The Ghost of Xmas TV Past

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

So said St Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the best lines in the Bible – right up there with 2 Kings 2: 23-24 (the bit about bears eating 42 youths who took the piss out of slaphead prophet Elisha).

"Go on baldy - AHHHH"

Christmas is a time (isn’t it?) when childish things have a tendency to come back out, no matter how carefully we have put them away.

We imagine (don’t we?) that because we remember things a certain way, that this is how they in fact should be – whether they were or were not actually ever so. And when things do not live up to those imaginary expectations, we are disappointed. The secretly-nurtured belief we all hold quietly in our hearts – that the present will never live up to the past - becomes ever so slightly harder.

Crikey. Two Bible references and a load of pop-psychology waffle and we’re only four paragraphs in. Might as well be in church, eh readers?

My point (aren’t we?) is that while nostalgia can be fun and comforting, when it starts to makes you resentful, you have to let it go.

That’s why it’s time to stop pretending that Christmas TV is some great collective experience, something makes the nation collectively pause to huddle together around a Radio Times.

Oh yes. This is about what’s on TV at Christmas.

If you want profundity, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Films

BBC1 gave us Toy Story 3 in the 3pm Christmas Day slot. I remember being so excited I could barely contain myself some year in the 1980s when it was Dumbo in that spot, or when it was The Empire Strikes Back.

My kids got Toy Story 3 on DVD LAST CHRISTMAS. They watch it IN THE CAR.

Network television – you cannot compete with the availability of films through other media. So don’t bother. If it’s nostalgia that makes you broadcast “family classics” at set times over the period, in my humble opinion that is BAD NOSTALGIA.

Classic Christmas Specials

What is this supposed to mean to me?

 I have and do enjoy a “classic” Christmas special. When I have been trapped indoors drinking all day and have finally got the kids to go to sleep, I can certainly see the appeal of watching a festive Morecambe and Wise Show or Only Fools and Horses.

But that’s not because it is actually any good. It’s because it’s comfortable and familiar, like an old pair of jogging bottoms. I can smile along without having to think at all, because I’ve seen them all a hundred times before.

It’s not that these programmes actually entertain. Instead they evoke the memory of having been entertained. Which may very well be a completely false memory.

Morecambe and Wise – for example – did their last Christmas special in 1983. I was 7 years old then. What did they mean to me then? Why should they mean anything more to me 30 years later?

Nothing, other than that over the years, culture has implanted the idea in my head that Eric and Ernie are an integral part of the Christmas experience.

Operation Yewtree, by the way, looks rather more likely to eradicate a lot of this kind of ‘70s and ‘80s nostalgia much quicker than any kind of critical reassessment of what our “traditions” mean to us will. 

Because you can’t have Christmas Top of the Pops without a memory of Jimmy Saville bedecked in tinsel, can you?

I notice that Rolf Harris has been swiftly replaced as the narrator of Olive the Ostrich. Innocent until proven guilty, eh Nick Jr?

Modern Christmas Specials

It doesn’t snow at Christmas in this country.

People do not buy the biggest Christmas tree they can find – with hilarious consequences.

Christmas jumpers are only worn ironically.

Why do programme-makers continue to perpetuate these myths about what Christmas is like and what people do at Christmas that are nothing but remnants of Victorian sentimentalism, 1970s bad taste and echoes of what they’ve seen in other Christmas episodes?

Oh Miranda...

How about someone tries to depict a 21st century Christmas that actually reflects people’s real experiences rather than a mid-century fever dream and hope against hope?

Or rather, don’t even bother. Because the TV may be the focal point of the living room – but unless it’s plugged into the Blu Ray Player, the Xbox and the internet – it is just not the focal point of family life any more. 

Drinking 40 Pints of Woodforde’s Wherry from a Youngs Kit

The wait is finally over. It’s beer o’clock. Or is it?

Step 8 – The Second Wait

Once in the keg, the beer needs to be put somewhere warm for 24 hours to get the secondary fermentation (caused by the sugar) going. After that it’s supposed to be put somewhere colder to settle.

The Sicilies, however, were going on holiday – as I mentioned in the previous installment – so I stuck the keg in the cupboard under the stairs, reckoning this would be both warm AND cool.

The second wait wasn’t so bad, as we went to the North Yorkshire Moors for a week. And a jolly good time we had.

Step 9 – Preliminary Testing

 The instructions stipulated leaving the beer for anywhere between 5 and 14 days, until it was clear. I gave it eight before I tapped off a little bit (pictured) and drank it.

Well, it looked like beer. It smelled like beer.

As regards taste, it’s a little harder to say. I’m not entirely sure what Woodforde’s Wherry is supposed to taste like – bar the gibberish cited on their website quoted earlier.

I found it quite watery, but then (i) I did seemingly use a gallon or so more water than I was supposed to and (ii) Wherry is only a 3% beer, and I tend to drink stronger stuff.

It was certainly bitter, with a metallic, iron taste to it. Perhaps that’s the “delicious citrus aftertaste”...?

To conclude, I’ve tasted worse beer.

