h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Was a student at the Glorious University of Glasgow. Now I work in fun Farnborough. Well I say work i the loosest sense. Apparently I might have to do something tomorrow?

What sort of 'incidental quasi-employment' (I've come across your sort before, me laddie-oh...) might this be?

It's amazing what you can do with a few strange words and a bit of imagination (and alcoholic stimulus...), isn't it?

Necro.

I work for a well known and international firm, who probably wouldn't wan tpeople knowing their employees are dossing around. It's due to being a graduate employee, and things being slow after the Y2K thingy. I actually have a project now, just th server connection is slow as a very slow thing.

You'll be glad to know that the initial warm, rosy glow of, "I've got a project" has now become, "I'm filing someones email!!!" Nice to see they hire graduates because of their ability to perform complex tasks

It's the same the world over, it does get better. Till you decide you can't be bothered any more and go and find something better to do.

I can't be bothered now. I am comforted by the thought that this job lets me go to London this weekend to get hammered. But then if I didn't have a job then I would still be in Glasgow where the beer is cheaper, the people are funnier and the rain is heavier.

Ah just got in from a night out at a gig (for a quick review see the home page). London does have it's advantages like that, there is always something going on somewhere catering for all tastes, if you want to go out that is. As you say it can be expensive though.

I thought where I lived was expensive for beer. You can pay on average £2.10 a pint here in Ipswich. That's compared to the £2.00 where I was in Peterborough. Then I went down to London last year for the h2g2 get together. £2.40 - £2.50 a pint. Not cheap

Quickley going back to the XXXX and 6X thingy, in the olden days of brewing the X marks on a barrel were a denotion of the strength of the beer inside, and thus how much tax was paid on it. Very week beer was XX, beers around 3-3.7% were XX, up to around 4.5% was XXX and from 4.5% to about 6% were XXXX. 6X was purely given to barely wines. Nowadays it's just used as a marketing gimic.

Indeed the beers aren't cheap generally in London.
There are a few places which you can get good beer cheapish, generally the various Weatherspoon pubs. If you can stand going to those places as some people don't like them.

Where are some good places to drink in Ipswich. I ask 'cos a friend of mine moved there recently.

Another point to the xxxx, 6x etc thing is the scotish 70/-, 80/- and 90/- (that'll be shillings that will) which are so called because that was the duty on a barrel of beer of that strength apparently (so say all the books and things I've read about it).

The best places to drink in Ipswich are The Fat Cat, slightly out of the town centre, cheapish at £1.80 - £2.00 a pint and specialising in Real Ale and The Milestone, formerly the Mullberry Tree, right in the town centre, live music most nights and lots of good beer, bit more expensive though at £1.90 - £2.10 a pint.

The Fat Cat's are quite good. I remember going into one of the first ones at uni. Good beers and quite good food as well.

I pay AUD $2.70 for a schooner (15oz) which would be about half that in english pounds. Feel free to drop in if you're passing by. If you are really desperate you can check out my article on Pubs in Newtown so you know where to head for........

Most of the pubs here are independantly owned except for a heap of mock irish ones that seem to be chain owned.

Depending on where you went to Uni, you probably went to a Fat Cat Cafe Bar. They are in themselves quite good. The one I was referring to here to is a freehouse, you even see the owner working behind the bar!
I do have a quibble with the Fat Cat Cafe Bars though, as good as they tend to be, a few years ago the owner of them sent a letter out to all the other pubs called Fat Cat, telling them that he was taking legal action and they could no longer trade under that name.
He got a few responses telling him to go pi** up a lamp-post. He didn't take it any further
But they are one of the better of the pub chains

As for fake Irish bars? Why do they do that?? I've drunk myself daft in a far few pubs owned by Irishmen, they don't feel the need to plaster words like "craic" on the walls, and if you asked them to draw a shamrock in the froth on your Guinness they'd throw you out. But those pubs had a genuine good atmosphere, not one pumped in though the marketing pipeline.
*end rant here*

It seems to be the big trend in pubs in Sydney at the moment. Put guinness on tap, smother the place in old guinness posters and other Irish parephanalia and call yourselves Molly Mallones or kitty o'sheas.

They probably even have very bad imitations of 'typical' irish bands playing By the factory wall, Whiskey in the jar etc for good measure.

No doubt the result of market research or niche marketing or some other bullshit idea.

BTW nothing wrong with a good rant

It'll probably be because the huge trend over here is dying off, at last, and a lot of the fake Irish pubs are closing down and becoming something else. So they're probably looking for something to do with all the tat

Perhaps they should start a trend in tacky Scots Pubs. My dad would finally make his fortune selling tartan tat.
That said, liking diddly-diddly music as I do, I quite enjoy tacky Irish pubs as a quick way to find some folk (music). Of course, if I could find a real pub, I could probably find some real folk.

So then you don't go out drinking with real folk then Munchkin, only
fake ones

Theers nowt so queer as folk...

(couldn't resist that one)

I thought they were a bit two-dimensional, and none of them bought me a drink! Well they can't join my club!


Ay, there's nowt as queer as non-Euclidean geometry.

A lot if you're a barman.I was simply interested, that's all.

Are you a Mathematics graduate by any chance, Munchkin?

Theer's nowt as queer as Peter Mandleson. Or is it Mendelssohn? I can never remember...

Physics. I can't do Maths for toffee. I did read a lot of Cthulhu stuff when I was younger, which is where I get words like Euclidean from.


There's nowt as queer as porridge on your sausages.