Tag: me me me

The Best of Us in 2017

The idea behind this round-up of the best of our own writing from 2017 is, as much as anything, to remind ourselves of what we’ve pulled off.

We forgot we’d written some of this stuff at all, while other bits we had in mind were were from last year, or maybe the year before.

It’s been a hectic time what with moving from Penzance to Bristol and the publication of a second book but, despite all that, we kept up a fairly steady flow of posts — about 240 in all. Of course that includes plenty of throwaways, weekly links round-ups, and our Month That Was summaries. Still, we reckon it amount to about 160,000 words of original writing — enough for another two books.

This is probably a good point to say that if you appreciate our output and want to encourage us to keep doing it, ad-free, and mostly outside any kind of paywall, please do consider subscribing to our Patreon. It’s dead easy, and for as little as $2 per month you can help pay for all this, and also get some bonus stuff there. (We’ve unlocked a few posts over the course of the year so you can see for yourself.) That people have signed up has been a major source of encouragement but, you know, there’s always room for a bit more.

Now, down to business. We’ve decided to limit ourselves to ten that we especially like but have also included by way of a footnote a second list of the stuff that actually got all the traffic, which is not always the stuff that’s most fun or interesting to write. First up, its…

Tags me me me, patreon, relentless, round up

Blogging and writing

Service Update: Moving House

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 2nd July 2017
6 Comments on Service Update: Moving House

From 1951.

Right, we’ve done pretty well at keeping things ticking over up to this point but, to paraphrase Hildegard Knef, from here on it gets rough.

We’re in the process of moving from Penzance to Bristol which means several long train journeys, lots of disruption, computers in places without internet, and internet in places without computers. And who knows where all the books and yellowing pamphlets will be.

This disruption shouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks and we’ll still hopefully manage to get the odd blog post out — we’ve got some half-written that just need polishing up when we can catch our breath, and others we can probably just about manage to type with crabbed fingers on phone screens.

In the meantime we’ll definitely keep up the Tweeting, Facebooking and Instagramming, and of course there’s a ten year backlog of stuff here you can check out if you need something more substantial. Top tip: the ‘Related Posts’ widget (to the right on desktop browsers and down below on mobile) is a good way to discover stuff you might have missed.

Ten Years

Well, there you go: we made it to ten years.

To mark the occasion we’ve relaunched the page where we list some highlights from the blog — just twelve posts this time, all things of which we’re particularly proud, or at least fond. Do have a look, especially if you’re a new follower-reader.

Newsletter subscribers will know a bit more about the ups and downs that have got us here so we won’t go over that again but thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, encouraging and sharing over the years.

Second decade, here we come.

Tags blogging about blogging, me me me

Blogging and writing

Status Update: Bona Fide Travelling

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 15th April 2016

Today and tomorrow we’re on the road visiting some pubs and interviewing some people for research purposes so there won’t be a News, Nuggets & Longreads links round-up tomorrow.

If you’re desperate for a Saturday morning fix keep an eye on our Twitter timeline tomorrow — we’ll share a few things there instead of here.

And, as they say at the BBC, other links round ups are available, e.g. Stan Hieronymus’s regular Monday morning post which, this week, had some particularly juicy stuff.

(The title of this non-post is a reference to a quirk of UK licencing law that we wrote about here, by the way.)

Tags me me me, news nuggets

homebrewing

Home Brewing Mojo

We had a bit of a wobble when it came to home brewing, hardly touching the kit for more than a year, but now the magic seems to be back.

What went wrong? A couple of batches that didn’t turn out as we’d hoped. A load of lager that froze because we made a stupid mistake with a fridge. A few late starts because we didn’t have a bit of pipe or a tap, which in turn led to tired out, late finishes. And, of course, the increasing availability of the kind of beer we wanted to drink at reasonable prices on the high street.

A 25kg sack of malt went untouched until we decided it was probably past its best and, anyway, might start to attract vermin, so we threw it away. What a waste.

The kit literally gathered dust.

Then, last October, we gave ourselves a stern talking to and ordered just enough stuff for a single brew. If it wasn’t fun, and the beer was rotten, we’d made no serious commitment.

Amazingly, it went better than ever. Having had a break, somehow the routine had embedded itself as habit and we suddenly knew what to do without panicking, rushing or repeatedly consulting guidance online. Water was heating before breakfast, recipe formulated over a plate of scrambled eggs. We didn’t make any stupid mistakes — forgetting to fit the hop strainer, leaving taps open, breaking thermometers in the mash — the kind of thing we used to do all the time.

Giving up on liquid yeast and just pitching dry yeast straight into the fermenting vessel seems to have removed one entire level of stress, too.

Even cleaning seemed easy. (Bar the frustration of trying to buy thin bleach which is apparently on its way to extinction.) We were done by lunchtime leaving the afternoon free for a session in the Star Inn.

The resulting HLA wasn’t amazing but it wasn’t bloody bad either and we achieved exactly the kind of lower bitterness, high aroma Proper-Job-type hop character we were aiming for.

Since then we’ve managed to not screw up a batch of lager, not screw up another HLA and, today, (tempting fate) we’re in the process of not screwing up a Victorian porter.

With less anxiety, brewing leaves plenty of long gaps for reading, watching films, undertaking errands, so that it feels like a kind of productive loafing. We’re glad to have it back in our lives.

Tags me me me