26: Brace yourselves, this is a sad one.
I made a playlist this week of all the songs that remind me of being 16 years old. I don't usually like being reminded of being a teenager, they were difficult years for my whole family, but there's a lot of election stuff in the news at the moment that's bringing it all back to me anyway, so I thought -- what the hell. Dive in.
I'm back in my old bedroom, in a small council bungalow in Aberdeenshire, miles from anything and anyone. I'm sat on the silver carpet (chosen by me to replace rotten lino from a discount flooring place in Montrose) playing Final Fantasy IX on mute, which was given to me, along with the PS1 I'm playing it on, by a friend from school. A copied disc spins in my CD player, the repeat button flashing to let me know that it's not the whole mixtape I'm replaying, it's Signals Over The Air by Thursday, track 2, the song I've been holding on to like a liferaft for the past few hours. My hands are cold because although the meter's got a few quid on it, the house only has storage heaters, and when mine's on it smells like burning hair. I'm wrapped in my duvet, engrossed in an ice cave level, and the hi-hat and snare counts us in again.
I know I was rarely alone in this house, but I can barely remember being anything but. We were helped into this emergency life by friends and neighbours, my mum's colleagues, my friends at school. We weren't alone, but I felt it, so deep down in my bones. The wide window that looked out from my bedroom over the dark stubble of winter wheatfields and a distant line of forestry commission pine trees didn't try to console me. I could see the nothingness for miles and miles. How did this happen to us?
It's not the poverty I remember. It's the loneliness. Money isn't just about bread and milk and fish fingers in the freezer. Money stops people associating with you. It turns a simple gift into pity. It leaves you stranded in a council house a 12 mile walk from your nearest friend's house. It's a writhing pit of shame in your stomach. It's the question "how did this happen to us?" Because you never think it could happen to you. Until it does.
Please do not vote for the Tories next week.
Other Stuff
(You made it through the darkest part -- It's pretty much all uplifting beer stuff from now on)
Lily Waite manages to make Manchester sound incredibly romantic in this wonderful piece about Marble brewery for Good Beer Hunting.
I really enjoyed this by Matt Curtis on the potential of a beer release saturation point in the near future(and the virtues of a good pint of bitter) in Fement mag so it was nice seeing it gaining some attention online this week too.
Oh look, ATJ has written something amazing about Orval, one of the greatest beers in the world!
It's so easy to take cask beer for granted but it's quite exotic and glamorous elsewhere in the world. I'm really enjoying reading about Adrián Materos of Cerveza Rudimenteria's experiences learning more about English cask. English version | Spanish version.
This piece by Boak & Bailey caused a lot of conversations this week. I have a complicated view on the topic of gentrification and I wish everyone did. It isn't always bad. Or good.
Thank you to Evan Rail for sharing this brilliant piece from the NYT about a historically important currywurst stand in Berlin.
Beautiful, familiar paintings of brutalist architecture by Frank Laws. They're of homes in East London, but they could easily be anywhere, and that's what I love about them. Also, the first line has given me a word to describe what fills my head every time I leave the house: Sonder.
A really insightful group of interviews with members of i-collective, a group of indigenous chefs and activists across America, who hosted thanksgiving dinners to "celebrate the resilience of their people and tell their stories through food."
A really fun read about the new A Christmas Prince film. A lot of people are trying to skewer the humble filmed-in-Canada, set-in-a-made-up-European-principality Christmas film but I wish they'd just watch and enjoy them like this.
Marissa Ross has written "I was 18, clenching everything from the armrests to my ass as I experienced my first full-frontal male-nudity on the big screen" in an article about Merlot, because of course she has. I nearly spat out my impy stout.
My Stuff
I received a commendation from the Guild of Beer Writers awards this week, which was lovely. I shared the pieces I submitted to the awards in a previous newsletter, but I've decided to create my first ever zine out of them. There'll be more information, and probably a pre-order link, in next week's newsletter.
I got a few reads this week for my piece on how beer festivals become. Read it if you want advice on how to start an event from the people who run your favourite festivals.
Still proud of my local football and local beer piece. Even if you don't like football might enjoy it -- I know precisely fuck all about football and I loved researching and writing it.
MONUMENT I -- Frank Laws