Watering Down The Beer?

Voting closes today for the Peoples 50 Million Lottery. As a cyclist I've been supporting Sustrans Connect2 bid, the project to reconnect communities severed by major roads, railways, and rivers by building bridges, tunnels, and extending paths. A worthy project because it is so difficult these days to cross major roads without risking being run down, or making huge detours. If it wins, 79 locations across the UK will benefit.

Of course the problems that Sustrans wants to fix have all been created by national and local governments. So it really should be their responsibility to put right these wrongs that they and their planners created in the first place. In any case the benefits to health, transport, and local people would be huge. So our Government should have looked at this silly lottery competition and been so embarrassed by it that they should have promptly apologised and coughed up the £50M that Sustrans want, although in reality they probably need much more than this. The whole contest could then have been called off because the other three worthy (but not as worthy) causes do not need anything like as much money and they could all have achieved their main aims by splitting the prize between them.



John Carroll gym has been burgled but thankfully they have left the important stuff and just taken the TVs. Working out suddenly got even better.

L sets me a challenge to get hold of some cranky music by a Filipino singer called Cynthia Alexander. Blimey. Talk about a challenge and I really hate to admit that it's a challenge that I failed. She doesn’t even appear to have a UK record label, not that I can track down anyway. I won’t sleep tonight now.

Get home and Daughter is making the Christmas puddings, together with a lot of mess but it's not as bad as usual, she slipping. All the same, Doggo and I escape and go over to class in Derby. L is also out in Derby running, eating, and drinking.

When I pick L up afterwards, she tells me that Nottingham's least favourite brewer Greene King have resurrected Hardy's And Hanson's Rocking Rudolph but it appears that, as is their way, they may have watered it down to 4.5%. I'll have to check this out for myself before I 'go off on one', so watch this space, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. They're already destroyed Ruddles County and Old Speckled Hen by watering them down to a much lower stretch, essentially removing what made them great beers.

Still time at home for an episode of Bleak House.