Welsh Boy: What a Star, Now Fuck Off
Christ it’s been weird watching my website ticking over perfectly happily in my absence. Given that I and only I have held the keys to this site for so long, watching you guys quietly getting on with it in my absence has been oddly eerie.
The best bit, I think it’s safe to say, is that it is clear that even without my instigation you’re still prepared to be a right bunch of bastards to anyone doing anything foolish (like, say, not thinking Newton Faulkner are shit) and that at any random moment threads are still liable to disappear off into some downward spiral of surreal mentalism.
More than anything, I think Dylan has done an amazing job with the writing. It’s been a brilliant combination of old stuff, new stuff and general rambling, with a wonderful balance of worthwhile writing and tongue-in-cheek frivolity. Poor lad’s all knackered now, having burnt just a little too much midnight oil, and found the tracking down of new stuff to be less straightforward than it might have been. I really should have given him a stack of promos to dig through, had I thought about it, but I’ll learn for next time.
So a massive Toadly thanks to Dylan for all his brilliant work keeping the house in order, and just time for one little gripe…
…Bombay? Bombay??? TANQUERAY, my good man, a gentleman drinks Tanqueray. Cleaner, crisper, altogether a superior gin, and the Tanqueray 10 stuff is just lovely as well, but as far as this gin sot is concerned there simply is no better gin. Bombay. Goodness gracious me, what has the world come to.
Here are a couple of things from my inbox, which contained nearly 400 emails on my return.
These lads are really good, and currently working on an album too, which is excellent news.
Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets
This is off the new Shaky Hands album, which is approaching in a month or two. I’m really looking forward to this one.
The Shaky Hands – We Are Young
And here’s a little treat from the stuff I’ve been listening to whilst away:
Blind Pilot – Oviedo
Ratatat – Falcon Jab
Phew. I’d experienced somewhat disproportionate alarm at the apparent revelation you were a Bombay Sapphire aficionado. I can rest more easily now…
What’s wrong with Bombay Sapphire?
I happen to like it!
Not as good as Hendrick’s though. Now there’s a classy gin.
Tanqueray? I’d rather drink that yank crap C&B was banging on about the other day.
Junipero is ok as it goes Dylan.
However, Toad most often drinks meths as any fule kno – can’t you tell?
Actually, Tanqueray’s very nice, and that Anchor stuff looks like it’ll be very pleasant. (Their butter’s fine so I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with their gin)
I just spotted the chance to wind up Matthew and C&B at the same time!
Just don’t tell them!
Anchor Steam is the brewery and they also make a very fine beer or several, but for all the gin is rather nice £36 a bottle seems a little steep. Hendrick’s is decent, and I rather like Plymouth as you know. Seagram’s do a decent navy strength one that’s okay, and I rather liked the Old Raj stuff we had in the house for a while, as well the Kiwi stuff (as in from New Zealand, not kiwi fruit flavoured, that would be madness) South gin.
Well, I was going to praise Dylan for his excellent work over the last week or so, but now he’s insisted upon being naughty (referring to Junipero as “yank crap” is a hate crime, you damned genocidal Welshman you; and also, Yank should begin with a capital “Y”), so he can just cram it. Drinking Bombay Sapphire is like drinking Old Spice.
Oh come off it, it’s not bad gin. I’d still take it over Gordon’s or Beefeater.
As I believe the current vernacular dictates; ’nuff said.
My father drinks gin out of a plastic squeeze bottle (Gilbey’s, I think it’s called). Sigh. If he could, I think he’d get a 30-gallon drum installed in the garage and just hook it up to a tap. Then every month or so a gin truck could back in and give ‘im a refill. I’m more of a whisky and beer man myself. Seeing as I’m neither sterile nor blind, however, I’m pretty sure I’ve never had Welsh whisky.
I like the sound of your dad. Does he swear like a sailor as well?
Actually Dylan, I think you owe it to your nation to procure some of that Welsh gin so we can do a taste test.
My father is actually a clergyman of all things, and a retired social worker. But yes, he does swear like a sailor, at least when he’s in his cups, Lor’ bless ‘im. And he’s got an earring. My mother’s got a tattoo. Actually, I’m intrigued by this Penderyn Whisky stuff. Does it partake of the peat?
I’ve not tried the peated Penderyn, but I like the regular stuff an awful lot – and I’m saying that as a whisky afficianado and not as a Welshman.
It’s only available in a three year old at the moment (last time I checked) because the distillery’s only been running since 2000. However I should think they’ve got some casks laying down for mature bottlings in a couple of years.
I’ve taken a glance and it seems that Penderyn is not sold at the retail level in Virginia (all Virginia liquor stores are Government-controlled), although it is served in some bars. Well, y’know, my birthday is just around the corner… Well, actually, my birthday is in 8 months, but still….
*cough* I have a bottle of Bombay Sapphire on my shelf *cough*
I did try your beloved Tanqueray once in a G and T. don’t know, maybe I can’t appreciate its excellence because I’m not a gentleman like yourself! I’m still slowly working on my bottle of Scotch (I don’t want to run out before I can buy the stuff legally in three months).
Legally. Arf arf. I remember turning up in the States at age 20, utterly unable to buy legal alcohol but having managed a bar with an annual turnover of over a million quid for over two years. The idea of being told that I wasn’t mature enough to handle a beer was just downright laughable.
Actually, I’m pretty sure you’re not mature enough to handle a beer now. Wasn’t there something said a while back about an arrest? In Canada?
Let that never be mentioned again.
One of the main reasons for setting a legal drinking age in the States (but not necessarily in Europe or the UK) is the fact that American society has “evolved” (I use the term loosely) in such a way that people don’t tend to live near where they drink. Unless one is a true city dweller it is simply not possible to walk or take mass transit to a bar, so people have to drive, and for whatever reason there is a very pronounced statistical correlation between youth and drunk driving/vehciular manslaughter. The solution, if I may suggest it to our esteemed leaders, is not a mandatory drinking age, but rather more bars. I propose to mandate that every neighborhood in America, from Los Angeles to the deepest mountains of Kentucky, contain at least one bar for every 50 people, and that no home or apartment may be constructed that is more than 100 meters such from a bar.
That would rock!
Sounds like Edinburgh.
Yup. You’re in the wrong city, mate. Move over here and we’ll get you a nice case of cirrhosis in no time.