. It just occured to me that we only ever hear about such things being tightened, never loosened. If our response to every (engineered) crisis is to "tighten" things we'll end up being ratcheted down into a straitjacket where we're not allowed to do anything.

Oh. Wait.

Everything not compulsory is forbidden.
[from: Google Google+ List of Activities for Collection PUBLIC]




Today I did the last part of my journey, cycling the length of one of Mother Thames's favourite daughters, the Lea (or Lee). I've also checked off most of Lea's nephews and nieces in the form of the major tributaries  Rivers Ash, Beane, Mimram, Rib (Quin), Stort; And the brooks, Bayford, Broxbourne mill, Spital, Small River Lea & Turnford, Wormleybury. With each of these, I've gone as close as I can to the source and then followed towpaths, bridlepaths or roads as close as I can to each stream all the way to where it joins the Lea and ultimately the Thames. 

At some stage to do this properly I should probably check off the rivers Moselle and Ching.  And at least the Cuffley and Turkey Brooks. There's also the Limehouse cut to follow. 

Today's journey was from Ware to Leamouth where it joins the Thames and back again with a diversion to Victoria Park and the Hertford Union Canal Cut. The catch was the NE wind behind me on the way down and in my face on the way home complete with a few minutes of driving rain. It's always a pain when the hard work is on the way home!

Details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Lea And an excellent write up of the paths and features from Diamond Geezer, here:
http://lndn.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_lndn_archive.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/sets/72157621790088657
River Lea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia >>
[edit] Etymology. The River Lea was first recorded in the 9th century, although its name is believed to be much older. Spellings from the Anglo-Saxon period include Lig(e)an in 880 and Lygan in 895, a...

[from: Google+ Posts]




My Last.fm account has just clicked over 100,000 tracks listened to and scrobbled since I joined in 4 Apr 2004. I really think last.fm should give me some kind of prize! I did once interview for the job as CTO way back when they were in one room above a sweat shop in E London, but I don't think I was really up to it and didn't get the job. A couple of tickets to a club night in London or a cocktail in a Shoreditch bar would do nicely, ta'.

I never did work out how to reliably scrobble tracks listened to on the iPod so this is almost exclusively tracks played through Winamp.

I don't listen to the old stuff much any more, but I figured the 100k'th song should be something old and blue. So I picked out an old favourite from around the time when I first started listening to music seriously. So here's Uncle John's Band from the 1970 Grateful Dead album, Workingman's dead Grateful Dead - Uncle John's Band (Studio Version)


You can find me here http://www.last.fm/user/jbond

[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

I wrote a short PHP script to generate an Atom feed from the public posts to a Google Plus account. https://gist.github.com/3938374 Enjoy.

Google really ought to provide this themselves in the API. If you agree, please go here, vote for the request and add some comment 
http://code.google.com/p/google-plus-platform/issues/detail?id=139

[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

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