Bringing it to the boil

12:21

walking

Battersea Park

 

1 minute

Walk to Queens Circus

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Step 2

12:22

cycle

Queens Circus

8 bikes available

 

8 minutes

Cycle to Westbridge Road

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Step 3

12:30

walking

Westbridge Road

2 spaces available

 

3 minutes

Walk to SW11 4NP

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12:33

SW11 4NP

The New Bermondsey

Colliers Wood could become a beer brewing hub if plans for a pub micro-brewery are given the go-ahead.

The William Morris Pub in Merton Abbey Mills has applied to be extended and install brewing equipment for a micro-brewery not far from a new brewery which is currently being built.

A micro-brewery typically produces small quantities of beer, usually for consumption on the premises where it is based.

It is thought the new brewery would produce a local beer, like its soon-to-be-neighbour the Wimbledon Brewery.

Mark Gordon who is setting up the Wimbledon Brewery in Prince Georges Road, Colliers Wood has welcomed the plans as his own brewery takes shape.

Kevin G told me about this yesterday. I had vaguely heard of it but thought I had  it mixed up with the Wimbledon Brewery.

You can get the skinny on the application here. It looks like they will be taking over the empty Mamma Rosa restaurant. It is all good as far as I am concerned but then again I just work here, rather than living in the flats.

Formula E

The opening part of the double-header finale of the Formula E season was a cracker when we saw it at Battersea Park yesterday. I'll watch the second race on the telly this afternoon I think.

Conspiracy theory

Tyson and Williams

Rugby World Cup 2015: Liam Williams sidelined for 10 weeks but Wales remain hopeful he'll make the tournament.

Could there be another explanation for the injury?

If you build it he will come

Do you remember a blog post about Kung Fury at the end of 2013? A guy called David Sandberg made some test footage for an over-the-top action comedy he wanted to write, direct, and star in; then went to Kickstarter to try and fund it. 17,713 backers pledged $630,019 to help bring the project to life so here it is. Arcade-robots, dinosaurs, nazis, vikings, norse gods, mutants and a super kung fu-cop called Kung Fury, all wrapped up in an 80s style action packed adventure. Seventeen million plus views on YouTube and rising.

The Roots Of Rock From Cardiff To Mississippi And Back

This is an edited slice taken from the forthcoming Peter Finch: The Roots Of Rock From Cardiff To Mississippi And Back, due for publication from Seren Books in the autumn of 2015.

Route 55 is in the air every where.

Down in the Tube Station at Midnight

With all-night weekend services are set to begin on 12 September on sections of the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines, Transport for London has released the finalised map for the night-time Tube service.

Take a gander above. There is hardly anything south of the river. Happy days for living a five minute walk from Colliers Wood on the Northern line. I wonder if it will boost property prices in relation to other parts of Sarf London?

In anticipation, the Telegraph has put together a bar crawl of favourite late-night spots from which I can catch a Night Tube home, come the fateful day.

Stronger

A huge thank you to @oldrutsrugby for their fundraising efforts for the #StayStrongForOws campaign #ThanksThursday

— Cardiff Blues (@cardiff_blues) June 18, 2015

Gracious acknowledgement for the Old Ruts U14s (soon to be U15s) efforts fund and profile raising efforts as part of the end of season tour to Wales.

The Axeman's Jazz

New Orleans 1919. As music fills the city, a serial killer strikes . . .

Winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger for Best Debut Crime Novel of the Year.

Longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award

As recommended on the Radio 2 Arts Show with Claudia Winkleman

A stunning atmospheric crime thriller set in New Orleans, 1919 and inspired by a real life serial killer

As a dark serial killer - The Axeman - stalks the city, three individuals set out to unmask him . . .

Though every citizen of the 'Big Easy' thinks they know who could be behind the terrifying murders, Detective Lieutenant Michael Talbot, heading up the official investigation, is struggling to find leads. But Michael has a grave secret, and if he doesn't get himself on the right track fast, it could be exposed . . .

Former detective Luca d'Andrea has spent the last six years in Angola state penitentiary, after Michael, his protégée, blew the whistle on his corrupt behaviour. Now a newly freed man, Luca is back working with the mafia, whose need to solve the mystery of the Axeman is every bit as urgent as that of the authorities.

Meanwhile, Ida is a secretary at the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Obsessed with Sherlock Holmes and dreaming of a better life, Ida stumbles across a clue which lures her and her musician friend, Louis Armstrong, to the case - and into terrible danger . . .

