Real ale; Manchester; zoology

Last weekend began well with a real ale tasting hosted by the University’s Senior Common Room. I joined the SCR shortly after starting employment with the university, partly to have a potential bolthole to go and eat my sandwiches at lunchtime, but had never actually attended one of their events – this seemed a good one to start with. Staff from the Hammerpot Microbrewery in Sussex gave a brief presentation on the brewing process before letting us taste a range of their ales. I liked the Madgwick Gold, a light golden ale that’s probably at the wussy girly end of what Hammerpot produce, although Claire’s and my joint consensus was that the Woodcote Bitter was our favourite.

Amazingly, we did rather well in the evening’s quiz and won ourselves three bottles of beer in addition to the free bottle of Madgwick Gold that everyone was given – though I was less appreciative of the winnings by the time I’d carried them home.

The Bottle Wreck Porter was a bit much for me. What is porter anyway?

Then spent a lovely long weekend in Manchester with Mum - a follow-up 'British city break' to the weekend we spent in Glasgow a few years ago. Pictures here. Weather was rather grey and our hotel was only so-so (adequate but uninspiring) but we had a great time in spite of that. We spent most of the time walking around and looking at impressive buildings - took in the Royal Exchange Theatre, the Town Hall and extension, the Central Library, Urbis, a number of huge old hotels including the gloomily imposing (from the outside, at least) Palace Hotel and the brand-new Beetham Tower, home of a Hilton hotel and luxury apartments. Popped briefly into St Ann's Church (where the invitation to quiet prayer was being stymied by the shrieking laughter of a group of ladies serving tea at the back) and Manchester Cathedral. Had a couple of nice dinners, one at the down-to-earth El Macho on Portland Street and one at the fantastic Dimitris - great atmosphere, food and service. We also did an interesting urban canal walk following part of the line of the 'Rochdale Nine'. Didn't get time to do everything I'd have liked to do - including visiting Salford Quays - will have to go back.

Went for an interesting tour this evening of the Cole Museum of Zoology (again, courtesy of the Senior Common Room). The Cole Museum is one of the University of Reading’s three museums, the others being the Museum of English Rural Life (which I have been to) and the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology (which I haven’t – it’s somewhere in the depths of HumSS formerly FOLSS). We sat through a reasonably interesting talk from the curator – buoyed up by a free glass of wine – and then were allowed to have a bit of a poke about the displays. The skeleton hanging from the ceiling in the foreground of the picture on their homepage is a False Killer Whale (not sure what makes it false – haven’t bothered to look this up yet) and the one in the background is a male Indian elephant – an ex-circus performer acquired for the Museum in 1921. I was personally more charmed by a Trumpet fish (a dear little thing that apparently swims head-down) and a Microbat. Ruth briefly admired the delicacy of the 5-metre long Reticulated Python’s 400 vertebrae before becoming squeamish and having to be led quietly away.