2020
Time for the annual making of the Blood & Sand at the BStanding household. Blood oranges a LOT redder than usual, and for some reason I totally forgot I needed sweet vermouth, but *luckily* had a bottle of Cocchi rolling around in the cupboard. Tried with #Talisker 10 this year, cos I'm out of JW Double Black. #cocktails #inept #lovescotch #vitaminCfixesofinstagram
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My 2019 media consumption roundup
OK so one element of this “media roundup” tradition I’ve started for myself seems to be that I don’t actually write most of the notes til the end of the year, which inevitably spill over into the next year, and the recollections I have are sketchy to the point of irrelevance. So, I’m going to…
Robert Plant: A Life
Generously written biography of the singer from Kidderminster who caught the eye of Jimmy Page, who would go on to become a golden god of the rock firmament. There’s so much more to the Robert Plant story than just Led Zeppelin, and this book admirably captures that – whilst of course a big part of…
A History of Heavy Metal
I’ve seen the comedy show which this book was based on 1.4 times (long story – but the 0.4 was a manful effort at putting on a performance despite the best efforts of the performer’s gastrointestinal tract). Andrew O’Neill can be described as many things – but “passionate about heavy metal” is definitely foremost in…