Saturday at the Kernel brewery, Bermondsey

Well, it is a toilet (I decided to hang on)

All hail the Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey! I'd heard this place was good - and their grog is being stocked in the sort of place I never go to because I'm common - but I'm always wary of praise. I can report though, after a successful Saturday mooch, that it is spot on.
With the sun out and people slurping beers sitting on old gym benches in the shadows of the railway line it's an odd but enjoyable environment. It feels like a secret drinking club set in a post apocalypse future. It's probably less fun if it's pissing it down.

You can have a look at their website to see what's currently on offer - when I went it was dark beers mainly. Not my scene man, but I had a bash anyway. And I'm glad I did. 

There were a couple of pale ales on draft so the lad gave us a taste before we got stuck in. It was very nice so we had a couple there and got some bottles to take home. The homesters were IPA Citra (7.2%) and a pale ale called Herkules Centennial (5.3%) - coincidentally that is the exact lettering of the tattoo I have on my back, illustrating a 1:3 ratio picture of the wrestler Kendo Nagasaki's 'game face'. 

The kiddy

I'm no beer expert so really I treat it like wine - I'm after a nice taste, cold and with a good booze content. And as the plan for the day was to put beer where there had been no beer before - both my tum and my fridge - it was a resounding success.
Of the two types of beer taken home, the citra one's the kiddy. Really nice, strong but smooth. Perfect for sipping on a warm day.

It's quite a nice layout up there on Saturdays, when it's open to oiks, with the brewery sharing an arch with someone selling ham and cheese - served up on a plank of wood. And there's a few other gaffs selling stuff too. 

After that it was a plod round Bermondsey Street before catching the arse end of Borough Market to watch people pay ludicrous amounts for cheese while trying to out-buggy each other, kidwise.
The Kernel Brewery is open to people like you on Saturdays. Visitor entrance is at 1 Ropewalk (just off Millstream Road). The official address is 98 Druid Street, SE1 2HQ. Five minute walk from London Bridge station. http://www.thekernelbrewery.com/

Don't tell me what to do - maybe I want the sediment?

That gas bottle has the evil eye!

Leathermarket Gardens in full bloom

Some weird splodge stuff on the posts holding up the roof on Borough Market 

The London Particular, New Cross - sarnie special!

This picture does this sandwich no justice at all

Is there a better trousers-on feeling than enjoying the first couple of mouthfuls of a mega-sandwich, knowing you've got loads left?
There's stuff about the thinking behind The London Particular elsewhere on the new internet you've read about so I won't bother with it here. Suffice to say the place, which was recommended by the Deptford Dame on the popular website Twitter is soopoib.
I had the warm sarnie of the day, in this case fancy-pants sausages, caramelised onions, rocket and some other stuff (possibly some kind of mustard) on nice, lightly toasted bread, possibly rye I'm not sure - hey, this isn't Which?
Either way, this sandwich instantly marched in to my top six ALL TIME sandwiches. And I'm a fussy bugger.
Sausages were sliced in twain, arranged in size order to fit the bread, and rested diagonally. Then the other stuff was ladled on with the second piece of bread resting atop, as is traditional.
Impressively for work of this spec, sandwich integrity was maintained almost throughout. Only one bit of sausage fell out and that was when I was trying to change the page of my book.
It also came with a sort of salad, which had pulses of some kind in there and spuds and - I think - noodles. Often the salad is an afterthought on these things but this was excellent.
Naturally I paired the brute up with a cup of coffee, and this, in football terms, was a bit special. Very potent but tasty - I asked for white and it came with barely a splash of milk as if to say, 'go on you Jessy, ask for more milk'. No chance mate.
There was a slight awkward moment with me and the lad working there when I asked the wifi code - that unique embarrassment when two people with hugely different accents baffle each other - but that's hardly his fault (or mine) and the service, like the whole visit, was good. For such a small space they fit a lot of people in comfortably and my grub was up within about five minutes.
Now this place isn't cheap - it came in at £9.30 (the sarnie was an eye-watering £7.50) but it was worth it. I was still full six hours later, not bleurgh full, just not hungry. And it was, as has been established, very tasty. Next time I'm having the baked tommies, fancy ham, and hoity-toit cheddar on toast.

