Paranoid

There seems to be a lot of paranoid types in the beer world at the moment. It's evident from the number of impersonators currently infiltrating the comments section of various blogs. It seems that Jeff (Stonch), Tandleman, Sausage, Barry and I all seem to have people pretending to be us. I really don't care as it just shows how weird most people in the beer blog world tend to be.

This post goes out to Barry. It has been brought to my attention that Barry has updated his user profile and states he is "Currently being cyber stalked and impersonated by Tim." He has also setup a flame blog called The Chronicles Of Timmy.
Whatever...... If you need to blog about me you obviously have too much time on your hands. But thanks for caring.

This track goes out to you.
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Ticker Warning

Just a general warning to the community. Gazza Prescott, aka Prescotti is starring in a new film about ticking. Yes BeerTickers the movie is about to be released and tells the story of a number of bearded freaks and their adventures. If anybody at the media classification boards has any sense they would label this as not fit to be viewed by children, adults or any sane person. Really, do these twats really need an audience?

"‘BEERTICKERS: beyond the ale’ is a documentary film about a strange hobby, a British tradition, curiosity, collecting, obsession, and drinking good old real ale. Filmmaker Phil Parkin observes the beertickers in action, travelling to pubs and beer festivals while learning the rules and drinking real ales. He joins ‘Brian the Champ’, ‘Mick the Tick’ and ‘Dave Unpronounceable’ and lands himself a new nickname and quest to tick 500 different beers."

www.beertickersfilm.com

The Doctor MIA? No busy dealing with Twats

The busy stretch seems to have come to an end and fingers crossed I can get back to business as usual. I apologize again for being MIA and for my blog being a bit shithouse lately as well.

Firstly I have not stepped foot in a pub since I reported on the steak sandwich I had at The Queens Head a few weeks ago. I did make it to the beer garden of The Brook Green Hotel on one of the warmers days before the weather turned crap - but I opted for a couple of bottles of 'OIrish' style cider instead. I think this is excusable in warmer weather as is drinking copious amounts of lager. Oh and I have not been to the Gunmakers in over a month - it's a sad state of affairs (actually I might sneak out for a quick one this afternoon).

My fridge has played host to numerous bottles of Anchor Steam, SNPA and Punk IPA over the last couple of weeks and I spent £93 in Tesco sourcing a trolley full of these bottles. Basically I have been too lazy to stroll down to the pub for a pint and have been opting to drink in the flat with the Missus. Some CAMRA retards might think this is antisocial, but I think it shows common sense in these tough economic times, plus there is no barman to ever cut me off if I have one too many!

Last week I said I would have some kind of news announcement, well basically I don't have anything worth indulging yet - but fingers crossed I will have something soon. Also worth noting is that I placed an order with an asshole who runs a store called beerclearstore.co.uk. This fool refused to process my order due to some issue he has with PayPal and he was claiming he couldn't get the money I paid him. What a tool! Basically I ordered a few things through his website, chose to use his online checkout (which is with PayPal) and the order went smoothly. He gives me a call saying that he has received my order and it will be with me in 3-4 days. A week later and I haven't received anything so I give him a call;

"Oh, I am having some problems getting the money from PayPal. I'll look into it and call you back." I'm thinking fair enough - but he doesn't call me back. I call again and this tool is still claiming that PayPal are withholding funds. I tell him that his relationship with PayPal has nothing to do with me and to hurry up and process my order. He refuses to process my order - I've promoted this bloke from tool to twat at this stage. I then ring up PayPal and they indirectly tell me that this bloke twat can't access his funds because he has been stooging other customers. So I email the twat and ask for a refund which he claims that he can't provide. I then send him some emails telling him he has no idea about how to run a business and deal with customers etc. I received the expected email back saying that he not going to correspond with me any further. I then lodge a dispute with PayPal which is automatically escalated to a claim and I have my money refunded in a record 11 minutes! Basically PayPal asked this guy to respond to my complaint and he said that he can't do anything as PayPal have my money not him. Whatever.... But the moral of the story is DO NOT buy any thing from beerclearstore.co.uk as it's not worth the effort and you are not going to get the level of customer service which every consumer deserves. I should have picked up on this as he used two different surnames during the process of me trying to sort this stuff out. Anyhow I have reordered my items with another online vendor and should have them early next week. I will describe my purchases in an upcoming post, the items will almost certainly piss some people off. Let the good times roll.......

Oracle of the week

A few people have blogged about the public forums that CAMRA have added to their website. I don't have the time to read many blogs or forums these days, but I did take a cursory glance over some of the posts to see what the fuss is about. I can see what the problem is straight away. There is one forum thread which features The Beer Nut discussing why CAMRA place such importance on the provenance of carbon dioxide. The whole thread is full of ignorance and the usual CAMRA brainwashing drivel, but one pearl of wisdom from a chap called Richard English really does need to be highlighted!
As a bit of background, Richard English is a CAMRA life member and seems to have an opinion on every issue raised on the forum. Basically he comes across as a self appointed spokesperson for CAMRA. Why then did he say, and I quote;
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"carbon dioxide generated naturally in the cask or bottle is physically different from that introduced from a cylinder"
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As carbon dioxide is a compound and as such has constant physical properties regardless of origin, he has clearly been misinformed during his CAMRA brainwashing 101 class. For this reason as well as being a self appointed know all, "The Beer Diary" is pleased to announce Richard English as Oracle of the week. Congratulations!