{"id":5957,"date":"2013-09-30T23:30:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T10:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=5957"},"modified":"2013-10-01T01:39:10","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T12:39:10","slug":"sunday-reading-130929","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/09\/30\/sunday-reading-130929\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthday Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6029\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6029\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[5957]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"6029\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/09\/30\/sunday-reading-130929\/little-creatures-ipa\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1200,884\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Little Creatures IPA, and its older Pale Ale sibling (Emma&amp;#8217;s house, 23 September 2013)\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Little Creatures IPA, and its older Pale Ale sibling&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA-300x221.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA-1024x754.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6029\" alt=\"Little Creatures IPA, and its older Pale Ale sibling\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA-300x221.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA-300x221.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA-1024x754.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little-Creatures-IPA.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6029\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Little Creatures IPA, and its older Pale Ale sibling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>My recent little trip to Sydney was a marvellously-restoring one, but also did a fine job of further-breaking my already-fragile relationship with the &#8220;working week&#8221; as traditionally understood, in the process dealing another knock to my ongoing efforts to habituate myself into my <a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/tag\/sunday-reading\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sunday Reading<\/a> project.\u00a0The holiday also coincidentally contained <a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/09\/23\/station-ident-changeover\/\" target=\"_blank\">a changing of the\u00a0<em>Beer Diary<\/em> guard<\/a>, with the second notebook filling up and finally giving way to its waiting successor \u2014 the first entry for which was the rather-suitable and rather-lovely new Little Creatures IPA pictured <em>right there<\/em>. Given that this site was originally born in the transition from\u00a0<em>Diary I<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0<em>Diary II<\/em>, I&#8217;ve prodded myself into a little housekeeping and tinkering since I got home: I&#8217;ve freshened up the &#8216;About&#8217; pages, properly enabled the email subscription system, and (probably most usefully) finally found and activated the mobile-friendly version for those of you reading on your cleverphones. If there&#8217;s anything else that needs adjusting, in ease-of-use terms and whatnot, let me know.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, in the course of said tinkering, I noticed that I&#8217;ve missed my own &#8216;birthday&#8217;, of sorts. The first post here \u2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/26\/hello-world\/\" target=\"_blank\">a surprisingly brief\u00a0<em>Hello world<\/em><\/a>\u00a0referencing a peculiar and now-abandoned post-dating scheme \u2014 was on 26 September 2010, so apparently I&#8217;ve been at this for three years. Lawks. Given the superawesomeness of the weekend&#8217;s shinding, and <a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/08\/25\/sunday-reading-130825\/\" target=\"_blank\">the zine which helped kick off my still-limping-along Reading &#8216;tradition&#8217;<\/a>, I should have more to say on the subject of beery birthdays soon, but for now there&#8217;s all this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2013\/sep\/15\/social-media-icon-interrobang\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>An ode to the interrobang<\/strong><\/a>. I was pleased to see my beloved little punctuation mark get a bit of press recently. It&#8217;s been my little icon here, on the Twitters, and elsewhere from the start, and is definitely worth knowing. That it was born in the Mad Men-esque Golden Age of Madison Avenue is all the more appropriate, given how often\u00a0<em>what the fuck\u203d<\/em>-esque outbursts are <a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/10\/13\/the-moa-ipo\/\" target=\"_blank\">occasioned by the sad Don Draper wannabes at Moa<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thisiswhyimdrunk.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/15\/how-and-where-we-search-for-beer-the-complete-series\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Graphing the rise of &#8220;craft beer&#8221;<\/strong><\/a>; literally, as a <em>phrase<\/em>. I&#8217;m always interested in the evolution of language in a given field, and even though it&#8217;s North-American-centric, it&#8217;s a great little initial exploration of the increased traceability of words in the modern, heavily-gadgeted age. Martyn Cornell first blew my mind with the idea that &#8220;beer style&#8221; \u2014 as a notion, a phrase, as the go-to way for organising the industry \u2014 is younger than I am, and <a href=\"http:\/\/zythophile.wordpress.com\/2010\/10\/23\/michael-jackson-and-the-invention-of-beer-style\/\" target=\"_blank\">entirely the invention of one man<\/a>. (One <em>legendary<\/em> chap, but still.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/zythophile.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/19\/why-is-camra-still-getting-beer-history-so-very-badly-wrong\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The perpetuation of nonsense<\/strong><\/a>, despite the existence of myth-busting history (speaking, again, of Martyn Cornell). It&#8217;s sad to see that the rapidly-revising &#8220;new history&#8221; of beer isn&#8217;t being more-readily assimilated. I guess there&#8217;s always a lot of inertia to push against: taxonomy is hard, history is hard, and language is always evolving \u2014 see especially, there, the confusion that results if you don&#8217;t know that &#8220;stale&#8221; didn&#8217;t always carry negative connotations.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/petebrown.blogspot.co.uk\/2013\/09\/the-cask-report-shows-how-cask-ale.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Cask Report<\/strong><\/a>, which also necessitates\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/zythophile.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/26\/a-few-fascinating-cherries-from-the-2014-cask-report\/\" target=\"_blank\">a third link in a row to Martyn Cornell<\/a>. It&#8217;s almost all good news in there, but the insight into the tension between publicans and drinkers when it comes to just how frequently a beer lineup would ideally change is worth some further pondering; sometimes I do wonder if switching products\u00a0<em>every<\/em>\u00a0keg turnover really is desirable&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.etsy.com\/nz\/shop\/PretentiousBeerGlass\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Pretentious Beer Glasses<\/strong><\/a>, for if you need to one-up your friends and colleagues who are busy fawning over that trendy Spiegelau IPA\u00a0<em>thing<\/em>. George sent me a link to the P.B.G.C. hoping for a rant, but I think they&#8217;re <em>awesome<\/em>; sufficiently self-aware, genuinely clever, and apparently well-made.\u00a0(As for the Spiegelaus, I finally caved and got a pair for myself and am slowly coming to the conclusion that they are\u00a0<em>both<\/em> pretty cool and pretty silly, much like Tuatara&#8217;s new reptilian bottle.