A monkey?

Then I mooched off down Deptford Market where I saw this intriguing poster - what can have been in the case to illicit such a plea, and reward?
The London Particular is at 399 New Cross Road, SE14 6LA. Out of New Cross station turn right, over the bridge, past the Walpole pub, past the chippy where Paul McCartney and his mrs got chips and a pickled egg (according to the signed docket on the wall), and it's there on the right. If you live in the area you should go, otherwise you're wasting your tastebuds.

Last night's nerd togger, la Francais edish

Polite

The problem with going nerd Everton is they aren't quite good enough all over the pitch so, as happened last night, you can be all over someone but still lose. Missed chances combined with shit defending equals Everton 2 - 3 Liverpool after being two up and coasting, and some intense swearing.

Really you can only play a team that's ranked similar or worse than Everton's, fairly generous, current four stars on the Fifa11 rating (out of five).

And so it was that I faced an appalling Paris St Germain 'outfit' last night. This lad was hopeless, not helped by his lumbering team, and I was two up fairly quickly. The first a belter from the edge of the box by Saha, the second a routine Cahill header.

As I suspected he might this cat pulled the plug at half time. I assumed he was French from the team he picked so I sent him the message above, 'vous est tres merde' which is actually 'you is very shit', not as I thought, 'you are very shit.' 

But note the use of the 'vous' form of 'you'. Even in battle we're still gentlemen. I don't know this blighter so he gets the 'vous' form. 

Not polite

To which he replied with this: 'ta mere est une pute', meaning 'your mother is a whore', which aside from accuracy issues (she isn't, she's a part-time lecturer) where does he get off with his 'tu' form? Massively over-familiar and it soured the entire evening. 

Last night's nerd togger - back in the saddle

A picture from Brighton

After an absence of two months from the online nerding arena I have returned. I was drunk and signed up again and within minutes remembered why I binned it off. The bad connections, the piss-taking of opponents, the replay watchers, the smart-arses, the endless stuffings. By gar I missed it!

First up nerd Everton took on nerd Villa and I bashed this prick's brains in - ol' skool! Three Cahill headers cancelling out an Ashley Young opener.

Rematch? Don't mind if I do. So he went Man City and I went Atletico Madrid and again I was all over him, but tellingly, couldn't put the nerd ball in the nerd net. Whereas everything my foe hit turned to goals. A 5-0 reverse. 

On to the decider and, even now, I don't know where this came from - I didn't think I could do it, never saw myself as a meddler in the black arts - but he went Real Madrid, and I thought 'fuck it' and went Manchester United. Anathema to me. I detest everything about them, even in nerd form. They're no Liverpool, but even so.

I can only put this calming of my ire down to occasional retweets I've read by that human representation of stone cladding, Wayne Rooney, where he comes across as irritatingly alright. You can follow the life of a plain talking millionaire farm hand on the popular social network site, his 'handle' is: @I'mastupidmoronwithanuglyfaceandbigbuttandmybuttsmellsandIliketokissmyownbutt.

And it has to be said, nerd United have just the right blend of speed, skill and massiveness to make them pretty good. Goals from Giggs and Hernandez put me in control and despite a late one from Ronaldo or someone there was never any danger. 

But the victory was tainted, sure it all counts in the nerd annals, but for me this was a stretch too far and a reminder that victory is not all. 

Job application to Loaded

Where the magic happens

Continuing the theme of rehashing old shite from my huge teetering 'REJECTED' pile, I found this application I sent when Loaded was looking for a feature writer five or six years ago.
There was the usual guff about my work history and then I had to come up with some feature ideas, which are printed below.
(The idea in 'the pitch' has now been superseded by the insaness of telly with the likes of ITV's 'so you think you can spaff'. Also the boyand model appears to have been dismantled now in favour of under-age or ancient talent show horrors. Were we ever so young!)


