Lost in Translation

“And her hair spilled out like root beer.”
–Tom Waits

I like root beer. It’s possible this

is the best root beer in the world. However, I haven’t tasted all the root beers the world has to offer, so it’s also possible there is something better out there. It’s a known unknown.

This can, which is the perfect can for root beer, was lovingly transported from Texas in the belly of a Boeing 777 last year. Slightly nervous about pressurization, I only brought one over in my checked-in luggage. Of course there were far too many volatile fluid ounces for it to be allowed in my carry-on, even though the thought of such a beverage being used as a cover for terrorist activities is beyond the pale.

I haven’t yet pulled the lovely blue tab. I don’t plan to until just before my next visit. I go to Texas about once a year. For my inlaws.

And the root beer.

UPDATE
Having decided that the best root beer is one that I can actually buy on a regular basis, the crown must pass to A&W, a steady fountain of which I’ve discovered is available at a little shop down in St Leonards, named after the patron saint of prisoners, pregnant women, country dwellers, horses, and now root beer.

The wild east. Wait a minute, that’s not from St. Leonards. You mean there’s more than one source?!?

Scale model of the tower of root beer I hope to build one day

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Here is an example of fake root beer:

Do not under any circumstances accept this sparkling soft drink infused with natural ingredients in lieu of the real thing if the real thing is what you thirst for. It is meant to “transport you back in time to a period when cares were free and times were fun”,

but it will only cause heartache.

BONUS! RECIPE SECTION
In case you want, you know, a root beer float. Admittedly bananas and root beer might not mix. I haven’t tried them together. As ice cream – well, ‘ice cream’ – goes, though, this is great.

Ingredients:
(ripe!) bananas
+ maybe a dash of milk or juice to help them mix better

Directions:
Peel
Freeze
Purée
preferably in that order

Fresh from the breadmaker: white bread. Eeeeek! We always make wholemeal. This is for summer pudding, so it’s OK.

Once you’ve lined a bowl with the bread and filled this trencher with fruit, you have to put weights on it. This is both to compress the bread to help infuse it with the fruit, and to serve as a disincentive to theft.

Q: What’s missing?

˙ʇı ʇnoɥʇıʍ ƃuıppnd ɹǝɯɯns ǝʌɹǝs oʇ ʍɐʃ ǝɥʇ ʇsuıɐƃɐ sı ʇı uıɐʇıɹ𐐒 uI ˙ɯɐǝɹƆ :∀

I feel I should post about the riots. If only I had something to say. I have no experience with burning or looting or Twittering. (Not yet, anyway.) Or with being especially disadvantaged, save for the pity many Brits feel for Americans in their hearts.

A. A. Gill saw swift opportunism. Sensing a blind spot, a weakness, and exploiting it for quick profit, shorting your own neighborhood. So perhaps there was a lesson learned from the market after all.

Trickle-down disaster capitalism. The great bank heists bailouts, while a redistribution of wealth almost unimaginable orders of magnitude greater than anything on display in Tottenham, weren’t quite so scary looking.

Peter Oborne in the Telegraph had a satisfying dig at Richard Branson, whose train passengers are probably due for a riot at some point, and Suzanne Moore made an eloquent plea in The Guardian to not to shut the kids out: Never woven into the social fabric, how easily they rip it to shreds.

And Timothy Burke? Just sayin’.

Yesterday pirates descended on Hastings:

Polly wants a pound for Poundland.

The new theory on crowd control is to make them feel they’ve achieved something; in this case, the formation of a large skull & crossbones. Once you get them in place you taser them all and call it a day.

It was fun being a pirate, until everybody wanted to be one.

Rum & mum.

Zombies always spoil it in the end.