10: Anywhere but the Present

I'm having one of those weeks where the time under my feet keeps rolling up and getting caught in the door.It's awards season in the beer world, so I thought I'd give myself something to celebrate -- a look back on my achievements. Word to the wise: don't do this if you're in a depressive slump. This newsletter isn't about depression, don't worry. There's nothing duller than reading about mental health without context or emotional weight. Depression is boring, and totally flat, and it pretends to have depth by trawling the past for the oil-spill iridescence that coats old wounds, giving them an exotic sheen in the dark, making them easier to find among the cold, damp furriness of forgotten times.Hey, maybe this is about depression.Anyway, I've done my week of morbidity. I know the next move is to make plans for the immediate future, no matter how much I'd rather do literally anything else, so that's what I'm doing. Autumn is coming. It's breath is already felt around here, if you look at the fattening blackberries and the colour of the leaves, and the scudding black clouds and the brownly-brackening moors. I'm not swooping straight into winter this year. I'm planning an autumn, packed with things that celebrate the darker seasons rather than dread them, and I hope you'll join me in doing so too. Make SAD your obedient whippet this year.Other stuff:

• First of all, this piece by Matt Curtis for Pellicle is so warm and delicately burnished and full of gentle joy. It's also about perfect cask beer, so who couldn't fall in love with it, really?

• The Leeds Beer Scene, in the words of those who rule it. A great piece by Boak and Bailey.

• The Irish Hip Hop Scene is having a moment.

• Deliciously in-depth writing about Mediterranean fruit and veg by Bianca Pascall.

• Warmly confrontational writing about pop-up dining that brings native culture into the Californian dining conversation. "Diners should go, not only to eat, but to listen."

• God I loved this, by Amanda Mull for The Atlantic. "America has never been so desperate for tomato season."

• This piece on pruning grape vines from is evocative and terrifying, given that I'm going to be working in a vineyard soon.

• Masashi Shimakawa's beautiful illustrations of street scenes can put me out of commission for half-hours at a time.

My stuff:

• I wrote about the Isle of Man TT races for Ferment magazine, something I loved as a kid, then left behind, and have begun to love again. It's also about beer and pubs, in case you were worried I'd gone totally off-piste. (Ignore the subheading -- it's a problem with the site.)

• I set up a website last year called North West Beer, and as much as I loved putting it together, it just didn't work for me. Something just didn't fit -- and I'm not just talking about me and the general scene in the area around me. Here's a piece I wrote about Thwaite's historic move to Samlesbury last year, which you can read until next month when the site disappears for good.

• I suppose this piece from my blog about a photography exhibition about Thwaite's Blackburn site matches up quite well with the above. Giving out supplementary reading now, am I? What a nob.

• My latest restaurant review -- Thira in Blackburn.

• Torrside came to visit Clitheroe last week (exciting!) and they were welcomed with open arms, which I was happily gobsmacked about, so I wrote a blog post.

• Oh, and this is my 10th newsletter. I will count that as an achievement.

お好み焼き屋 (Okonomiyaki) - Masashi Shimakawa