As Michael, Luca and Ida each draw closer to discovering the killer's identity, the Axeman himself will issue a challenge to the people of New Orleans: play jazz or risk becoming the next victim. And as the case builds to its crescendo, the sky will darken and a great storm will loom over the city . . .
Inspired by a true story, set against the heady backdrop of jazz-filled, mob-ruled New Orleans, The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin is an ambitious, gripping thriller announcing a major talent in historical crime fiction.

This is the book the Bomber got me for my birthday today. Perhaps he does pay attention to some of the things I say after all, having picked up on my love of all things N'Awlins and a good detective story,

Grandma look! I'm doing Kylie bum!

I am off with a bunch of people to see Kylie Minogue at Hyde Park later. I am very far from sure how and why I signed up for this.

Needs must when the devil drives, but it has at least dislodged a memory. Ms Minogue's "Spinning Around" was released in June 2000 and the Bomber was born in September.

He seems to have been precociously influenced by the video. I have a clear, clear memory of him as a toddler thrusting out his gyrating backside while rubbing both buttocks lasciviously glancing back over his shoulder shouting, "Look, Grandma look! I'm doing Kylie bum! I'm doing Kylie bum!"

How proud of him she must have been, and what I wouldn't give to have immortalised that on video tape.

Bodean's Balham

Back in the day Balham was Peter Sellers’ Gateway to the South, a national joke coined by a comedy legend. Today the good folks of Balham have the last laugh as South London’s chuckle central is a mecca for laughter-lovers, hipsters and — hallelujah, mama! — Connoisseurs of the finest BBQ and rare beers, Bourbons and sipping whiskies to be found this side of the Atlantic divide.

Loud and proud on Balham’s main drag, Bodean’s corner site bar and BBQ is a local landmark on the highway to the stars. Whether you’ve come to worship the ultimate Kansas City BBQ or sit at our elegant U-bar sampling our selection of prime Stateside ales and rare liquors, you know you’ve come home to good times.

John,

Do you fancy Bodean's if you come up on Friday night before the 4 July Crawfish Boil? Google Maps says we will be there fifteen minutes and two Northern Line tube stops after leaving my house.

breaking it down

The Bomber won the 400m and javelin at the school sports earlier this week. The 400m in 56 seconds he says (which is three seconds faster than last year) and the javelin with 33m (which is sub par as he has done 42 in training). They are both AAA Standards Awards qualifying performances though I note.

On the downside he pulled a muscle in the run, missed training last night, and looks doubtful for the Youth Development League on Sunday.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

And I am interested in it this morning.

freestylin'

Posted by Marcus Campbell Sinclair on Tuesday, 16 June 2015

You can embed Facebook posts. Who knew?

Simplified Reserved Instance Options for Amazon RDS

Reserved Instances have been a part of the AWS pricing model for quite some time. You can reserve an instance and receive a significant discount, along with a capacity reservation, when you purchase a Reserved Instance (RI).

You don’t need to make any code or administrative changes in order to benefit from Reserved Instances. We’ll automatically apply Reserved Instance rates first when we compute your bill in order to minimize your costs.

New Payment Options
We are simplifying the Reserved Instance options that are available to users of Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). The new model is payment-based and provides a single type of Reserved Instance, with three payment options:

• No Upfront – No upfront payment is required. This option provides a substantial discount (typically about 30%) over the one year term of the RI when compared to On-Demand.
• Partial Upfront – With a balance of payments between upfront and hourly, this option replaces the previous Heavy Utilization RI and provides a high discount (typically about 60% for a three year term) over the course of a one or three year term.
• All Upfront – This option allows you to pay for the entire RI term (one or three years) with one upfront payment, and provides the best discount (typically about 63% for a three year term).

Yes, this is the type of thing I spend my days thinking about. Oh the insane glamour of it all.

Hostile World

Hotel World's skinny dipping back packers TV ad doesn't seem quite the same in light of:

LONDON (AP) — Eleanor Hawkins has returned to England and apologized to the people of Malaysia for having posed topless on a sacred mountain.

The student, who served a three-day jail term in Malaysia's Sabah state before being set free, says she knows her actions had been wrong.

She said Sunday that "I know my behavior was foolish and I know how much offense we all caused to the local people of Sabah. For that, I am truly sorry."

Hawkins was one of four foreigners charged in Malaysia after removing their clothes and posing for a photograph on Mount Kinabalu.

The 23-year-old seemed near tears as she read a statement outside her family's home in Draycott, 120 miles (195 kilometers) north of London. She says she's relieved to be home.