Step 10 – The Acid Test

Of course, testing the flavour is only part of the story. I did not intend to drink this in 50ml samples.

That evening, I drank three pints or so of it.

Did I feel drunk? No. But then I wouldn’t really expect to have. More research with greater quantities is required to ascertain the real strength of the beer.

Did I go blind or get a blinding hangover? No. Which would suggest that the process went according to plan without significant contamination.

Did I get that hallmark of homebrew - a raging bout of the shits? No!

I call that a rip-roaring success.

Conclusions

I have two more tins of Wherry to make up once I’ve polished this lot off – plus a gallon of primarily fermented stuff sitting around still (I suppose) fermenting further.

Here’s what I’ll do differently next time:

• Measure the water out properly. I think (i) I used too much water and (ii) it was too hot to begin with, which could have killed off some of my yeast, leading to weakness.
• Be a little more scientific about temperatures. I reckon that I slowed the whole thing down by keeping it too cold for the primary fermentation.
• Sterilise everything before putting it into the wort. Just laziness I’m afraid.

Cheers!

Making 40 Pints of Woodforde’s Wherry with a Youngs Kit – Part 3

Food and drink. Shelter and warmth. Sex. Intoxication. Since the dawn of time, these have been the first things that human beings have sought. Not necessarily in that order.

So my home brewing saga is a retelling of an ancient tale; the latest iteration burped out by the collective unconscious.

We left my five gallons of wort fermenting away happily in the garage. I waited for seven days and seven nights. Then I resumed my endeavours.

Step 6 – The Hydrometer

Before you move to the next step, you have to make sure that primary fermentation is complete – that is, that the yeast has turned enough of the sugar to ethanol for the beer to be the right strength.

Remember – ethanol, good: makes you drunk. Methanol, bad: makes you go blind. You’ve got to have a system.

You do this:

• By seeing if the wort has stopped bubbling – ie stopped producing CO2.
• By testing the specific gravity of what you’ve got.

You do the former with your eyes – the latter with an instrument called a hydrometer. Filling a measuring

tube with beer-like substance, one drops the hydrometer in and the level it floats at tells you (basically) how much thicker than water it is.

I did this once and, well, I didn’t put enough beer in the tube as the hydrometer sank to the bottom. I took this as meaning it wasn’t boozy enough and I left it for another couple of days.

Then I did it again, and it looked to me as though we were at the desired 1.104 level.

Now, I was going on holiday the following day, so I may have resolved in my mind to move to the next stage ANYWAY, but the reading appeared to be in order.

Step 7 - To Keg-a Therion

It was at this point that I realised I should have siphoned the beer out for the hydrometer test, rather than just dunking my tube in it. My measuring tube, I mean. Again, I had imperilled the final product by the risk of contamination.

Regardless, I went on to sterilise (i) my keg, (ii) my siphon and (iii) the pressurised lid. Same process as before although the brass lid had to be done just in hot water rather than steriliser. So it wasn’t so much sterile as “hot”.

I also had cause to delve into Elvira’s mystery cupboards of cosmetics on the hunt for Vaseline. I had been instructed to “liberally grease the o-ring” lest a seal not form properly.

Come on now. This isn’t one of those blogs.

So, having liberally greased my o-ring – that is, the threads on both the brass top and the keg onto which the former screwed – I began to siphon.

You do this as follows:

• Put the keg on a surface lower down than the primary fermenting vessel, so that gravity is on your side.
• Stick one end of the siphon into the wort.
• Suck on the other end.
• Stop your futile sucking and open the tap on the siphon. Suck it again, until the beer reaches your mouth.
• Immediately take the mouth end of the siphon and stick it in the bottom of the keg.

I found this part rather magical. I don’t quite understand the physics behind it, but by that single suck, all the beer transferred itself gradually from one container to the other.

Did I say “all”? Well. In my case, I found myself with about a gallon left over in the PFV once the keg was full. Both were ostensibly five gallon/40 litre containers. I had filled the PFV to the very top, imagining THAT was five gallons, but clearly it wasn’t. Again Youngs, more detail required.

I left the remaining gallon in the PFV, not entirely sure what I was going to do with it. And there it remains.

OK, into the keg went about 100g of brewers sugar. This caused the contents to fizz up and spill over the floor, as the keg was extremely full. I screwed on the brass lid, greasy o-ring to greasy o-ring. And we were done for another week. 

Making 40 Pints of Woodforde’s Wherry with a Youngs Kit – Part 2

Step 5 - The Wait 

To be honest, this was the bit I was dreading more than any other. Waiting is boring. Whenever I have to wait for anything, I feel every second of my life slipping irretrievably away. I sense my chromosomal telomeres getting shorter and shorter. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

Four to six days until fermentation stops. I could get run over by a bus in that time. Funny how rogue buses play such an important role in not only reflections on one’s mortality but also corporate risk management modelling.

So, after putting the vessel into the garage I wait.

A couple of hours later, I go to check on it.

Hmmm... we’ve had some sort of a problem. The lid has been blasted off the airlock and I can smell pub carpet. I clean it up and put everything back.

