Archive for Guinness
happy [if responsible] stout day!
Posted in pictures, Running with tags ale, beer, British beer, dark beer, Guinness, international days, international stout day, Irish beer, malt, Murphy's, Porter, stout on November 6, 2025 by xi'an
a journal of the most-chaotic-of-all year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags anachronism, ancillary justice, Ann Leckie, book review, book reviews, Chinese artichokes, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Dublin, Gaza, Guerre, Guinness, hotels, India, Indian food, Jerusalem artichoke, Journal of the Plague Year, Kerala, Lebanon, London, Londres, Louis Ferdinand Céline, miso, populism, Republic of Ireland, resort, Russian invasion, Sudan, Ukraine, Ukrainian resistance on January 25, 2025 by xi'an
Read plenty of books during my Indian trip, finishing Translation State, by Ann Leckie. Just brilliant. This is indeed a complex and fascinating book, set in the same universe as the Ancillary books, and it takes some (rewarding) effort to get engaged into the different perspectives on the event, as well as the imprecise genders, but this is ultimately flourishing. (Albeit the three central characters are way too nice and positive!) And the recently rediscovered Londres, by Louis Ferdinand Céline. Ghastly in its exposure of the lowest floors of the human soul . But also with more of a scenario and story tension than Guerre. This second book comes as a sequel to Guerre and is in the same spirit, although the main character, Ferdinand, is less sell-shocked than in the first book. The story is somewhat more constructed and the progression (or regression) has more tension. But the main characteristics of Céline’s style and pessimistic views of humanity remain, with a bleak representation of the collection of crooks, pimps, war profiteers, and desertors that people the book. And Les Eaux de sous le Monde by Stéphane Platteau, an interesting, short, side-story linked to the fantastic Les Sentiers des Astres, if on the light side, at least scenario-wise, as the story centres on a male mage trying to stop a spectre from destroying a convent (or two). Apart from him, all characters are female and some play central enough roles that he would have failed otherwise. And A Man With One of Those Faces, by Caimh McDonnell, a comic detective story, very funny but with a definite suspension of (dis)belief in the resolution of the Razpunzel unsolved mystery and possibly an overdose of Irish-ness. And Guinness! The comic side makes the day, though, along with multi-dimension characters. Part of a rather long series of books and novellas. Finished, painfully, Letter from the Dead, by Jack Gatland, a terrible detective story set in London with caricaturesque characters and situations all the way. Surprisingly a best-seller! (And followed by 21 volumes!)
Harvested and cooked so-called Jerusalem and Chinese artichokes (in French, topinambourg and crosnes, resp.) for Xmath, which didn’t suit everyone at the table. But which I liked, despite the annoying harvesting of crosnes, small and highly dispersed roots. Did not cook anything while India but indulged in the infinite variety of new dishes found in the different hotels & resorts we stayed at.
Chose chaos as the most suited of the horsemen for the coming year, with the number one disruptor (re)entering the White House, wars still raging in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, …, the lack of a stable majority in the French parliament, and the rise of populism in Europe. And elsewhere.
Shane MacGowan (1957-2023)
Posted in Kids, Wines with tags Celtic music, Dirty Old Town, England, Gaelic, Guinness, Ireland, Irish nationalism, NeurIPS, punk rock, Salford, Shane MacGowan, Thomas Bayes, Tunbridge Wells, youtube on December 4, 2023 by xi'an
The punk singer Shane MacGowan has died a few days ago. He formed the fantastic Pogues Celtic punk band in the early 1980’s, mixing punk raw energy with Celtic tunes and instruments, and Irish nationalism. (In true punk fashion, the name of the band come from the Gaelic póg mo thóin that I let readers check for translation! In the same spirit, his earlier band was called the Nips with no connection with the Neural Information Processing Systems conference! However, he could have claimed a connection with Bayes since he was raised in Tunbridge Wells.) His early death is sadly unsurprising given his lifelong issue with alcohol, which started as a young boy when he started drinking Guinness… (As a minor trivia, the Dirty Old Town song was originally written about Salford, near Manchester, England, although adopted by several Irish bnds.)
Guinness [local]
Posted in pictures, Travel, Wines with tags Abdijan, African beer, Guinness, Ivory Coast on September 20, 2019 by xi'an
champagne, not Guinness??? [jatp]
Posted in Statistics with tags champagne, Guinness, jatp, Luxembourg, W. Gosset on October 29, 2017 by xi'an