The Plato scale

I followed the beards and backpacks to the Bermondsey Beer Mile and Maltby Street Market: Ropewalk yesterday. I don't recall ever going to the area before. It was absolutely rammed. You had to queue up outside the Kernel Brewery to get in and join the internal queue.

I am sitting in the office in Abbey Mills this morning writing this, and wondering why it is so quiet in comparison.

I have however discovered that there is a craft brewery on the brink of opening around the corner.

Here's our 30 barrel brewhouse in glorious technicolor. Marris Otter, Fuggles, Golding and Target hops at the ready.. pic.twitter.com/ezqBDSorGu

— Wimbledon Brewery (@WimbledonBrew) June 11, 2015

They actually start brewing tomorrow: Britain's first national beer day.

Wales 1: Belgium 0

Group B

Position	Team	Played	GoalDifference	Points
Moving up1	Wales	6	6	14
Moving down2	Belgium	6	11	11
No movement3	Israel	6	1	9
No movement4	Cyprus	6	1	9
No movement5	Bos-Herce	6	1	8
No movement6	Andorra	6	-20	0

Bedazzled

The Bomber is not going to the Surrey Schools Athletics Championships tomorrow because he didn't get round to sending the confirmation email.

He is not going to the Ebisham League with the Harriers on Sunday. They wanted him to do the hurdles and three hundred metres, but he says he is concentrating on javelin.

It baffles me.

You knock me out- Don't get excited
You bust me up- Save your breath
You burn me up- Cool it
You plug me in- I'm not interested
You switch me on- Too much effort
You light me upI'm bedazzled, I'm bedazzled, I'm bedazzled

Only 99.85% to go!

Without great explorers and adventurers, the world as we know it would be a completely different place. Be it by the discovery of new lands or even by way of industrial and cultural innovation, great minds and brave souls have forever changed the way that we see and experience the world. Columbus, Gallileo, Da Vinci, Edison and Ford, among others, have all physically and culturally helped shape the planet that we currently call home. Recently, however, the focus has been shifting over and out to what lies beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. Some are contemplating colonizing Mars while others are promising elevators into space by 2050. One way or another, there are many elements about life in space that need careful consideration and research…especially sex. As such, Pornhub is teaming up with top ranking adult studio Digital Playground in joining the ranks of Armstrong and Gagarin by pioneering a one of a kind mission to defy gravity, make history, and push the boundaries of intergalactic "Sexploration" by filming the first ever sextape in space. In doing so, we will not only be changing the face of the adult industry, we will also be chronicling how a core component of human life operates while in orbit.

With some help from our generous fan base and extended community, we can all make this happen. Our work is definitely cut out for us. We need to train and outfit our crew, consult with a dedicated team of specialists, purchase custom modified film equipment, and completely fund the use of the shuttle that’ll take us on our journey to space. We’ve projected that the overall cost of this pioneering endeavor will run us about $3.4 million. By supporting us through the purchase of one (or several!) of our amazing perks, you have the opportunity to be a part of the most epic sex adventure ever caught on tape, causing lives to change, mouths to drop, and boundaries to be broken.

God knows how The Onion keeps going when life on the interwebs is madder than any satire. I console myself that the world is not entirely mad they have only raised 0.15% of the budget so far, but who knows what the next 60 days will bring? If the figure above is much more than $5,362 as you are reading we could be in trouble.

Dear John

FAO My youngest brother.

I remember that we had a long chat last night on the phone late last night but - as I had been at the cooking sherry - details elude me in the light of day.

If I committed actually to do anything please remind me before I let you down.

As Andy Burnham so justly observed, 'I have the honour to remain, Sir, Your Royal Highness's most humble and obedient servant.'

Nick

The Machine

Yesterday, United Passions: today, The Machine.

Swansea-raised film-maker Caradog James both wrote and directed the film about Britain embroiled in a cold war with China.

“It rains a lot in Wales so we must engage our imaginations a bit more!

“There are also great spaces to use here. We used a huge abandoned electronics factory in Bridgend for all our laboratory scenes in The Machine, plus an MoD base just outside Cardiff, which was perfect with its abandoned airfield and huge air hangars.”

United Passions

Gérard Depardieu, Sam Neill and Tim Roth trace the history of the FIFA World Cup in United Passions. Discover the exclusive trailer!

Tim Roth plays Seb Blatter. This really is beyond parody.

