Amsterdam, like many EU countries, is banning smoking indoors.
Well not quite. You can still smoke marijuana or hash, but not tobacco. This is great news for people who want to hang out with their prostitute while tripping on magic mushrooms and smoking hash, but are worried about the health risk of second-hand smoke.
Amsterdam, you are truly a land of contradictions. Like a riddle wrapped in an enigma.
Xbox live has banned Richard Gaywood’s gamertag because he used his real name. When it was proven that Richard Gaywood was indeed his legal name, Microsoft still banned it.
This is certainly just one more insult to add to the undboubtedly long list that began in childhood. Poor Dick Gaywood. Victim of exceptionally cruel or clueless parents.
No word yet on the fate of Amanda Huggenkiss and Hugh Jass’ Xbox accounts.
I’m following all the action in San Francisco because I really want to get the new iPhone. I’m still waiting to hear about more carrier options, but this is what is announced so far.
Those last two are unconfirmed. Come on, Steve! Increased carrier support!
Sigh. Free speech is a topic near and dear my heart. I was raised in a rather… spirited home where discussions of politics are frequent—for good or ill. I attended journalism school for my degree where the First Amendment was an entire semester’s class and a frequent guest and contributor to discussions in every other class. Now that I work in advertising and blog in my spare time, I tend to exercise a lot of speech.
I’m an American even if I am an ex-pat. I don’t know all the rules and regulations of other countries, but I do firmly believe that free speech should be the basis of them. The founding fathers of America weren’t idiots. The First Amendment came first for a reason, and that is that it guarantees all that follows. I also believe that is why the 2nd Amendment concerns citizens arming themselves; the old colloquialism about the soap box before the ammo box seems appropriate.
Now none of that should be taken as my being a militia member/compound dwelling wacko. I might be a wacko, but I live in London. The most dangerous thing I have access to is a kitchen knife I struggle to slice cheese with.
The impetus of this post is not only that my off-handed post regarding Scientology and free speech is my most commented one, but also that I see worrying trends.
Mention freedom of speech and you’ll seldom, if ever, get someone to say that they are against it. So why is it so under threat? While no one is against Free Speech, per se, mention a specific topic/idea/opinion and that result very well might change.
Canada is struggling at the moment trying to reconcile free speech and human rights. Whatever anyone may think of the writing in question, the fact that this is before a tribunal is both absurd and terrifying. Free speech is a human right; arguably it is the principle human right. The Tiananmen Square atrocity didn’t happen because a bunch of college kids got together but rather because of what they said.
I’ve already mentioned Britain in my Scientology is a cult, scam and con post. Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. I suspect there is more to this story than just this article, but the lack of discussion reinforces rather than negates the point.
The rest of Europe probably fares worse. Brigitte Bardot has been found guilty in France of saying disparaging comments about Muslims. An Austrian holocaust denier is in jail because he denied the holocaust. Of course I think he’s an idiot, but he should have the freedom to be an idiot and say idiotic things.
That title is best said in a Futurama voice.
For all of you designers/creative types/futurologists/non-lactose intolerant people, Agency YCN has a challenge for you. Create the future of milk. I would divulge my entry, but I want to make sure I win a cool £1,000. Rest assured it involves cutting edge design, space age materials and an anti-matter drive.
I’ll be following the contest as I think it is a good challenge. Milk is a common product with little to differentiate one from another, but it ends up in many grocery baskets. As such, it is ideal for a challenge to create a unique product that will stand out from the competitors.
I’m particularly interested to see what new packaging designs are presented. The requirements are challenging: the packaging needs to be cheap with a size and shape that allows it to be easily stored in refrigerators. The material and design need to be able to be produced inexpensively and be sanitary and opaque. Since milk is such a consumable, a design that takes into account the waste generated is necessary as well. Put your thinking caps on and have a glass of milk!
The economic downturn (can we officially call it a recession yet?) in the States is not just hitting the pocketbook, but the libido as well: Revenue at the legal brothels in Nevada is down 25-45%. As the director for the Nevada Brothel Owner’s Association charmingly puts it, “Money for new wristwatches and gettin’ laid just isn’t there.”
Brothels used to be forbidden from advertising outside of their immediate area; unfortunately this was just one of many examples of the First Amendment being restricted when it comes to commercial speech. Last year the ACLU, along with some brothels and newspapers, challenged that law and had it overturned. Now many brothels are wondering what to do, if anything, with their new found freedom.
Some brothel owners fear a backlash if they put up billboards advertising their… goods. Others have been using billboards locally and welcome the chance to spread their message even further.
