Visiting Oxford

Oxford

Paddington Station after 7.00am is a luxury. Mind clear of sleep and caffeine, eyes alert, feet no longer bounding on auto-pilot, dashing for the three minute coffee and the slam of the closing train door. Flashes of the past through the window cause a shudder, but it's a calmer journey, sat still and patient, rooted to the seat, with no change at Reading.

Visiting Oxford is like staring through a series of mirrors. Everything is familiar, yet twisted to a different angle. Sights bring memories and signs point in redundant directions home. Reality hangs out-of-reach only by inches, blocked by the floating bubble of perspex.

Change is slow in a city almost older than time. An old shoe hugs a familiar foot closely. Edamame, that hidden gem of a Japanese broom cupboard, still maintains opening hours determined by the mule and his spinning wheel. Healthy, nourishing seaweed, pickles, and beans counter the brain-addling qualities of near-frozen beer. Pork, breaded and soaked in a curried sauce, sweet with rice and soup. £15 is daylight robbery, with the customer holding the gun.

Yawning, belly-slapping, and belching from a duck and a pint under the Autumn-stained eaves of The Turf Tavern. Caffeine, hooked to the vein, drip-fed through the tangle of tourist and student chain-gangs marching the flagstone floor of King Edward. Cake, the other ubiquity of Oxford follows closely behind.

It's getting close to that time. The anxiety, the day of work, the week of work, the life of work, the tired mind draws to alcohol like a buffalo to a watering-hole. Etiquette and education left at the door, four wooden chairs, three lumps of cold coal, two imported lagers, and one pie, with chips and salad, carrying as many flavours as memories.

One last walk along the wall, one last peer through the iron gates, one last cigarette (she claims). Raoul's is a hot as it ever was. Drinkers drip off every wall, staring in awe at the dancing flames behind the bar. A drink from memory taken from the menu, placed back in the glass for one last time. Feet shuffle home, the chattering teeth warmed by the blanket.

Ghosts rise early. Scrubbed, cleaned, and out into the fog, back behind the glass sipping coffee, back behind the glass watching a world chased by winter. An hour and we are home. Drinks steady, not spilt. Heads clean, not dirty. Bananas peeled, not uneaten. Here's to the next trip, whenever that may be.

Kronenbourg 1664 - Pairing Food with Beer

Everywhere

It's a strange life when you regularly receive emails offering free beer. Usually, it's some unknown brand of Eastern European lager, brewed for seven centuries by left-handed Slovakian Kings. This week, however, it was Kronenbourg. A French big label beer, probably brewing up millions of litres a year, and definitely employing Eric Cantona to tell all about the quality of their hops. Now they want me to say a thing or two about them. I can't blame them really: if Eric isn't working, I'm an obvious second choice.

The angle here isn't some imagined world where Gaelic farmers drive Ferraris and are worshipped for their craft. Rather, it's the serious business of what to eat while drinking beer. So, instead of the usual bag of Mr Porky's, a borrowed dining table - that looks far more rustic than my landlord's - found itself modelling a couple of cold beers, a handful of Alsatian sausage, and a cheese that smells so French it brings tears to your eyes. Sadly, not a pie in sight.

The cheese, a Petit Munster, left a lingering smell on every surface in touched, including my fingers. Not dissimilar to a certain brand of cheesy crisps - "this cheese taste like Wotsits!" - the taste is far lighter than the orange dusted rind would have you believe, yet still manages to bring through a dose of the lingering flavour. The sausage is that German stereotype frankfurter, far better than Ye Olde Oak, though I'm still not a fan of a boiled sausage. I suppose I could have grilled it, but I was following orders.

What about the beer?! I can hear everyone (hi Mum!) shout. It was a Kronenbourg. Plain and simple. Cold, plain, and simple. Standard, cold, plain, and simple. It was a Kronenbourg. Did the food enhance it? Well, it gave me something else to taste and something else to think about, so it was a worthy accompaniment; not one that's likely to kick a bag of Scampi Fries into touch, mind you. I had fun though and that's the main thing, I suppose. To the overture of Eastenders I arranged the plate, took some nice photos, and sipped and nibbled. It's not a trip to France, but the musty cheese definitely took me part-way there.

Henley Royal Regatta - Henley

Henley

'The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness'

Once a year, wardrobes across the South East of England begin to rattle. Inside, trousers of every colour of the spectrum and every blend in-between begin to twitch, itch, uncoil themselves from hangers, kick in their cell door, kidnap their owners, and drag them screaming to the Henley Royal Regatta. Here, on the banks of the Thames, birds of a feather flock together around jugs of Pimm's, bottles of bubbly, z-list celebrities of the finest vintage, and pram loads of cigars. Meanwhile, the river is full of boys and men furiously dragging oars through the water in the hope of attracting some attention from the gathered throng. They fail almost every time; their endeavours rewarded only by the occasional glint of school colours in a bleary eye, a head raised upon heavy jowls, and a thundering rutting call of acknowledgement from an Old Wet towards the water.