Loaded feature ideas:




The pitch:
Take an idea - say a tribute album to rock’s great moustaches - and pitch it to a record company. Explain why it is precisely what the industry is missing (this works as well for even more bankrupt-of-ideas industries like TV) and how it is a sure-fire winner. 
These companies are under so much pressure to get new stuff out it seems they will consider anything so long as it is well presented. 

Print a transcript of the whole thing - from first call to an actual meeting right through to, if incredibly lucky, the thing getting made. It is a bit Alan Partridge ‘monkey tennis’ but still has cracking comedy legs. Basically you can pitch anything to anyone if done with enough front. 

I have two TV pitches to start with: Duke Clancey Disco Cop (a cartoon) and Box Fresh (a show about a boyband whose own tribute band overtakes them after their first single.)

Other examples: 
a: Footballer’s hats (book).
b: What’s in my sandwich? (Radio 4 quiz).    
c: The last page - a compendium of last pages of books
(book).

The yellow bib capers. 

This one has been slightly gazumped by the man who recently robbed a Glasgow post office dressed as a builder, wearing a yellow fluorescent bib and hard hat. Admittedly it was topped off nicely with a gun.

Put simply anyone can do anything if wearing one of these things, especially if they wear a hard hat and carry a clipboard at the same time. 

All it takes is brass neck of the sheerest kind. Even if this was not enough for a feature - although I really believe it is - the sight of the bib-wearer having made it to their goal would make a good photo. A series of tasks would be good too, with security and refreshments at various venues rated.

Queens Day and the pursuit of pleasure

Pleasure

When I was freelancing a few years ago I used to have loads of ideas, most of them completely unworkable, like the 'yellow bib challenge' where I'd put a high-vis bib on and see what I could get away with before the police stepped in. 

Taking the royal horses for a walk was one idea, announcing a terror scare in a department store was another, while holding a clipboard to look doubly official. They were innocent times. Not like now with your Ay-rabs making everyone twitchy.

A better one concerned an idea for a pleasure machine me and a pal had. The product was a thing which had massive feathers on it, from which bird we knew not. 

It would be powered via a system of pulleys and chords with your feet while lying on your front and the feathers would brush your back and hopefully bum. Sounds ace, doesn't it?

We took pictures of us trying it out - a very early stage effort was built but it didn't work, which didn't really damage my artistic vision of the story. 

Because we didn't have photoshop we put black strips of paper on our eyes so it would look like the people in those 'contact' mags from the 90s. As I understand it. I've still got the pics somewhere but you've got no chance. 

We thought we could try and flog it during Amsterdam's Queen's Day, a 36-hour drinking festival held in honour of the current queen's mother.

Queen's Day is summed up by an Amsterdam resident like this: "If it was held in England there would be a rough survival guide published beforehand, then it would be banned the following year."

To me this one seemed a real goer, and I pitched it to FHM in the form of the opening 300 words or so, as you can see below (they passed). Anyway, here's the pitch:

Queen's Day

Queen's Day

“If blokes are prepared to pay good money to mount this… thing…” FHM’s Amsterdam contact is in full, scathing flow as he points at a blow-up doll. “They’ll defo buy this,” he continues, waving a poorly sketched blueprint at no one in particular. His face screws in disgust until all that remains is a nose, prodding at

the air like an old man’s foreboding finger.

“You couldn’t poke that - it’s a dinghy with a badly sketched woman's face on it,” he concludes. It’s hard to argue with pure logic – especially when it comes from a man in a bathrobe. On such moments revolutions are born.

Summer 2005: The world is plunging headfirst into a chasm of crud and it hasn’t packed a mac. Leisure and relaxation have become more sought after, and more important, than ever before. Won't someone deliver us from this hellish existence? Yes. Yes they will.