Even bad publicity is usually good publicity — except in the case of the FIFA-financed film United Passions, which was quickly red-carded at the U.S. box office this weekend.

Writer-director Frederic Auburtin's film beyond bombed in its limited debut in 10 theaters, earning a measly $607 on Friday and Saturday, according to those with access to Rentrak figures. The FilmBar theater in downtown Phoenix reported a gross of just $9, meaning only one person bought a ticket to see United Passions, which details the history of the now-embattled FIFA.

Welcome to my world

Jim Dale was brilliant last night. Is there anything more rewarding than dutifully turning up at a gig with no great expectations only to be astounded. Seventy nine years old, limber and wasp waisted, Oscar nominated song writer, colleague of Olivier etc. etc. Who knew?

It's not given to all of us to be doing so well at that time of life.

See

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11652158/Dementiaville-episode-1-review.html

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/31/christopher-eccleston-father-dementia-disease-dismantled-his-personality

living for pleasure alone

The Old Ruts rugby awards returned last night. When the Bomber arrived it looked like some of the squad were prostrating themselves before him as if  he was an oriental potentate. This it turns out was so they could get a better view of training shoes unavailable in the UK that he had brought back from New York and the wonder of which continues to elude me. He won an award which seemed to be something along the lines of "best player on day 2 of the Wales tour." (That's enough awards. Ed).

If that is not enough excitement for one weekend, I am going to see Jim Dale at the Vaudeville Theatre tonight.



For:

The snail is on the thorn. The lark is on the wing. The hat is on the side of my head. The rainbow is around my shoulder and everything's for the best in this best of all possible worlds where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.

Ubble, ubble toil and trouble

1. Your Ubble age is 41 years (38 to 46 years)
This means that your risk of dying in the next five years is equivalent to the average risk for men aged 41 in the UK.

2. Your five-year risk of dying is 1%
This means that, out of 100 men aged 53 years with similar answers, 99 will survive and 1 will die over the next 5 years.

The Risk Calculator (result for me above) at http://www.ubble.co.uk/ is a bit of fun, but the Association Explorer might actually be very interesting.

Oh has the world changed, or have I changed?

Rogue BBC tweet sparks global news alert about Queen's health

Nothing to do with us, but a salutary reminder of how sensitive the stuff we deal can be.

the nesting instinct

This morning I have mostly been writing:

select aucid, aucCurrentBid, aucPaidAmount, aucDeliveryCost, PYD_Datetime as Month, PYD_Amount, TYP_Namefrom dbo.vtblAPAuctions, dbo.vPaymentAudit, dbo.Typeswhere aucGUID=PYD_ItemGUID  and TYP_ID=PYD_Type and TYP_Context='PYD_Type' and                         PYD_Confirmed is not null and aucID in (select aucidfrom dbo.vtblAPAuctions, dbo.vPaymentAudit, dbo.Typeswhere aucGUID=PYD_ItemGUID  and TYP_ID=PYD_Type and TYP_Context='PYD_Type' and                         PYD_Confirmed is not null and aucID in (select aucID from dbo.vtblAPAuctions join dbo.vPaymentAuditon aucGUID=PYD_ItemGUID where PYD_Confirmed is not nullgroup by aucID having COUNT(' ') > 1) Group by aucID, MONTH(PYD_Datetime)Having COUNT(' ')=1 ) order by aucID desc , Month desc

Prodnose: That is of very little interest to me.

Myself: That may very will be so, but I think other people may be intrigued by this sort of shaving from the bench of a master craftsman. It is like reality  TV for the mind.

Lee Selby with Floyd someone or other

New world boxing champion Lee Selby is hoping he can enjoy a Welsh homecoming by making his first defence of his IBF featherweight title in Cardiff towards the end of the summer.

Selby produced a dominant technical decision over Russia’s Evgeny Gradovich at the O2 arena on Saturday evening. The fight was stopped in the eighth round due to a cut above Gradovich’s left eye and Selby was handed victory with scores of 79-73, 79-73, 80-72.

“There is talk of me fighting back in Cardiff in late August early September and hopefully I can defend again in December before the end of the year,” said Selby.

There is a World Champion from Barry who trained - among other places - at the Royal Oak in Splott. My cup overfloweth; a Welsh Born Icon.

update: it may have been somewhere other than the Oak, though still in Splott. Grumpth!

Hmmmmm

Here it is! Wales’ 47-man RWC Training Squad #iamwales pic.twitter.com/jjOw3x35t7

— Welsh Rugby Union (@WelshRugbyUnion) June 1, 2015