We were attending Henley under false names as part of an anthropological study into the world of upper-class creatures. A study to be published later in the year in an academic journal of the highest standing. Actually, we were there as guests at the Chinawhites' tent, courtesy of those good folks at Krušovice - the beer of Czechoslovakian Kings - but entering this weird and wonderful world of a different kind to ours meant we had to build an alternative pretence for attending in our own minds.

If Henley is the distillation of upper-class England, Chinawhites is a further distillation of this group - almost triple filtered. A mating ground for the rich and buck-toothed, looking to reinforce their age-old genetic in-diversity by finding someone so suited to them it could almost be their own reflection. Drinks that can be found in Tesco for less than a twenty pound note, plus change, were bought for ten times their value in a conspicuous flaunting of male plumage; while ladies lathered in expensive chemicals and powders, skimped and tittered around the tent, fleeing the daylight should their faces turn to dust in it's rays. 

Pith helmets, notebooks, binoculars, rifles, and our Addison Lee sherpa at the ready, we dived into the centre of this inferno, snacking on some delicious lamb kebabs and attempting to look less like the utter middle-class thumbs that we are. The girls on the desk doubted our credentials and were more than reluctant to hand over the wrist-bands that gave us unfettered access to this white picket-lined zoo cage.

After an hour or two of sipping free beer, chewing the fried cud, and attempting to take a few candid shots of the local wildlife, we headed further along the Thames to see more of the kaleidoscope of colours. While the clientele further upstream didn't vary in any way from their downstream cousins, the festivities were slightly more relaxed, with a couple of decent ales from Rebellion Brewery and Meantime on sale for yet more extortionate prices, and plenty of food to sink our teeth into. On every inch of the bank, row-after-row of spectators sat perched like swallows waiting to migrate. Straw boaters, ball gowns, brogues, and the ubiquitous chino lined the route. The calls to the river grew in volume as the sun passed through the sky - the cause alcohol, rather than a love for their fifteen thousand a term institutions - two Spitfires flew overhead, and as the sun began to set we retreated to the tent in a futile attempt to relive our Ibiza days (of a fortnight ago). 

Just as that party was really entering it's swing - the boats long since packed away - our research complete, and Krušovice deprived of a case or two of their finest, we called our sherpa and headed home. Tired and slightly drunk, we were most definitely overdressed for buying two pieces of chicken, chips, and a chocolate milkshake from a kebab shop in SW4, yet equally felt happier this close to the gutter than we had in the enclosure of another class.

Oktoberfest - Millwall Park

Millwall Park, London, E14 3AY

Oktoberfest is a model of German efficiency. In Theresienwiese the streets are emptied, the sign-posts clear, the Metro policed, all in an effort to make the punters flow to the beer and the beer flow in to the punters. Inside the Hippodrom, the brown-shirted security parade to the sound of the Bavarian band, dirndl-clad women dance a procession of maß between the tables, and even the toilets are subjected to a fully marshalled one-way system. Vorsprung durch Technik!

As with any celebration of drink, Oktoberfest was destined for export and now every September large tents filled to bursting with aggressive Australians and vomiting Americans can be found across the globe. That said, a visit to London's Oktoberfest in Millwall Park on a Thursday night was a relatively sedate affair. Not a fist-throwing Antipodean insight. Nor many people of any nationality for that matter, fist-throwing or not. Perhaps it was the location - two stops shy of Greenwich on the DLR - perhaps because it was a week night, perhaps a lack of interest or a lack of marketing. Regardless of the reason, there were yards and yards (and yards) of clean, polished trestle collecting dust under the roof of the giant marquee.

The lack of interest did nothing to dull the noise and as the beer flowed and some tables began to fill, the atmosphere definitely improved. Full, this would be the real thing. Tall beers, girls in costume, overly loud German drinking music blasting from a live band, and those crazed looking old people who dance to every song. It's a shame the beer was served in plastic steins.  

Sitting at the front of the tent, behind the velvet rope of the VIP (thanks to those good folks at Pitman's People*), I had no idea whether the experience of the hoi polloi was a good one. Those dancing in the mud seemed to be having a good time and ours wasn't bad either. Granted, the beer left a lot to be desired; but then you don't visit Oktoberfest for the beer, more the effect it has on you. The food though was remarkably good. Classic German fare of frankfurter, boiled sausage, schnitzel, pretzel, chips, and cold potato and chilli. Enough carbohydrate to absorb the alcohol and enough salt to make you thirsty for more.

Oktoberfest has now left London. If you can't make it to Munich next year, stay in London for a small taste of what you're missing.

*Disclaimer: I was invited to attend Oktoberfest by Pitman's People. They paid for the food, the beer, and sat with me to make sure I had a good time.