Brit car content: absolutely none
This morning I heard an interesting interview on NPR as I was getting
ready for work. A blues guitarist and singer by the name of Bill (I
think) Hammond was answering questions about his current tour, how his
career was going, et cetera. Finally the interviewer asked him to talk
about the steel bodied guitar he played while performing. Hammond
explained how when he had first gotten started he had tried all kinds of
appliances to get that tinny sorrowful bluesy sound blues guitarist were
noted for. He had tried lipstick tubes, bottle necks, spoons and so
forth but nothing seem to give the "right sound". One day he was in the
tool department at a Sears store and spotted a counter filled with
Craftsman sockets of various sizes and shapes. Light bulbs flashed off
in his head. He bought a few and tried them out. Voila! Just the
right sound and one of then slipped over his finger perfectly. Not only
that, they were guaranteed for life.
While beer has nothing to do with Brit cars it's a subject dear to the
hearts of most of us Brit car lovers, I'm sure. Except perhaps Phil
Ethier who "claims" to hate the stuff. Anyway, yesterday's San Jose
Mercury News had an article about Michael Jackson (the internationally
famous beer writer/critic not the singer). Embedded in the article was
a box feature with some quotes form Jackson's "Pocket Guide to Beer".
Half of the box was devoted to American beers and the other half listed
32 four star beers from around the world. I was glad to see that Mr
Jackson and I are in complete agreement on the best beer in American:
Anchor Steam. Also well rated were Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Samuel
Adams Boston Lager. While I do like these two, I prefer the drier more
hopped flavor of Anchor.
I won't list the 31 other beers in the 4 star category but I did see a
couple of my favorites there too. There was the heavily hopped Czech
Pilsner Urquell and Ireland's Guinness Extra Stout. One interesting
entry I've never tried was the Scottish Traquair House Ale. Have to
look for that.
What the hell, I will include some Brit car stuff after all. Sort of.
This is a story relating to the dismantled or broken strain currently
going. I think I told it once a year or so ago but there seems to be a
lot of new names on the list these days so here goes again.
When the Nygaard twins were racing their Cobra on SCCA Ap the car was
kept at the apartment complex where John Nygaard lived. Of course the
two of them and a few friends were always working on the car trying to
get it ready for an upcoming race. This complex had a particularly
cranky manager who didn't care much for the Nygaards or their friends
and didn't have a clue about anything having to do with cars. Anyway
this guy never missed an opportunity to harass or needle the Nygaards
hoping they would get fed up and move. One afternoon while the crew was
feverishly working on the car the manager decided to stop by for a bit
of nasty kibitzing. He tried different tacks but didn't get much in the
way of a response from anyone so he decided to hit them where it really
hurt; their junky unreliable British piece of crap. He started in on
how it was too bad they had to spend so much time working on this roach.
How the salesman had really seen these suckers coming when he had
unloaded this lemon on them. Boy had they gotten stuck. John, seldom
at a loss for words, responded that yeah, we're were stuck with this car,
but you're stuck with us.
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