A selection of articles I’ve written for other publications.
“The only people who drink in this bar are sailors, drug dealers and whores. Shall we go in?” Two hours after nodding mutely in reply to the cargo ship’s captain, eating cake at a Brazilian prostitute’s birthday party while my seafaring companion told the gathered ladies how I’d slept through my watch the night I
Find out moreMost people would call it crazy, but the crazies call it ‘living archeology’: if material remains of our past no longer exist, we have to recreate past times as best we can in order to figure out the truth of how people lived back then. It drives some to live as bronze-age villagers, others to
Find out moreA visit to Burton-on-Trent can still yield delights for the discerning beer drinker. These beers may not fit the American idea of what an IPA should be, but they are all heirs to the tradition and have much to recommend them.
Find out moreAsk your typical British beer drinker what Burton-on-Trent is famous for, and you might not get the answer you were expecting. They’ll probably frown, think for a second, then say, “Oh yeah, the FA Cup upset last year!”
Find out moreLet’s call him Dave (that was, after all, his name). Years ago, when my friends and I were on the cusp of legal drinking age, we’d go to the pub every Friday and Saturday night, simply because we could. Standing there self-consciously holding our pints, trying to grow wispy moustaches, we were a bunch of
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