What if a product came along that, at a stroke, could banish the cares of the day and deliver the user to Xanadu – and all in the comfort of their own home? Wouldn't you want a bit of that? And what better place to introduce this new gadget than Amsterdam – don’t answer that, you’d cheapen us both.

The scheme is simplicity in its purest, most beautiful form: Turn up, buy the ingredients, make the thing, take if to those Queensday-addled Amsterdamers and empty their pockets. All in time for happy hour at the Flying Dutchman – home of the drunken fatty.

We hit the streets with a plan, a pocket full of Euros and a shopping list:

Fishing wire

Fishing weight

Screws

Washers

Wall brackets

Clock motor

Three big feathers (extra-fancy kind)

Pole (snooker cue, telescopic shower rail or similar)

On Leidseplein in central Amsterdam people stroll through the crisp, bright day – smiling and chatting as another afternoon drifts aimlessly by. Two Englishmen cause no stir as they walk through the crowds towards Blokker – your one-stop-shop for household goods. 

Ends.

And that was it - shame on you, FHM! You had a corker right there in your hands.

Leon Osman and the cry-arsing of an iddy-biddy girl

Looking good Ossie! Feeling good Billy-Ray!

"If Leon Osman was Spanish and a few years younger he'd be worth £30million." So roared a message on an Everton supporters' site this weekend. 
It continued: "Iniesta and Xavi wouldnt be as good or as brave as him in this league." Predictably, this drew hefty criticism from crusty-underpanted correspondents.
It probably is bollocks, although I wonder if the Barcelona pair would be quite so good in another team - Xavi especially who seems to define the is-he-really-that-good type of player. 
But I've been saying for a while now that if Osman played in Spain he'd be a star. He's quite similar to Xavi in terms of size (is Xavi quick?) and touch. Osman rarely miscontrols the ball. His passing is sharp and quick and, more importantly, his team-mates know they can twat it at him and he'll control it. 
The two things that have stopped him from really cracking it in this country, aside from injury, are he's not quite big enough and he's not quite quick enough. Because of this he's seen as a "tidy" player. 
But the last few months has seen Osman, who doesn't score enough, emerge as Everton's key midfielder, popping up in a number of positions. And last Saturday he scored a superb winner as moneybags Manchester City did their usual against Everton, prompting this wonderful response from some snotty little rat.
What I like about this story is the way the author, who goes by the moniker CiTyBlUe, makes some good points but completely buries them in a storm of "it's just not fair mum!" type cry-arsing.
I assume it's a lad writing because only males can sound like little girls when bleating about something so inconsequential, cosmically speaking, as football.
He's right about some Everton supporters' bizarre "love-in" with Manchester United supporters, based presumably on United's success winding Liverpool fans up. Who fucking cares about that? 
And there's something in it when he says Everton are United's feeder club too - there is a certain inevitability about any decent Everton player ending up at Old Trafford now.
But how can anyone take this seriously? "I cannot bare Everton for their pathetic style of heavy handed rough play, it is honestly a wonder how they have not already subjected opponents players into critical injury."
This is a team whose midfield included Osman, Mikel Arteta and Jack "after you" Rodwell. Terrifying.
And who were they up against? Patrick Viera, Yaya Toure, James Milner and that yard dog Nigel De Jong.
I think this comment under the story, by Anonymous, sums it up well: "This is fucking hilarious. Do people like you really exist or are you just one big wind up? I refuse to believe anyone can be this stupid. I mean, how do you even remember to breathe? By the way, 'The Poznan' is massively, massively gay. You fucking windowlicker."
I'd take City's season over ours any day, but that doesn't diminish the laughable dribblings of CiTyBlUe. If he gets that upset by raggedy old Everton how's he going to feel when Stoke City fuck them all over Wembley on Saturday? Because that's what's going to happen, and anyone who's paid even the slightest interest in Manchester City over the last 30 years, deep down, knows it.