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/hardknott.blogspot.com.au\/2013\/09\/a-philosophical-view-of-craft-beer.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>A pondering on intent and &#8220;craft&#8221;<\/strong><\/a>, which \u2014 with &#8220;philosophy&#8221; and &#8220;craft beer&#8221; right there in the title \u2014 seems to be right in my wheelhouse; I&#8217;ll have to track down the article itself. I suspect that\u00a0<em>something<\/em> like this is the only hope for a &#8220;definition&#8221;, though it&#8217;s always an open question whether we need or want one of\u00a0<em>those<\/em>, anyway. (But you can forever rely on philosophers to try and build you a good one, just in case.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebeerdiaries.tv\/beer-diaries-colorado-premier-alamo-drafthouse-denver\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Meanwhile, on the\u00a0<em>other<\/em> Beer<\/strong> <strong>Diary<\/strong><\/a>, they&#8217;re gearing up for Season 2. Greg Zeschuk used to make videogames \u2014 that have accounted for hundreds of very enjoyable hours of my life \u2014 and now he makes very well-produced Beer TV; a thing we need more of, please. <a href=\"http:\/\/thebeerdiary.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/29\/the-trouble-with-cantillon\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>And on the <em>other<\/em>-other Beer Diary<\/strong><\/a>, Chris Hall wrote a love letter to the Cantillion brewery, as much as it visibly pained him to give anything unvarnished praise. Both Diarists are obviously kindred spirits of mine.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/radionational\/programs\/futuretense\/cheer-me-up-scotty\/4960878\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>And finally, an irrelevancy<\/strong><\/a>, since a birthday is as good a time as any to remind yourself to think positively about the future, and since you should <em>always<\/em> pay attention to whatever Neal Stephenson is pondering at a given moment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My recent little trip to Sydney was a marvellously-restoring one, but also did a fine job of further-breaking my already-fragile relationship with the &#8220;working week&#8221; as traditionally understood, in the process dealing another knock to my ongoing efforts to habituate myself into my Sunday Reading project.\u00a0The holiday also coincidentally contained a changing of the\u00a0Beer Diary &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/09\/30\/sunday-reading-130929\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Birthday Reading<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-5957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-finds","tag-sunday-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7353,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2014\/08\/09\/weekend-re-reading-beer-for-a-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":5957,"position":0},"title":"Weekend (re-)Reading: Beer For A Year","author":"Phil","date":"August 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been meaning to re-read Alice Galletly's marvellous 'Beer For A Year' for ages. Despite best intentions, my own output is still at a low ebb \u2014 you should see the brimming Drafts folder I have on here1 \u2014 which often prompts me to go back through things I've enjoyed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mediawatch&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Beer For A Year masthead","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-For-A-Year-masthead-300x159.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5895,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/09\/15\/sunday-reading-130915\/","url_meta":{"origin":5957,"position":1},"title":"Sunday Reading","author":"Phil","date":"September 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a vaguely productive but incredibly restoring weekend, here. I've been going through the dimmer recesses of my fridge and finally pulling out things like Brewaucracy's 'In Triplicate' \u2014 pictured, at right, not too long ago and still going as I write this \u2014and belatedly realised that last weekend was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mediawatch&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Brewaucracy 'In Triplicate'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Brewaucracy-In-Triplicate-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6950,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2014\/02\/02\/sunday-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":5957,"position":2},"title":"Sunday Reading","author":"Phil","date":"February 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"They treated the rest of that day as though it was a Sunday, that is to say what you should expect of a Sunday. You need time for big and complicated new concepts to shake themselves down in your brain slowly, without damaging what is already there. \u2014 Terry Pratchett\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mediawatch&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Pretty Things 'Jack d'Or' (My house, 15 December 2013)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Pretty-Things-Jack-d-Or-240x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5873,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/09\/02\/sunday-reading-130901\/","url_meta":{"origin":5957,"position":3},"title":"&#8216;Sunday&#8217; Reading","author":"Phil","date":"September 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Attempt to start a new weekly tradition, miss your self-imposed deadline for just its second incarnation. That does sound a lot like a 'me' thing to do. But in my defence, it was my birthday. Well, my birthday\u00a0weekend \u2014 I took liberties with the calendar when the realities of work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mediawatch&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Moon Dog 'Black Lung III'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moon-Dog-Black-Lung-III-300x167.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5849,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/08\/25\/sunday-reading-130825\/","url_meta":{"origin":5957,"position":4},"title":"Sunday Reading","author":"Phil","date":"August 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A day of rest sounds like a fine idea, as the peak of the local beer-business-craziness begins at last to recede \u2014 and even though my Sunday has been relatively productive so far, it's certainly been restfully so. My general timetable still hasn't settled down so much that I'm getting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mediawatch&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Yeastie Boys' Big Mouth Zine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Yeastie-Boys-Big-Mouth-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7068,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2014\/02\/24\/sunday-reading-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5957,"position":5},"title":"Sunday Reading","author":"Phil","date":"February 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I'm\u00a0compiling them on Sunday, anyway.\u2020 Unless you live in a very-tardy timezone or wait a while, I guess you're not actually reading them on one. It's been a couple of rather overwhelming weeks here at\u00a0Beer Diary HQ; busy, distracting, exhausting and gradually restoring \u2014 all in ways both good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mediawatch&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Void Stares Also (Wellington harbour, 20 February 2014)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5957"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6040,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions\/6040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}