Skywards

Dreaming of standing ankle-deep in chilly lakewater, tiny ripples playing at being waves rolling across the surface under a gust of wind.Dreaming of sitting on parched grass -- more baked earth than lawn -- and hearing a band start up on the mainstage from across the other side of the festival.Dreaming of being shown to a table, talked through a specials menu.Dreaming of half-closing my eyes as the countryside rolls past the window, on my way to something, thumb wedged inside a book I'll barely read.Dreaming of handing my coat over to the cloakroom attendant, buying a whole bottle of wine, and stepping into the dark of an arena to see people so famous I can scarcely believe they are real.Dreaming of raising my arms into strobe-lit fog, transported.Dreaming of hugging. Dreaming of laughing.Dreaming of flying. Dreaming of landing.Other things

• Sarah Heller MW writes about Italian wine at a level that intimidates me just enough to want to try harder with my studies. This piece is about decentering wine's focus from France, but it's also an amazing insight into her passion for Italian wine itself.

• As much as I love Four Tet, there was something I just couldn't make friends with about his collaboration with Madlib on "Road Of The Lonely Ones". Then I heard The Ethics -- Lost In A Lonely World which they sampled. It was the difference between hearing a song, and being sung to.

• Resistance, and hope, in the form of flowers.

• 15 early Italo-House tracks ripped in actually-great-quality from vinyl to YouTube, collated by Mixcloud and then shown to me by Joe Muggs via his newsletter. Niche? Yeah. But it's what all the good electronic music right now sounds like, and it's still sounding fresh.

• Incredible paper microscopes that cost around 50 cents, made for teaching, are being trialled as a diagnostic tool for malaria and sleeping sickness. This amazing thing has been my favourite good thing to think about when I've needed one this week. (More info and a video featuring the paper microscope's inventor Manu Prakash PhD in this link also.)

• In classic millennial fashion I'm about to link to a Tiktok video via a Tweet because that's the only way I know how to consume content. It's the only "millennial v gen z" video I've seen that actually made me laugh. DOGGO IS GIRLBOSS DOGGO IS GIRLBOSS

• Phil Taggart is the king of curating flawless chilled playlists for people who like a combo of electronic music, folk, guitar wooziness and just a little dab of tramadol. I love his podcast and finally signed up to his Patreon this week. You can find it here.

• New and important learnings about the Black Death. This story is wild, for the sheer tenacity and single-minded professionalism of Monica Green to get to her findings.

• Why are amphora pointed? Potter Graham Taylor explains -- and demonstrates.

• A quick history of the Black Panther signature cocktail. Includes a recipe, of course, and a review of the drink by Assata Shakur.

• I have quite a severe fear of flying, but that's what I'm missing most at the moment. These paintings of views from a plane window by Jim Darling fill me with longing and nervousness.

• Creating a business that's also a vehicle for positive change is a subject I love reading about, and James Godman of Wilderness Brewery's piece for Burum Collective is full of great ideas and hopeful intentions.

My Stuff

• My first article for Good Beer Hunting was published this week. It's about Corto, the bar Tom and I are working to open by the end of lockdown. I was initially hesitant to write this as it felt premature and self-congratulatory, but the process was really cathartic. I'm glad I did it. And I've had some really positive feedback from it too, which I'd like to thank people for taking the time to send. It's really kind of you, and always hugely appreciated.

• I was asked to write about local restaurants in Lancashire I'm looking forward to going to once lockdown is over, so I took the opportunity to shout about indie restaurants that maybe don't get a lot of coverage. Lancashire's a lucky county to have so many top restaurants, but there are loads without stars or famous fans who do excellent, exciting, delicious work too.

Jim Darling - 004