Over the next 48 hours, this happens several times – on one occasion, propelling the lid of the airlock a good six feet away. Alas, I didn’t see it happen.

Eventually, I get things under control so that the airlock is bubbling away gently without spurting foam out.

Here comes the science bit. And by “science” I mean “what I think happened”.

What I think was happening was that my wort was too hot – meaning that it was fermenting very quickly, belching out big gouts of CO2. These were generating foam on the top of the wort. Instead of the gas escaping the airlock fairly smoothly, foam was building up under pressure until – BLEEERRRRP! – it overwhelmed the friction holding the top part of the airlock on and burst out.

The reason you need an airlock is to let the CO2 - a by-product of fermentation - out without letting air – a vector for microbes, flies, cat hair etc – in. If bad shit like that gets in, it can spoil your beer.

Anyway, by the end of waiting day 2, order had been restored.

A Short Digression While We Wait

What is Woodforde’s Wherry, you may well ask?

It is beer from Norfolk – whence my brother and sister-in-law come, which is why I am making it (it was they who got me the kit). I have drunk it before, but I can’t really remember what it was like.

Woodforde’s chief brewer says it is:

Fresh and zesty with crisp floral flavours. A background of sweet malt and a hoppy 'grapefruit' bitter finish characterises this champion bitter.

Their website says:

Light but full of flavour and with a delicious citrus aftertaste. Great with Norfolk Ham and Turkey or on its own.

To that, I say “hmmm...we’ll see.”

I should also add Woodforde’s home town of Woodbastick to my list of amusing English place names.

Making 40 Pints of Woodforde’s Wherry with a Youngs Kit – Part 1

I like beer. The worst thing about beer is having to pay for it. Therefore, home brew.

In a change to the usual schedule, I will be taking you through the process of making the eponymous 40 pints of Woodforde’s Wherry with a Youngs home brew kit, step by step.

You see, I am trying to make the internet a better place after all.

See here for the story of how this kit came into my sweaty little hands.

Here are the things we’ll be using today.

Step 1 – Sterilisation

This is something I know all about.

So you have to fill the 5 gallon container with hot water and a couple of teaspoons of the steriliser per gallon. 

 I put 10 teaspoons in. It foams up like a bubble bath and smells like swimming pool.

I did this in the bath, knowing that 5 gallons of hot water is quite heavy.

You leave it for 20 minutes. I put the lid and the airlock pieces in as well. I should really have put the spoon in, I realised an hour later...


 Step 2 – Meanwhile downstairs...

The beer mixture (or whatever it’s called) is in two big cans. You are supposed to stand these in hot water for 5 minutes.

At the same time, I boiled up the requisite 3.5 litres of water on the hob.

While this was going on, I went to the garage to fetch Roger Jr’s micro scooter in. Why? Aha.


I went back upstairs, rinsed the primary fermentation vessel (for that is what it is called) out – finding that the lid had bent a little bit in the hot water. It still went on just fine, so I didn’t worry about it.

Step 3 – The Wort

That’s a beer word, ladies and gentlemen. It means the foul stinking liquid that turns into beer

So I opens the tins. I mean, I open the tins. I am not Popeye.

I opens the tins – discovering that despite having every kitchen implement imaginable, we do not have a decent tin opener. I am forced to prise the lids off with a knife. Just a bit.

This is what beer cordial looks like.

I pours it...I pour it into the vessel. You know what I did then? I put the vessel onto the micro-scooter! That is the sort of foresight that lead our ancestors to make fire. I have justified my human status.

I knew full well that attempting to carry a bucket with 5 gallons of wort in it out to the garage – the only place Elvira will allow me to conduct chemistry experiments – would result in considerable sloppage unless I used the power of wheels.

.

So, in goes the 3.5 litres of boiling water, followed by another...erm...20 odd litres of cold water, as prescribed by the highly comprehensive instructions provided.

I stir it until foul sludge stops coming up on the spoon.

My toe is also visible

Now for the magic ingredient. Yeast.

In goes the yeast. Stir it in.

On goes the lid.

A little bit of water in the airlock, so that I can see bubbles of CO2 coming out as it ferments.

I feel obliged to point out that nowhere in the instructions provided is it explained what the hell you are supposed to do with the airlock. I had to look it up on the internet.

Airlock

Step 4 – In Transit

The scooter is a piece of genius. Out we go to the garage – the new fortress of solitude.

Up it goes onto a shelf and I wraps a coat around it to keep it warm. It needs to stay at around 18 to 20 degrees Celsius for 4 to 6 days.

Then I go in and do the washing up, like a good boy.

Conclusion

Well, it took me less than a hour and it all seems to be working – the brew had started to bubble when checked. My assessment:

• One side of instructions for something that you will almost certainly ruin if you don’t do it very carefully is not good enough Youngs.
• I forgot to sterilise the spoon.
• I used too much steriliser on the bucket and now I don’t have enough left to do the pressure barrel when it comes to part 2. I’ll have to go and buy some extra.

Overall: easy, although it may yet all prove to be a complete balls-up.