I lived in Reno for a few years before relocating here and I am familiar with the billboards of one brothel - and my familiarity with the brothel ends there - so I have to chuckle a bit. These billboards are fairly innocuous, so much so in fact that my mother wanted to take my father to the new Wild Horse Saloon when she first saw one. Of course my sister did inform her before they made that particular trip that it wasn’t the best place to pop in for a pint.
I think this is the problem brothels will face with advertising. They will self-censor themselves to an extent that there won’t be anything that actually tells someone what kind of ‘experience’ they’re going to have there. For all it’s neon, Nevada is a long way from the Red Light District of Amsterdam.
There is good news for the brothels though. With the exception of my mother, there seems to be a sort of tribal knowledge that exists among the locals (and long-haul truckers) that allows them to decipher that these ranches aren’t the rodeo kind. Undoubtedly the message will reach the target audience. Whether they put off buying a new wristwatch to save up for getting laid remains to be seen.
Without exception, everyone of the locals that we met and interacted with were amazingly friendly. The Scots have a bit of a reputation for having a personality akin to their prickly thistle, but that wasn’t our experience here. I have only been to Scotland once before and that was a trip to Edinburgh, where I wouldn’t say the people were unfriendly by any means, but the Ileach were markedly different.
Our publican was a salesman through and through whose chief aim seemed to be to convince us that whatever we could possibly want could be found at his hotel. A guided tour showing us every aspect of our room, the hotel and grounds to a proud walkthrough of his extensive menu was our introduction to him. Throughout our trip he was impeccably dressed and groomed in his suit while running about chatting to every guest while managing the bar, kitchen and hotel. He was like a Scottish Tasmanian Devil running by and enquiring about how you’re doing, how you slept and how your day was. He would barely wait long enough for an answer before disappearing with a thumbs up and an “Aye, that’s grand. That’s what important!”
We spent a good deal of time on Islay driving around and discovering new places. It was quite peaceful as our car stereo came equipped with a cassette deck and nothing else. Occasionally we could get a radio station playing either country music or a talk show in Gaelic. Generally we just drove around having a conversation or enjoying the sights in silence occasionally punctuated by my “Look out! Sheep!” every time one would bounce across the road in front of us.
When driving in the car you can’t pass another car without receiving a wave. People on the side of the road will wave at you. When walking about you can’t pass somebody on the sidewalk without a comment about the lovely weather and a how are you doing. Visits into shops are never of the quick “I’ll just pop in” variety as they will have an entire conversation with you ranging from the weather to whisky to history to the role of the Scotland in the UK or the UK in the EU.
And the Scots are proud of being Scots. English pounds are brought in by tourists and promptly deposited into bank accounts, because the only notes we saw in circulation were Scottish. Three different banks mint three different varieties which I’m certain is done to spite the English. They even have a £1 note. Many of the plates on cars bore an SCO with St. Andrew’s cross rather than the familiar GB and EU ring of stars.
What makes Islay whiskies so distinct? Well the truth seems to be that nobody quite knows for certain, and while there are a lot of theories and ideas, consensus has yet to be achieved.
I have been told in the past that the barrel is where whisky picked up its flavours as it matured. Undoubtedly that has a great influence on a whisky and is one of the reasons there are so many special finishes and double-matured varieties out there. I tried a Kilchoman new spirit that was three months old and while it looked like vodka since it had picked up no colours from the wood, it had a distinct peaty, smoky, whiskiness about it. Clearly the wood and age aren’t the defining characteristic.
The recipe similarly affects the final effect of the whisky. All of the distilleries used malt from Port Ellen Maltings Co. to their own specifics. Laphroaig also floor malts 20% of their own malt which undoubtedly contributes to that special Laphroaig flavour. Ardbeg claims to be the most heavily peated whisky because they order their malt at 50 ppm of phenols in the peat. This seems to be somewhat open to debate though as Laphroaig said their malts are 55 ppm and supplemented with 40 ppm malt from Port Ellen. Caol Ila and Lagavulin both go for 35 ppm and Bunnahabhain uses a scarce 2 ppm. Clearly this influences the final flavour, but how much so is open to debate.
The processes and equipment used leaves a mark on the final whisky. While Ardbeg uses more heavily peated malt, Lagavulin say they achieve more with their because they do a second distillation of 10 hours compared to Ardbeg’s 5 hours. The shapes of the stills are universally accepted to shape the flavour as well, just nobody knows why or how. The goosenecks on the stills at Lagavulin point down and our tour guide espoused the virtue of the design as quickly condensing and removing the good spirit. The goosenecks at Laphroaig point upwards and similarly the tour guide claimed that made it harder for distillate to leave therefore only removing the best of the spirit.
