Kmflett's Blog

Beard Liberation Front

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

13th June

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners say remaining Tory leadership candidates are not the face of modern Britain

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the remaining candidates in the Tory leadership election, after three were eliminated in the first round of voting by Tory MPs on Thursday do not reflect the face of modern Britain.

All the remaining candidates are clean shaven men in suits

The campaigners say that if you picked seven men at random in 2019 the chances of none at all having facial hair are small.

The reality is that the Tories remain the party overwhelmingly of clean-shaven men in suits completely out of touch with how a significant number of those they claim to represent dress and appear.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, leaving aside policies the remaining candidates in the Tory leadership election reflect just how far out of touch the Tory Party now is with Britain in 2019

The Peterloo Massacre 200 years on (16^th August 1819). Which side is Boris Johnson on?

I was a little late to the Cloudwater launch of 5 differently hopped cask beers at the Beard Friendly Pub of the Year, the Cock Tavern in central Hackney.

I wont comment therefore on the individual beers since by the time I tasted several they would not have been in just tapped peak condition. That said the ones I did try (in halves) were perfectly drinkable.

The wider interest aside from Cloudwater continuing to develop interesting angles on cask beer is that this was very much Beyond Boring Brown Beer as we used to know it.

The beers were brown but thanks to decent amounts of different hops they tasted of something (to one’s taste or not depending on the particular beer).

At £3.90 a pint in London they were priced for pint drinking although at 5% one might wonder how many pints?! Even so it underlines what I sense is a drift back to the idea that drinking sessionable(ish) beers in pints is one area where good craft beer should aim to be. That also means to some extent cask served at 12C. Drinking chilled beer in pints takes times even for seasoned lager drinkers

While the style of the Cloudwater beers was very much classic cask bitter the strength was at that of an ESB (Extra Special Bitter). That obviously gave the beer more depth and body than if it was 3.5%. Perhaps this is a workable future for cask beer…

Even so hats off to Cloudwater for doing something interesting with cask beers, something craft beers in other formats have been up to for a good while

The Ambridge Socialist

Media Release 12^th June

Contact: Keith Flett 07803 167266

As June Spencer celebrates her 100^th birthday, calls for her to be made a Dame supported

BBC

The Ambridge Socialist has backed calls for the actress June Spencer, who has played Peggy in the Archers since 1951 continuously to be made a Dame.

The call has been made by fellow Archers actors Charles Collingwood and Sunny Ormonde (Brian and Lilian).

The Ambridge Socialist says that while it is not generally in favour of the honours system, recognising June Spencer who, via the Archers, has been part of national life for almost 70 years would be an appropriate way of recognising the achievement.

Peggy Archer is the matriarch or as some might see it, the Godmother of Ambridge ably helped currently by her robust cat Hilda

Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said, this is the first and probably the last time that we support something that Brian Aldridge has said.

Bring Back Watney’s… Imperial Stout

Adrian Tierney Jones in the Daily Torygraph is calling for the return of Watneys. I see a potential vote winning slogan here for that paper’s preferred candidate for the Tory leadership Mr Johnson.

Tierney Jones writes in part:

2016 saw the launch of Watneys Pale Ale, citrusy and very on-trend, and now there are two others, a ‘craft’ lager and a Double IPA, all of them brewed under licence at selected breweries. In addition to this, a crowd-funding drive has been launched on Seedrs to raise £400,005 (of which £330,774 has already been pledged), to “make Watneys a great beer brand once again”.

Watneys’ co-founder, Nick Whitehurst, has been quoted as saying, “the nostalgia and history of Watneys give us provenance but what we’ve done is taken this heritage and reinvented the brand to appeal to a whole new generation of drinkers.”

Watneys certainly had provenance and history. It was founded in 1837 and as Watney Combe & Reid became one of the largest breweries in Victorian London. Beer historians would argue that the rot set in with the launch of Red Barrel in the 1960s. It was filtered, pasteurised and served cold and fizzy. Even its snazzy advertising with posters featuring Mao and Che Guevara lookalikes championing the ‘Red revolution’ couldn’t save it.

Like Tierney Jones I am of course all in favour of the red revolution….

The aside as Martyn Cornell reminds us the Reid bit of Watneys, Combe and Reid was a stout brewery

http://zythophile.co.uk/2008/02/14/the-hunting-of-the-stout/

While the Watney’s cask beer brewed under licence a while back was as Tierney Jones notes highly drinkable, and the idea of a Watney’s DIPA is intriguing surely the real tradition lies in a Watney’s Imperial Stout.

A decent iteration of that classic beer style could Watney’s name back on the brewing map and help to erase the memories of Red Barrel and Party Sevens

As events to mark the 200th anniversary of Peterloo (16th August 1819) are now well underway its interesting to look back on how it was remembered on the 150th anniversary in 1969.

One ‘event’ was the publication of a book by Robert Walmsley, Peterloo: the case reopened, which sought to play down the massacre and excuse the actions of the Magistrates and Yeomanry.

AJP Taylor reviewed it in The Observer and below are his concluding sentences:

The magistrates and the yeomanry were defending a corrupt system. The demonstrators were demanding their just rights even if they used sticks and stones as well as arguments. Henry Hunt spoke for the people of England and it is irrelevant that he also kept a mistress and ran a blacking business. When the defence of order leads to the killing of innocent people, the guilt always lies with the guardians of order. William Hulton* went home to an agreeable existence at Hulton Hall. John Lees died. I am on the side of John Lees. The sorrows of William Hulton wring no tears from me.

*Hulton was the Chair of the Magistrates who gave the order to send the Yeomanry in

Marmite Defence League

Media Release June 11th

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Marmite Defence League raises concerns over Sajid Javid ‘marmite’ campaign video

The Marmite Defence League has raised serious concerns about a short campaign video posted on social media by one of the contenders for the Tory Party leadership Sajid Javid.

Around 10 seconds into the video Javid is shown squeezing some marmite from a plastic tub on to some toast.

The Marmite Defence League believes there is a serious danger of marmite being brought into disrepute if it becomes associated with a particular politician, perhaps particularly a Tory one.

MDL Spokeperson Keith Flett said, it’s true that marmite is a ‘which side are you on’ type product but not we think a which side are you on in the Tory leadership election.

Link to Video

https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/11/sajid-javid-shows-off-cavapoo-new-campaign-video-pm-9911211/

Where we stand on Marmite

Marmite is a natural product deriving from brewer’s yeast. It is historically a by-product of brewing

It was ‘invented’ by a German scientist Justus von Liebig

Originally Marmite was derived from the Bass brewery in Burton on Trent.

Marmite is salty but also has some health enhancing elements to it including vitamins.

Its recent marketing focuses on a ‘love it or hate it’ element to Marmite, and it is a ‘which side are you on’ food.

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

11^th June

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners say Tory leadership election reflects the Party’s deep rooted pogonophobia

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the election for a new Tory leader is pogonophobic in character and style.

Pogonophobia or beardism, is an irrational fear of facial hair

With eight out of the ten candidates being men, not one has a moustache let alone a beard.

The campaigners say that if you picked eight men at random in 2019 the chances of none at all having facial hair are small.

The reality is that the Tories remain the party overwhelmingly of clean-shaven men in suits completely out of touch with how a significant number of those they claim to represent dress and appear.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, it looks like the Tories guilty secret is out at last. What they fear about Jeremy Corbyn is not his politics but his beard.

Beard Liberation Front