It's the end of January, the month everyone hates. A month of poverty, of cold, grey days and dark nights that arrive too early and drag their feet as you push them out of the door. Well, all I can say as a January-birthday-haver is just you wait. Just you wait until February sets in. February's the real villain.
February will still trick us with warmer days and bite us with snow and floods and frost, just when we think we're almost through the worst of it. But this last part, the most fickle, harshest month, can't hold forever. Imbolc takes place on Saturday 1st February. The soil is warming up. The snowdrops have started meeting in their cabals, in open defiance of the iron grey sky. I've seen them. We're nearly there.
Other stuff:
We'll start with this. Kat Eschner put off reading Consider The Lobster for a long time, and when she finally read it, she liked it. But her essay about reading it is about so much more than just reading a book.
Hot dogs! I long, occasionally, for there to be hot dog carts in Clitheroe. Sadly this seems to be a major city thing only, but this run-down of the most average hot dogs in New York helped me out of my cravings. For a short while, anyway.
I had no idea the creator of Ren & Stimpy was such an asshole. The documentary about the cartoon looks like it's going to be pretty intense, if this piece on it by Tom Grierson for Mel Magazine is anything to go by.
This week I learned (thanks, Isabelle O'Carroll) that noisy restaurants and bars aren't just a personal preference thing, they cause serious accessibility issues for many people. Read this Vox piece by Julia Belluz. It's really informative and positive -- it shows how things can be changed for the better.
"...instead of swiftly removing himself or divesting, Friedman remained tied to the Spotted Pig, roping the fate of his employees to his own." The Spotted Pig has closed. This Eater piece by Hillary Dixler Canavan expertly dissects what that means.
Here's something so on-brand for me it may as well be wearing a Yeastie Boys hat: an evocative, luxurious essay on the Latin American women persecuted in colonial times for mixing magic with chocolate.
Cave diving, ice-shelf swimming, deep-sea freediving -- I am fascinated and terrified by all of these things. See amazing photographs of Lewis Pugh's swimming expedition through an ice shelf in Antarctica alongside his own words about the experience, which he did to raise awareness of the melting ice shelves. He shouldn't have been able to swim through it. That was the point.
Foeders! No, not vats, FOEDERS. Lily Waite has written an immensely interesting longread about the brewig world's new favourite old thing, and there's a lot in there that made me smile.
Glou-glou. What is it? Why is it called that? This article by Aaron Ayscough from exactly two years ago, if you haven't seen it before, is probably the best thing I've read on the subject. (Please feel free to send me your favourite writings on this controversial topic!)
Amazing words and photographs by Nicci Peet here on two equally amazing women grinding coffee and smashing the patriarchy.
"Heard but not Seen" is about the dissonance the author, Tre Johnson, feels when they walk into unfamiliar spaces (in this case, white run and owned restaurants and bars) and hears hip-hop being used as instant "cool" wallpaper, or as they put it: "a soundtrack to gentrification and displacement."
I already said this on Twitter but this interview with Hildur Guðnadóttir is a masterclass in interviewing, placing the artist firmly at the front and gently coaxing them to reveal how special they are, with a few well-researched, well-placed facts and highlights. In awe, I am. And taking notes.
I've read this article a lot since it was published. Jemma Beedie talks about taking children to the pub, and how it's a feminist issue, and how family friendly pubs are vital to communities. It's brilliant. Read it, especially if you think children shouldn't be welcome in pubs. “One of the most efficient ways to cut women out of society, leaving them to fend for themselves, is to ban children from public spaces. Spaces like pubs.”
My stuff:
For Ferment I've written a piece on the different types of woods used in Brazilian barrels. Originally used for cachaca, they're now favoured by brewers in that neck of the rainforest to create unique, area-specific flavours in their beers.
Lewis Pugh swims through a gap in an
Antarctic ice shelf
Photograph: Kelvin Trautman