Geography plays a part too, even on an island as small as Islay. Perhaps it is the spray of seawater at one distillery and one peat field that makes a different. The lochs where they each draw their water might have subtle geological differences that end up in the dram. Ultimately a distillery worker at Laphroaig just shrugged and said, “You could take all of our equipment, our whole distillery and move it a half mile up the road. The whisky made wouldn’t taste the same.”
The distilleries are remarkable. Each of them produces whisky that is unique, even when several of them are within a stone’s throw of each other. They all seemed to have their own style and personality as well. Caol Ila is the giant of the island producing 23,500 litres of whisky a day, 95% of which goes to blends (notably Johnny Walker). Visiting it is probably similar to visiting a Budweiser brewery where efficiency and industry is emphasised. Its closest neighbour is Bunnahabhain, probably no more than 6 or 7 miles away albeit most of those miles are down a nerve-wracking, winding road. In contrast to Caol Ila’s polished brass and giant windows, Bunnahabhain provides a cozy feel with their visitor’s center seemingly styled after a Victorian drawing room.
In the center of the island lies the Bowmore distillery, situated right around the corner from our hotel. Its location in the heart of the town probably influenced its style and character as it resembled more of a community than a distillery. Down the road lies Bruichladdich, one of the newer distilleries as it was recently re-opened and restored.
Bruichladdich, while holding onto much of the old equipment and priding themselves on tradition, are the new marketing-savvy breed of distillers. At one bar the menu for Bruichladdich’s whiskies ran across three A4 pages of a binder. They are the Starbucks of single malt whisky. I mean no disrespect by that as they do make quality whisky, it’s just a comment on their marketing skills. Just as anyone can have ‘their’ latte (skinny, tall, half-caf, heated just so) anyone can find ‘their’ Bruichladdich.
It is to the south of the island where the truly distinctive ‘Islay whiskies’ are made. Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg all lie along a single road so close together it was common to see people walking or bicycling from one to the other. For such a small neighbourhood, it’s impressive how unique each one is.
Lagavulin exudes class and care in the craft of making whisky. Ardbeg has a somewhat cheeky approach creating whiskies with names breaking free of their labels (Airigh Nam Beist) and their dog Shortie with the ’second peatiest nose on Islay’. Laphroaig prides itself on its traditions and the result of which is described as ‘the most richly flavoured Scotch whisky’. It’s hard to argue with that assessment although the flavour is a love it or hate it type of affair.
Mi Mujer and I spent five days on Islay and those days were indeed well spent. We had planned for a short holiday somewhere new where we could just get lost and spend the time together. We settled upon Islay, and by a happy coincidence we found that our trip coincided with the annual whisky and music festival, Feis Ile.
I learned a great deal about Islay and whisky while I was there and a fair bit about the Scots, or at least the Ileach as the islanders are known.
The island is small, roughly 240 square miles and sparsely populated with 3,000 residents. There are only a few towns, and they are small enough to walk from one end to the other with a cup of coffee. In between the towns are vast expanses of open land quite often overrun by the true residents of Islay: sheep, cows and birds.
Upon our arrival at the airport we asked for directions to Bowmore where we would be staying. We were told “turn left.” The island is quite easy to navigate because it mainly consists of one lane roads with very few intersections and not a traffic light that we saw. Maps all seem to be of the hand-drawn variety and directions consist of a single road. While the roads can be a bit stressing while cresting a hill and rounding a blind corner in a road scarcely wider than our car, we encountered little traffic and few difficulties.
The island itself is almost entirely made on peat. Pure water can be tinged a brownish/black simply from filtering through the peat. The roads buckle, bend and break as peat is apparently not a great surface to pave. We saw peat cutters working in a field outside the airport, which we later learned was for Laphroaig, and they had cut troughs easily 12 feet deep. The peat was then stacked in piles looking like chocolate bricks.
While peat wreaks havoc with roadworks, it makes Islay particularly well suited to make whisky. It is as if God had decided to create an island solely for whisky making. The locals are respectful of that decision and are currently running at least 8 different distilleries. It is easy to see that distilling is the backbone of the Islay economy.
It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money.
- Jack Handy
I'm an American married to a Spanish girl and living in East London.
I work in advertising and design.
I'm a Leo.
I was the third grade spelling bee champion.
