August 9th is notable for two reasons: first, Richard Thompson's new album, Front Parlour Ballads, is out. Secondly, I am coming back to England for a month. Feel free to inundate me with requests to do stuff. No, really, don't all shout at once…

Cretin

A word on the idiocy of Damon Albarn, who was recently heard to declare on a Radio 2 documentary about The Kinks:

I was born in the East End, so music hall was the music that I loved.

Would that be the childhood you spent as a nineteenth-century cockney street urchin, Damon? Or the one you spent in 1970s Leytonstone? Eejit.

No news in the world of beer

I've been pretty quiet on the front of What's Brewing recently. Allow me to remedy this with a selection of choice quotations from the current issue:

Fun runners put best foot forward for Mild Month: CAMRA's Mild Month is a promotion with legs—as was proved at a launch at the Bolsover Fun Run in Derbyshire on May Day

Anyone would want to visit Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Griffydam, Hugglescote, Moira, Nanpantan, Quorn, Thrussington, Wilson, and Wymeswold just to see if they lived up to their names; the assurance that they all contain decent pubs is merely an added incentive.

and finally, from the pen of Jane Huffer:
I would like to raise an issue which concerns me and several of my CAMRA colleagues here in the West Midlands. That is the matter of the ABV of beers being clearly displayed on pump clips.
       Some breweries, particularly the nationals, fail to put the ABV on the pump clip at all and many others include it but in such small print that one needs to have bionic eyesight to see it, especially in a dimly lit bar. […] The sooner breweries wake up to this and start recognizing the seriousness of providing accurate, readable information on pump clips, the better for all those of us who enjoy our real ale.

Get it sorted, CAMRA! Time to lobby your MP for bionic eyesight to be provided on the NHS for all real-ale drinkers.

The crazy life of a Hyde Park resident

I just saw a guy walking down the street with an iguana perched on his shoulder! I wonder if he's on his way to the Office of International Affairs?

The crazy life of an international student

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 08:58:14 -0500
From: Tamara Felden
Subject: [INTL-list] No pet policy at OIA
To: internationalstudents@listhost.uchicago.edu

Dear International Student:

I am writing to you to bring the following policy to your attention: Visitors are _not_ permitted to bring pets to the Office of International Affairs. Anyone bringing a pet to the Office of International Affairs will be asked to remove the animal immediately. This policy is in keeping with the University's policy, which states that "Pets are not allowed in the residence hall and should not be brought to campus." (Please refer to the University's Student Handbook of Academic, Social and Residential Policies.) Thank you for keeping this policy in mind when you visit our office!

Best,
Tamara

Store spotted near Schaumburg: "Suburban Sporting Goods: Guns and Ammo." Remind me never to go to a school sports day in the Chicago suburbs.

No post. Work.

Hi all,

I'd love to say that my lack of posts over the last week has to do with all the summer fun I'm having hanging out at the beach, going to see concerts etc. Unfortunately the truth is that the beach is closed because of E. Coli and I can't go to the festival this weekend to see Bonnie Prince Billie and The Decemberists and Tortoise (!) because I am working like a bastard.

Yes, I'll be dividing my time between the Press (8 hours), my still-unfinished paper on eighteenth-century gardening (8 hours) and my hastily undertaken Frankfurt School reading group (whatever time is left). Still, I'll know a lot about Kracauer.

On the plus side, Elizabeth's mum is coming into town to look at her new apartment (which we painted yellow and blue last weekend), and will more than likely take us out to dinner. Hooray! I voted for a French brasserie on the North side that I just found out does liver and tongue, but will most likely be voted down. Boo!

Not a day for rambling, so I won't. However, hope everyone is OK & got home all right.

Dinner with the stars

Guess what? I spent the 4th of July evening with star Democrat Barack Obama! Actually, that's a lie. Obama was at a barbecue at the house next door (given by a law professor who is a former member of the Weather Underground) and we saw him over the fence at our barbecue. Well, the others did. It had started raining and he had gone inside by the time I got there. Nevertheless.

Despite posting someone on Obama-watch at the window, we didn't manage to spot him again as we had our rained-off picnic in the living room. Instead we all went outside again and sat about under umbrellas. All around the south side sounded like it was involved in a small war, so presumably lots of people had been to Indiana to buy proper fireworks, which are illegal in my corner of the Midwest. We, however, made do with party poppers from Osco Drug (which you have to be 21 to buy). Then everyone ritually beat me up and threw me out for being British. Actually, that's a lie.

Richard's and my culinary tour of Chicago ended on Wednesday with a whole soft-shell crab in a bap. Richard is now in New Orleans about which I am sure he will tell us all soon. At least I assume he is. The last I saw of him he was being lured into a car by a strange man with a jar of hummus...