Mooching about - picture special!

Philip Marlowe's plaque at St Nicholas' church, Deptford 

Had a mooch round Deptford the other day, starting off with a disappointing sarnie.
Took some pics including a bit of poetry and a nice commentary on whether Chelsea is a gem or a 'sket' - what the hell is a sket? Those pics are up a sort of tunnel on the side of a building site on the Thames Path.
The other pics are of some street between Bermondsey Street and Waterloo.
To surmise, Deptford is an ace place that I don't really make the most of, and the Waterloo area is ace for cycling round when it's a bank holiday and the nobhead quotient is reduced by about 8zillion%.

Racey!

Chelsea - the case for...

...and against

Fucking ledge!

Darth Vader's coming!

A big door - halfway up a building!

Dear Mars

devastation

I got a choc bar out of the machine just then, a Twix Fino (sounds like a Chilean gigolo, a chicoglo?). It felt smashed when I held it but I ludicrously hoped it might be encased in some kind of futuristic choc-bar-inner-sleeve-bubble-wrap. But it wasn't, as you can see from this shocking footage shot at the scene.
I've sent it back to Mars along with a note which I've added below as I want the internet to think I'm as funny as that prick who sent the smug letter to Branson about the toilets on Virgin rail or something.

3/5/11

Dear Mars,

I bought this the other day and thought you’d like to see it. It was from a vending machine but the bloke who fills them up isn’t around so I thought I’d go straight to the source.

No idea what happened to get it in such a state but I was forced to purchase an alternative bar, made by what I thought was your arch rivals Galaxy. I see however you make them too so you’ve got me there.

A mate of mine years ago said his dad sent back a busted Mars bar and received a massive box of chocs in return. I’m not after that but I would like a different bar to the smashed one enclosed. I took a punt on buying the less fat option and it’s backfired horribly.

Yours,

Biff Bifferson III

A dead bad sandwich in Deptford

Marks out of 8billion

Sarnies rule. They are one of the greatest things ever - so why is it so hard to get a good one?
I went to the reasonably-vaunted Deptford Project for a bank holiday treat of a cup of coffee and a bit of dinner (lunch if you're posh). The coffee - cappuccino with semi-skimmed milk - was fantastic, but the sandwich was an abomination.
First off they didn't have any chicken - the sandwich choice was basic at best: egg, bacon, ham - so I went for ham salad on thick white bread. The ham and salad wasn't awful but the bread was almost stale. If I dished this up at home it'd get lashed in my face, and rightly so. Normally I'd send it back but they were short staffed and it had took about 30 minutes to arrive and I couldn't be arsed waiting for another.
I ate it like. I was starving, and to be fair I was offered reparation when I pointed out after that the bread was rubbish, but it's what this represents that's the problem. The Deptford Project sells quiche apparently, but I don't want quiche - I want a sarnie. A big one. On event bread.
So why couldn't I have one? Because there is a fundamental, cultural problem in this country. The sandwich should be cherished, revered. It should be every bit as important as a good cup of tea.
As it is, sarnies are the runt of the commercial grub world, chucked out with contempt on shit bread with piddly fillings.
New York has it right, and it starts with the bread. If you're selling food and your sarnies are on basic sliced bread - brown or white - then you're a disgrace. Yes, YOU Peter de Wits cafe in Greenwich with your 'best ingredients' piffle - FIVE POUNDS for a chicken salad sarnie? For shame!
You are out of your mind - if I pay a flim for sandwich then it better be one of the wonders of the world. I want people gathering round it in awe, talking in hushed tones. And let me tell you, food-fans, the chicken salad one I had at de Wit's was moderate at best.
That was a year ago, and I'm still livid about it. The Deptford Project said they'll sort me out next time I go, which is nice, but the problems run deeper than that. Sort your act out, food sellers of Great Britain.