Kickstart

I'm almost ready to have the fingers clicked and be back in the blogging room.

I want to say how much I love Marks & Spencer for their attributable beers and how damn fine their Southwold Winter IPA is (brewed by Adnams, natch).

I want to review a couple of books that I've actually enjoyed reading cover to cover, rather than just doing the speed-read thing. And how beer writing could be about to have its seismic shift.

I want to chuck my twopennethworth into the ring on the duty escalator, the inefficacy of e-petitions and the over-estimation of beer blogging's influence.

I want to talk about the sheer beery fun that is the General Havelock in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. The reasons why I only stop for chocolate brownies at the Rutland, Sheffield. Why drinking Bitburger in the Kean's Head and Broadway Cafe Bar in Nottingham have been some of the best beery moments of my recent weeks.

I want to post that picture of how I segmented the beer market into a Venn diagram-of-sorts that may or may not have resembled a cock and balls.

So, consider this a kickstart. Or a marker. A line in the sand to be clodded across. Before I forget again.

Although I've been trying to think about beer, the word 'kickstart' reminds me of two things:

Mötley Crüe.

St. John Ambulance men falling over.

Oh, and Dougie Lampkin.

Yeah, that's three things. So sue me.